By Dr John Kenworthy
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At the beginning of this series of GuidePosts we noted that the number of people reporting stress, anxiety and depression is massive! The WHO note that mental health issues have increased 13% in the last decade (in 2017) and substance disorders up some 20% and with suicide as the second leading cause of death among 15-29 year olds - you realise that this is a huge problem.
1 Billion people across the world suffer a mental health problem in 2022!
That’s 1 person in 8!!!
WHO World Mental Health Report 2022
The increase of substance abuse is evidence that people are trying to cope with their stress, anxiety and depression with the “pleasure” of the dopamine high. This is creating a dopamine imbalance which can lead to addiction and is instead making us chronically unhappy according to Dr Robert Lustig in his excellent book, Hacking of the American Mind.
In all our striving in the pursuit of happiness we seem to be paying the price in alcohol and drug abuse, gambling, excess unhealthy food (ice cream, chocolate), smoking and social media “likes”. Meanwhile stress and anxiety are on the rise and incidents of rage make the news daily.
And that stress and cortisol increase reward seeking behaviour and decrease reasoning ability!
The world isn’t in pursuit of happiness, it’s seeking pleasure to offset the stresses of living… because it’s quicker than actually pursuing happiness and joy!
How do you increase happiness and joy in your whole life?
I’m so glad that you asked.
As I mentioned - taking a dopamine pleasure high route is quicker - especially (ab)using substances. BUT, it’s short lived and within minutes or hours you’ll be after another high due to the increasing dopamine imbalance and addiction.
Instead we can deal with chronic unhappiness and gain long term benefits through some simple, deliberate changes to how we go about our every day life. Dr Lustig proposes a solution he calls the 4C’s of Happiness: Connect, Contribute, Cope and Cook. (Check out “Hacking the American Mind”)
Connect.
Connect with people you like and enjoy. Join your local church, a social group or simply have a conversation. Preferably in person. Make sure that you practice empathy with them - this engages your mirror neurons to feel what they feel, or to “walk in their shoes”. The result is a serotonin boost and a feeling of personal contentment and fulfils your own personal need for belonging and perhaps mattering.
Time with pets can also be beneficial and achieve much the same result.
PS. Emailing, Facebooking, Insta’ing, Threading or X’ing is NOT connecting.
Contribute
Give something of yourself: your time, your resources, your skills, your energy and your attention to something larger than yourself. Volunteer at a shelter, help a charity, make or repair something for someone else who needs your help.
Giving to others is self-transcendent (spoiler alert! This is a large part of your purpose in this life!) and fulfils your personal need to matter.
Cope
Three activities that will improve your serotonin receptors in your brain (and hence make you feel happier and better): Sleep, Mindfulness and Exercise.
Sleep deprivation increases stress and cortisol and causes depression!. Sleep is so essential for your brain and body and can fill several volumes alone for the essential benefits and much advice. Read Why We Sleep, by Mathew Walker or Claudia Aguirre’s 7 Healthy Tips for a Better Night’s Sleep.
PS. Screens KILL sleep!!! And trying to multitask (which you cannot!!) is costing you sleep because it increases stress and cortisol.
Mindfulness practice helps you alter your brain waves and calms your mind deliberately. We’ll be using a mindful process in bridging from stress to joy.
Exercise regularly. Whatever takes your fancy. I personally recommend walking - even better with some company or a dog. Decent brisk walking is nothing but beneficial. Running is tougher on your body, cycling means dodging pedestrians and cars. And good stretching is amazingly beneficial - pilates or yoga for low impact.
Combine exercise with mindfulness is better than using SSRI’s for treating depression!
PS. TV/Netflix surfing increases dopamine, kills sleep, is mindless and usually accompanied with unnecessary trips to the fridge for another beer, candy bar or ice cream.
Cook for yourself! If you don’t know how to cook, you are being held hostage by the food industry (most who are in it to make profit and care less about your health and well-being and like you being addicted to sugar highs etc!)
You need to boost two items in your diet and knock one out: Up Tryptophane, More Omega 3 and Less Fructose.
Tryptophan is an essential amino acid found sometimes in whole milk, nuts, seeds, eggs, poultry and fish (esp Salmon). It is the precursor to serotonin. You need more of it!
Omega 3 is another fatty acid that is an anti-inflammatory and improves your mood. Find it in fish (esp Salmon and Mackeral), algae, nuts, plant oils.
Fructose is added sugar. Reduce and better still, cut it. It depletes serotonin and ramps up your dopamine. It is the anti-happiness food of choice!
PS Fast food is your enemy. Fish is your friend (and no I don’t mean filet o’ fish burgers!) Learn to cook and choose wisely - your body and brain will thank you.
That’s it! Connect with others, Contribute by giving, Cope by sleeping well and mindful exercise and Cook (fish, poultry, eggs, nuts and seeds) for yourself. You will be happy!
What about Joy?
Where happiness is an emotion (serotonin) and circumstantial, Joy is a choice in spite of circumstances.
It is said that Joy is of the heart, happiness is on the face.
We’re going to tackle How to Increase Joy@Work next.
From what we’ve learned so far, we know that to raise performance anywhere, we need to be able to choose to be At Cause.
We’ve also learned about the affects of five important neurotransmitters: Dopamine (pleasure), Serotonin (happiness), Cortisol (stress), Adrenaline (fear), Anandamide (Peace and Joy).
We need to know about four additional Neurotransmitters in your brain’s “cocktail bar”: Oxytocin (love, trust), Vasopressin (attachment), Endorphins (resilience) and Acetylcholine (focus).
Stay with me, because I am coming back to the impact on your leadership and performance improvement @work. Meantime, let’s talk about love:
Love, often confused with joy or happiness (and sometimes pleasure) is a combination of two things: Attachment and Attraction:
Attachment
Attachment is tied to the neurotransmitters Oxytocin and Vasopressin. Oxytocin is known as the “love and trust” chemical. It’s responsible for increasing the bonding between a mother and her new born, and for that trusting relationship bond with a colleague or team member.
Vasopressin’s effects are less well understood but it appears to be gender specific. For men, Vasopressin is believed to make men more suspicious, even aggressive, towards novel males. Thus a new male joining the team may be viewed with more suspicion by the other males in the team.
In contrast, for women, it appears that Vasopressin makes them friendlier towards novel women.
Attraction
When you enjoy doing something, you are attracted to it, which makes you feel “happy” with a cascade of Dopamine, Norepinephrine and Serotonin.
You can see why feeling attracted to someone or something can easily get confused with fear mixed with pleasure mixed with happiness! Explains a lot that I wish I’d known when puberty struck!
It’s also why attraction can also cause a lack of appetite (your digestive tract got shut down in the fear response!) and a loss of sleep (which is affected by Serotonin).
Performance Enhancement
As you do things well and get into your “zone” or in your “flow”, your performance improves thanks to the additional cascade of Anandamides and Endorphins.
Endorphins are your brain’s natural pain killers. They are released to help cope when your body feels pain or stress. You can get a boost of these through exercise or any demanding activity.
Performance improvement @work
Ok, we’ve got the necessary foundational understanding.
When you do something that matters to you, you are attachedto it (Oxytocin and Vasopressin).
When you do something that you enjoy, you are attracted to it and just a little fearful (Dopamine, Norepinephrine and Serotonin).
Then you get into your zone or flow or your high performancestate (Anandamides and Endorphins).
You stay focused on task because the dopamine high mixed with a little fear to make it an exciting challenge triggers Acetylcholine - and signals your Reticular Activating System (RAS) to focus attention on the task at hand.
These eight neurochemicals significantly enhance performance and is addictive (scientists prefer to use the word “autotelic”). Hence we experience “flow” in our performance and we will go out of our way to re-experience it. Basically, we increase our own intrinsic motivation and inspiration to continually enhance our own performance!
AND there’s more! These chemicals also augment the creative process and pattern recognition. Oxytocin and Vasopressin disregulate your Neo-cortex, widening your self perspective, liberating your mind to new thoughts and feelings. Making us more creative and faster in how we do things!
Command and Control leaders should be aware that, in contrast, fear narrows perspective and inhibits performance and increases distress further degrading performance!
Which would you choose?
Regardless of your choices in life, you will face adversity, trauma, threats, difficulties, trials and tribulations - such as family or relationship issues, health problems, financial concerns, or workplace stressors. Everybody does. Nobody likes it, nobody wants to, but everybody does.
How you respond to those challenges makes all the difference in the world!
Where is your Locus of Control - “At Cause” or “At Effect”?
When you choose to be “At Cause” for your life, your focus is on choosing your actions and this increase your Circles of Power and Influence expanding them into your Circle of Concern. You have an Internal Locus of Control - that is, you believe that you have control over external forces in your life.
When you are “At Effect” of others or circumstances, your focus is on factors outside your inner circles, your Concerns gain ground, shrinking your Circles of Power and Influence. You have an External Locus of Control - that is you believe that external forces beyond your control have control over your life.
When you are “At Effect” you are more likely to experience anxiety, which gives you the illusion of control over others or over external events.
This bears repeating: When you are anxious or you worry, this gives you the illusion of control over others or external events!
Congratulations, your anxiety and worry about something beyond your control just reinforced and perpetuated your need to be anxious and worry!
On the other hand, when you choose to be “At Cause” you are reinforcing your stress resilience.
Remember The “Shortcut” and The “High Road”?
You’ll notice that I say that you "are At Effect versus you “choose to be At Cause”. That’s because your default is to be At Effect. It’s not a conscious, thought through, choice. It’s unconscious and automatic. Choosing to be At Cause is a conscious, considered, deliberate choice you make.
As our brain senses information about the challenge ahead, you’ll recall what we learned in Fear, Stress, Anxiety and Depression in Your Brain that stimuli from the outside world first take “The Shortcut” either directly to the amygdala (smells and touch) or via the Thalamus to the amygdala (sights and sounds). That is: your brain is already reacting and responding to the threat of the challenge ahead!
Meantime, some information takes the “High Road” through the cortex and your thinking brain can choose to change or reinforce the threat response. Milliseconds after your brain and body have started to react and respond, this is your moment of choice! This is the moment you can choose to be “At Cause”.
How does this help me? How do I stop worrying, anxiety and distress? Let me be clear, there isn’t a magic pill that does this (no matter what Big Pharma tries to tell you) but we do have access to a simple solution. Before that though, let’s recognise two common enemies we all have in the (conscious) mind.
Two Enemies of Being “At Cause”
And allies of remaining “At Effect”
People, most often, spend much of their time and energy worrying or concerned about the challenges that they cannot control, which cause them to feel anxious or stressed.
The first enemy is “If only…”
If only I had the [skills, money, strength, power, connections, knowledge, fortitude, faith] I would have…
If only … my parents had… I could have…
If only I … were a different race, gender, nationality, person … I should have…
If only I … had studied harder, taken that job, not taken that job, gotten married, not gotten married, had kids, not had kids…
“If only” pines over the past.
The second enemy is “What if…”
What if… I fail, succeed, look stupid …
“What if…” frets about the future.
The problem of these two enemies is that they give you the illusion of control over others or external events!
That is, you think that worrying about something makes a difference!
"Your mind would rather fret about the future or pine over the past so that it can cling onto its own illusion of control." But the current moment cannot be controlled. So our mind discounts it and we forget to savour and enjoy every now moment.”
Adapted from Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts
The Great Benefits of facing Challenges
No battles. No spoils.
Without challenges in life, life becomes tremendously boring and mundane. We wouldn’t learn and grow. Anything alive in this world that stops growing is dying. There is no stasis or status quo, it can be a slow dying or it can be incredibly quick.
Challenges, problems, obstacles or opportunities - whatever term you prefer to apply - kick your fear circuits into action and by default, your brain and body reacts.
How you choose to face those challenges makes all the difference in your world.
Now that we recognise the two main enemies and that we will all face challenges, which we still don’t particularly like but realise that they can be good for us to grow, let’s see what happens when we choose to be At Cause.
Choosing to be At Cause
Some of the incoming stimuli information is directed by your Thalamus (your brain’s “reception desk”) along the “High Road” to your cortex and, of particular interest to us here, your Pre Frontal Cortex or PFC.
Your limbic brain is already reacting to the threat of this challenge and your body is responding as your Sympathetic Nervous System (SNS) signals the production of cortisol and adrenaline. Your heart is beating a little or a lot faster. Your blood pressure rises. Your digestive tract is shutting down. Sweat glands begin to ooze. And your taking the time to stop and think!
In your mind you’re experimenting with possible solutions that you can do, will do, might be able to do. You’re researching your memory banks for previous encounters and similar situations and your pre-frontal cortex makes a decision to test out a possible solution. This is what Carol Dweck calls the Growth Mindset.
If it works. Brilliant! Store the success in memory and get ready to party!
If it doesn’t work. Hmmmm. Let’s try this instead. Rinse. Repeat. Until…
The optimal solution:
* You’ve overcome the challenge! Hurrah for you. Well done. Another lesson learned. What’s next? Oh yes, party time and here’s another challenge.
* You’ve gotten past this challenge somehow, not brilliant but good enough. Next time I’ll be better equipped for such a challenge by having more X or Y available. Another lesson learned. What’s next? Oh yes, party time and here’s another challenge.
* I’ve tried everything and this challenge is a bit too much. Good job I am already:Lesson learned. What’s next? Oh yes, party time and here’s another challenge.
* 🥶Hiding in this corner
* 🏃Running away, fast
* 👊Fighting with every ounce of strength I have
For every challenge you face, you have a choice. You can choose to be At Cause or you can allow yourself to remain At Effect.
It’s not that one is better than the other. There are challenges that you are much better off leaving your brain and body to do what it does best: keeping you “not dead”. This was especially true when your forefathers lived in mud huts and faced the daily commute to the field where lions roamed.
There are, however, other times when your default fear response, stress and anxiety are less than helpful. Particularly in the modern urban jungle and commute on the crowded freeway or train to the workplace with the horrible boss and unkind colleagues. Times when choosing to be At Cause will be more profitable for you.
How then do we lift performance @work using this knowledge? This is obviously about lifting performance for your bosses, staff and colleagues because we already know that you are the hardest worker at your organisation 😜. How to Raise Performance and have Joy@Work… coming soon
It’s not all doom and gloom in the brain! There’s the positive aspects of Eustress and on the flip side of fear, anxiety and depression, we can feel Pleasure, Happiness and Joy!
If you ask, most people will tell you that their goal in life is to be happy. Indeed the United States Declaration of Independence considers the “Pursuit of Happiness” to be an unalienable right.
But there’s a problem. When most people think about happiness, they’re really thinking about what gives them pleasure and having more of those things. These are by definition, temporal - Aristotle referred to this as Hedonia, which is happiness as pleasure.
Eudainomia, on the other hand is happiness as personal Fulfilment.
Let’s begin with a quick reminder about the six essential human needs and then examining the important differences between the three states: Pleasure, Happiness and Joy.
Six Essential Human Needs Recap
Everyone shares six essential human needs that drive our behaviour to satisfy those needs. When those needs are not being met or they are threatened, our fear, stress and anxiety response kick in.
The more basic the need, usually, the more pressing our response.
For example, freedom needs were being threatened across the globe throughout the COVID pandemic by well-intentioned authorities. At first your response, like most people, was accepting such limitations on your freedom as justified and “for the greater good” (notice how they appealed to your need to belong and transcend and care for others!)
As the weeks and months passed with further restrictions imposed, your freeze, flight or fight response kicked in. Some of you kept your heads down and stayed quiet until the danger passed. Others, with the means, ran off to other countries with fewer restrictions. Others fought against the restrictions risking arrest, fines and worse.
In a moment, we’ll also see how those more basic needs are the key areas of our hedonic pleasures in life. We’ll also see how our higher needs are areas of Eudainomic happiness and joy.
Pleasure
Pleasure is visceral when we enjoy taking something from outside of ourselves, like taking pleasure in eating, having a good massage or receiving an encouraging message from a friend.
Pleasure is short-lived and is experienced alone.
Pleasure can be addictive and may also be achieved through the use of substances.
Pleasure is tied to the neurotransmitter dopamine which fires motivation and desire. The dopamine pathway includes five areas of receptors in your brain:
Happiness
Happiness is ethereal, circumstantial, outward expression and usually involves us giving or serving others, like volunteering to help a charity, organising community events, giving money to someone in need.
Happiness is longer term and experienced in social groups
Happiness is not addictive and cannot be achieved through the use of substances.
Happiness is tied to the neurotransmitter Serotonin which regulates your mood and general well-being. The serotonin pathways touch at least 14 receptor areas in the brain:
Joy
Joy is an ethereal state of mind. It is a choice you make in spite of your circumstances, often manifest as encouraging, giving and serving others.
As a choice, joy is always available to you that overflows to your social groups.
It may be addictive and similar feelings may be achieved through the use of substances (though only for self and not for others).
Joy is linked to the neurotransmitters Serotonin (as happiness) and Anandamide - an endocannaboid fatty acid which binds to the cannabis (CB1) receptors of the brain. These receptors are throughout the brain in the Cortex, Cerebellum, Hippocampus and Basal Ganglia and throughout the body.
The Timeline of Pleasure, Happiness and Joy
As I was researching this, I began to notice a difference in tense people use when considering each facet of these phenomena.
The event(s) is now and in the future, I am choosing to respond appropriately now
#😲 Insight: Pleasure, Happiness and especially Joy appear to be the flip side of fear, stress, anxiety and depression.
It is both difficult to feel pleasure or happiness when you are fearful or stressed AND difficult to feel fear, stress, anxiety or depressed when you are filled with happiness or joy!
Is there a switch in the brain that will help us to do just that?
Yes, there is, and we refer this locus of control as Choosing to Be At Cause or At Effect And that’s what we’ll discuss next.
Fear, stress and anxiety increase when we believe or perceive that our power, influence or control are diminished or threatened by challenges beyond our control. Fear, stress and anxiety are reactions (not illness). We have shifted our locus of control from us… to ”them”.
The similarities and differences between these reactions.
Internally, your reaction to fear, stress, anxiety and depression are similar yet with key difference in triggers, affects and timeframe.
Fear is an intense, biological response to immediate externalthreat and a danger to your safety. Your response is usually intense, physical and very short term. It’s usually unsafe, negative and unpleasant. During the event time dilates, you see more, feel more. By the time you think about it, the trigger is in the past and you may then experience the euphoria of relief and survival. “Adrenaline junkies” thrive on that “high” and deliberately seek such challenges.
Stress is your brain’s response to, mostly externally triggered challenge, change, demand or threat that may trigger a physical response but mostly psychological and short term. It can be positive and helpful (eustress) or negative and unpleasant (distress). Both eustress and distress are of the moment, they are in the present. Eustress fires you up 🔥, distress shuts you down 🔐. Eustress motivates, distress demotivates.
While anxiety is the result of internal tensions creating fear about your ability to perform or address a future challenge. Your response may be physical discomfort, but mostly mental (such as humiliation or rejection) and can be very long term if left untreated.
Depression is an experience where you feel low most of the time and you have also lost interest in things you usually enjoy. You may also have changes in your sleep, appetite, feel guilty, de-motivated and generally withdraw from others.
What Happens in Your Brain:
In the brain: fear, stress and anxiety each have specific triggers for an individual, and each have certain reactions. Between trigger and reaction, a lot of what goes on in the brain is remarkably similar.
It’s worth reminding ourselves that a challenge we consider fearful, someone else may consider a little stressful or even pleasurable!
One simple example I experience regularly. I have a dog, she’s a sweet, but nervous rescue dog about the size of a Labrador. Some people find her adorable, others consider her to be very frightening.
On the other hand, some people find snakes to be interesting and pleasant, whereas I run from them - even video or images of them!
Six stimuli
Remember, Your brain’s #1 job is to keep you “not dead”. You are constantly scanning your environment for any threat that might compromise that situation. Which can be anything that is deemed to threaten your circle of power.
Scanning for threats are your five senses - and these have two routes into the brain:
Visual and auditory stimuli (sight and sounds) go to the Thalamus in the brain. You can think of the Thalamus as the reception lobby of an office where incoming visitors are screened and sent to the appropriate office. If the sight or sound is threatening - the amygdalae are signalled.
Olfactory and Tactile stimuli have direct access straight to the Amygdalae! That is smells and touch go straight to the amygdalae. That’s why you recoil immediately from bad smells or unpleasant touch. Fractionally later from something you see or hear.
Yes five senses, but six stimuli. When they pick up a threat, the information takes one of two routes in your brain:
Route 1 - The Shortcut
Smell, taste and touch stimuli bypass the Thalamus reception desk and gain immediate access to the Amygdala. (This is why smells can evoke such powerful responses!)
The amygdalae informs other brain structures to respond to the perceived threat:
* Your Hypothalamus and Pituitary gland trigger your adrenal glands to boost your stress hormones: adrenaline and cortisol.
* Too much cortisol short-circuits the Hippocampus (your main memory centre) making it difficult to organise memory.
* Your Sympathetic Nervous System (SNS) is stimulated which increases your heart rate and blood pressure, you sweat more and even your skin tingles. All to prepare your body for action against the threat.
* Your Freeze, Flight or Fight response is activated - enabling you to increase your sensory awareness and drink in more detail to better deal with the threat.
* Your digestive tract is shut down. This diverts energy from digestion to responding to the threat. You may even evacuate your digestive tract in readiness for a survival response. Lunch is less important than escaping the lion behind you!
Route 2 - The High Road
You see or hear something - that information heads to the Thalamus - it’s like the reception lobby of your brain where it “registers” and is directed where to go:
In the case of a sensed threat, that information is sent to the Amygdala which rings the alarm bells down via the Locus Ceruleus and the Sympathetic Nervous System (SNS) which signal the adrenal glands to release hormones called adrenaline (epinephrine) and cortisol. It shifts your heart rate and blood pressure up, shuts down your digestive system and initiates your freeze, fight or flight response - whichever is your most default response to similar situations.
The Freeze, Flight or Fight Response
At first, your response to a new challenge is unconscious. Your response to the "fear" of this new challenge is typified by the Freeze, Fight or Flight response.
🥊 Fight Time: You might get angry and blame others, or
🥶 Frozen: you hide your head and pretend the challenge isn't there (hoping someone else will deal with it), or your mind simply shuts down with the enormity of the challenge, or
🏃♀️ Flight: you flee the scene and get away from the challenge.
And all that happened in an instant without ANY conscious thinking!
That is. Your brain and body have responded to the stimuli BEFORE you have consciously thought about it.
And this is a GOOD thing…. most of the time… at least in real emergencies. In the workplace jungle, or driving along the street…not so much.
It is only AFTER the Sympathetic response is activated that your conscious mind gets involved in thinking about this. Some of the sensory incoming information was sent from the Thalamus reception desk on a longer route through the cortex. Here, the sensory information is analysed and gives meaning to what is seen or heard. If the threat is passed, then the PreFrontal Cortex (PFC), the “executive suite” of your brain is responsible for shutting the fear response down. It’s a little like putting the brakes of a car beside the hot engine, but that’s the way it is.
Stress
Stress, or at least stress inducing hormones are essential to your survival. Even in the modern world. Without cortisol, for example, your blood pressure will drop to dangerously low levels and without immediate intervention, you die. Too little adrenaline and you’d probably not react to real threats and also probably die. Your brain would have failed it’s #1 task to keep you “not dead!”
Distress is a chronic subset of the fear and anxiety response. It’s when our brain’s response continues to signal the production of more cortisol and adrenaline. Your locus of control likely shifts external to being At Effect and believe your circle of power and influence is threatened. Stress manifests in the same way as fear but continues for longer and is perpetuated by the cortex (Route 2: the high road describes above). That is, your thinking determines that the threat is still present and requires the high alert response. Even if your thinking is inaccurate, faulty or toxic.
The upside of stress!
Too little stress and you will be calm. This is perfectly fine if you intend to be calm and doing little, but if you want to perform, you’ll need a little oomph!
Eustress as it is known, is the positive affects of stress. Or rather when your thinking brain (Cortex and PFC) alters the way you think about the negative threat as a positive challenge, that is, your locus of control shifts to being At Cause
That is, effectively puts the brakes on an overwhelming stress response to a situation keeping you in a productive action zone.
It’s how you choose to view the challenge!
Anxiety and Phobias and other toxic thinking (the sixth stimuli!)
The cortex, and especially the PFC is where we also find our 6th stimuli - our thoughts. It’s when our internal thoughts and emotions analysis interpret stimuli as catastrophic, or incorrect, or irrational and inform the amygdala to commence or perpetuate the fear response.
An example would be my “phobia” for snakes, even an image of one sends my thoughts into a tizzy and triggers a fear response. Basically our thoughts can be toxic, unhealthy and unhelpful.
When we “worry” about something in the future, our thoughts and associated emotions (probably from memories, real or imagined) informs the Bed Nucleus of the Stria Terminals (BNST) to perpetuate the fear response typical of longer term anxiety. And even though the PFC should put the brakes on because worry about the future does absolutely nothing positive ever, this irrational or “stinkin’ thinkin’” is allowed to perpetuate and hence, the BNST gets reinforced to continue the fear response. This gives us the illusion of control we saw earlier.
Raw sensory information, attached to our emotional response then heads to the memory centre of the Hippocampus for memory storage.
One of the biggest problems that people face, often without realising it, is that what you fear, you focus on. That is, the very thing you fear is something that you instruct your Reticular Activating System (RAS) to pay special attention. Without realising it, what you fear infects what you serve and worship (it’s the centre of your attention) and it becomes your idol!
Once the threat is passed, we like to post-rationalise any disproportionate emotional response in a desperate attempt to regain that sense of control and power. This is where some people justify their explosive fit of anger as being “righteous” or the victim “deserved it”.
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Or perhaps you feel guilty (self-criticise for a mistake or behaviour) because you achieved less than optimal results. Guilt, oddly, enhances our sense of control!
Or perhaps you like to add on some deep shame (complete self-condemnation for your actions or behaviour). Possibly the most difficult and painful emotion causing feelings of disgrace and dishonour to the point where the sufferer may feel that they don’t deserve to be helped, even by themselves!
Amygdala Hijack
Made famous in his seminal book on Emotional Intelligence, Daniel Goldman tells us that an amygdala hijack is an intense emotional reaction that's out of proportion to the circumstance.
It is most often manifest as anger - even rage and effectively disables intervention by the Pre Frontal Cortex (PFC), cutting across the brain and avoiding feelings of guilt and shame (which might have helped you stop yourself at the time).
Depression
Anxiety and depression share overlapping symptoms, but where anxiety is a high-energy state filled with active worry about the future and often something specific, depression appears as a low-energy state where there is a general dread about the present and the future. They can and do co-exist in a cycle where anxiety can lead to depression and depression causes (further) anxiety.
Hormonal imbalance has long been considered a major cause of depression (perhaps because this suits the pharmaceuticals industry?) However, the neuroscience of depression is much more complex than that.
Research is showing that depression isn’t simply about having too little or too much of particular brain chemicals. The cause of depression are much more complex and may include faulty mood regulation in the brain, genetics and stressful life events and continued anxiety.
For example, experts believe stress can suppress the production of new neurons (nerve cells) in the hippocampus, which appears to be smaller in depressed people. And activity in the amygdala is higher when a person is sad or clinically depressed, and this continues even after recovery from depression.
I posit a theory that if our cortex adds a little guilt or shame to these events, we might create the perfect brewing conditions for depression?
Important Note
If you have experienced anxiety for more than two weeks, you should seek professional help and guidance.
Depression is deeply unpleasant and sadly pervasive and it is treatable through counselling and, where appropriate, supported with proper medication.
The Timeline of Fear, Stress, Anxiety and Depression.
As I was researching this, I began to notice a difference in tense people use when considering each facet of these phenomena.
Fear: Past. The event has already occured, I am now reacting to the event
Stress: Present. The event is taking place now and I am responding or reacting to it now
Anxiety: Future. The event is in the future, I am reacting to (anticipating) it now
Depression: Future Ongoing. The event(s) is now and in the future, I am feeling unable to respond appropriately now
Let’s wrap this part and prepare for some pleasure, happiness and joy.
We know that a life without challenges simply does not exist. And if it did, it would be a slow tedium with no growth and hence, only death. We know that to perform any task, our brain and body require a certain level of stress inducing hormones.
We know that we can feel threatened by anything that appears to take away our power or control over our own life. That can be as real as a lion bearing down on you at high speed as you cross its path or as innocuous as a beep on a smartphone.
We also know that our own thoughts can, and often are, the source of our own worry and anxiety. Whether factual and real or not.
The fear response is essential for survival. Less so now, perhaps, than for our cave-dwelling ancestors. However the Bible tells us to “Fear not” (or similar words) 365 times! That’s one for each day of the year.
Fortunately, there’s also a flip side to life beyond stress and performance. There’s pleasure and happiness and even joy this side of heaven. Next time to look at Joy, Happiness and Pleasure in Your Brain
We know that choosing joy means higher performance, more happiness, less stress, less anxiety, better results, greater health. And we know that choosing joy is simple. So why do we all find it so dang difficult?!?
In large part, it’s about another need we, or rather our brain has; to feel that we have control.
But, we have established that you cannot control what happens outside - you may be able to influence it or concerned about it, but you cannot control it. You only control your own thoughts and your own actions. Sorry, you CAN only control your thoughts and your actions. It’s your choice.
You can influence others and some things outside but you do not control them.
So, I’m borrowing and adapting from Steven Covey’s Seven Habits of Highly Effective People: Imagine 3 circles:
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* The inner circle is our circle of power and contains all the things that you know that (on your better days) you can control. In this inner circle, you have the full power of choice. These include your own thoughts, the words you use, the actions you take. You also have control over your emotions, your effort and your own self-care.
* The middle circle are things over which you have influence, limited control and less power. These are things that you can directly influence. These include your health, your family, home, job, finances and friends.
* The outer circle is our circle of concern. Things and people that matter to you but over whom you have much less influence and even less power. The further from your inner circle, the less influence you have. These might include the weather, world events and politics, accident or injury or illness. Also other’s perceptions and their actions.
When you perceive or believe that external events or people threaten your circle of influence or your circle of power you are focused on things that you cannot control. And when you choose (or allow yourself to) focus on what you cannot control, your Circle of Influence contracts! You have chosen to have an external locus of control.
In contrast, when you choose to focus on what you can control, your Circle of Influence expands. You have chosen an internal locus of control.
A third, and more profitable focus is on the Spirit within and a God who is still on His throne and in control of everything (a fourth outer ring) and then we humble ourself to the finished work of Christ knowing that “…all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.” Rom 8:28
Fear, stress, anxiety and depression can increase when we believe or perceive that our power, influence or control are diminished or threatened by challenges beyond our control. Fear, stress and anxiety are reactions (not illness). We have shifted our locus of control from us… to ”them”.
I am not a product of my circumstances. I am a product of my decisions.
Stephen Covey
Six Essential Human Needs - SPACES Recap
It’s not just about any threat to your circle of power, it’s what you perceive is being threatened and how important that need is to you!
You’ll recall that we all share six essential needs. These are the key things we wish to influence.
When we perceive that our circle of power is being threatened, our influence to have our own needs fulfilled diminishes.
The more fundamental the need, for example something life threatening, the greater our fear response to the threat.
And, we should all be acutely aware that the more fundamental the need for us, the easier it is for someone else to influence our response both positively and negatively. The advertising industry is successful precisely because it plays on our more fundamental needs and fears.
For example, your need to eat food is most often associated with pleasure and price in advertisements. New cars are associated with prestige or significance (a higher need for mattering or significance) but also scantily clad human models (a fundamental sexual need).
#😲 Insight When you focus on the external threats to your needs, your circle of influence and power to protect those needs diminishes. When you focus on what you can control, your circles of power and influence over your needs and concerns increases.
Start where you are. Do what you can. Use what you have.
Arthur Ashe
Our lives are always moving in the direction of our strongest thoughts. What we think shapes who we are.
The better we grasp this truth, the better equipped we can be to influence the trajectory of our lives. But don’t take my word for it. Both the Bible and modern science provide evidence that this is true. So throughout this Guide, we’ll unpack both Scripture and what we’ve learned from scientific research.
What science is demonstrating today is what God told us through Solomon almost three thousand years ago: “For as he thinks in his heart, so is he.” Proverbs 23:7 NKJV
“For as he thinks in his heart, so is he. “Eat and drink!” he says to you, But his heart is not with you.”
The Serenity Prayer - known chiefly through its use in Alcoholics Anonymous begins, but a useful prayer for everyone who wants to win this battle in the brain:
“God grant me the serenity To accept the things I cannot change; Courage to change the things I can; And wisdom to know the difference.”
Thank you for reading Joy@Work. This post is public so feel free to share it.
Let’s take a look next at what happens when you are faced with a challenge (threat) and Fear, Stress, Anxiety and Depression in Your Brain.
You're Biased!
Now, before you go off in a huff and rant against my assertion do, please, let me explain. Everyone has biases. Actually, you have to or else your brain would drain all of your energy.
Power and Purpose
The purpose of this guide is to allow you to be aware of your own biases and those of others - NOT TO FIX THEM! - That is NOT your job. Your awareness will enable you to re-frame your communications and be prepared to challenge unwarranted assumptions or faulty thinking - with love and kindness.
The power of your payoff when you put this into action will be to listen much more deeply and effectively and communicate with empathy and clarity for mutual understanding.
Key questions to be considering as you read, watch or listen to this AdvantEdge Coaching Guide:
* What is the ONE thing you will stop doing, start doing or change how you behave or act that will have the greatest impact on your leadership performance from your learning here?
* What is the single, tiniest step you can take immediately that will begin that improvement and by when?
What is Prejudice?
Prejudice is one example of cognitive bias that is most often a preconceived, unfavourable opinion about another person or group. Indeed this is known as the “In-Group” or “Out-Group” Bias. It enables you to judge another person almost instantly based on very limited data. Which is very efficient but often seriously flawed. Yet, we all have them.
Blame your parents, upbringing, society, politicians, culture, race, language, tv, Hollywood, the Interweb, FaceBook... whatever you like, you still have biases.
Some biases are potentially helping you make better, quicker decisions, others could be, and almost certainly are, undermining your true power and potential.
But I’m not biased!
You already know that everyone else you meet is biased right? (That’s your confirmation bias kicking in by the way.) Especially those people who disagree with you or have a different political or religious viewpoint. So are you and everyone else is too because your brain HAS to be biased.
Your brain hates ambiguity and uncertainty! And, it is willing to take short cuts to remove it from the situation. If there's insufficient information to go on you will use whatever is available and unconsciously fill in the blanks from your memories and beliefs until you recognise a pattern and come (jump) to an internal representation.
It’s one way that your brain saves you precious energy and stress and saves time making decisions.
If we were to allow our brains to take in all the available information, process it, evaluate it objectively and make a decision. Well, that speeding vehicle would have wiped out your life already. OK, maybe it’s not so drastic, but your brain sees uncertainty as a threat and triggers your threat response biasing decisions toward habit and modulating our propensity to take risks (do something new and untested).
A Quick brain primer (so that you don’t use your biases and fill in your own wrong answers).
Your brain is programmed to minimise effort and save energy.
In his fabulous book, Thinking Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman shows that your brain works using two different systems, 1 and 2 (yeah, terrific names ;-)). System 1 is fast thinking - mostly unconscious, prone to biases and errors and can be exploited by others to influence your responses and choices. System 2 is slower thinking but more reliable and it is supposed to monitor System 1 but often it doesn't bother when it's feeling a bit "lazy" or it's overloaded.
Your brain is programmed to minimise effort and System 2 requires more effort and energy, hence, System 1 runs the show by default.
And therein lies the problem.
Top Ten Cognitive Biases
The list of cognitive biases that have been identified is incredibly long and grows monthly.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases and I've come across 10 repeatedly in my coaching with leaders that could really use your conscious attention now.
Similarity
In-Group Bias
Favouring whose who belong to your group
You unfairly favour those who belong to your group.
We presume that we're fair and impartial, but the truth is that we automatically favour those who are most like us, or belong to our groups. This blind tribalism has evolved to strengthen social cohesion, however in a modern and multicultural world it can have the opposite effect.
Try to imagine yourself in the position of those in out-groups; whilst also attempting to be dispassionate when judging those who belong to your in-groups.
Most people prefer to pretend that this doesn’t apply to them. In particular along discriminatory lines - but it does, and the sooner we all recognise this, the sooner we can do something about it.
Functional Fixedness
Seeing objects as working in only one way
If a conclusion supports your existing beliefs, you'll rationalise anything that supports it.
It's difficult for us to set aside our existing beliefs to consider the true merits of an argument. In practice this means that our ideas become impervious to criticism, and are perpetually reinforced. Instead of thinking about our beliefs in terms of 'true or false' it's probably better to think of them in terms of probability. For example we might assign a 95%+ chance that thinking in terms of probability will help us think better, and a less than 1% chance that our existing beliefs have no room for any doubt. Thinking probabilistically forces us to evaluate more rationally.
A useful thing to ask is 'when and how did I get this belief?' We tend to automatically defend our ideas without ever really questioning them.
Expedience
Availability Heuristic
Placing more value on quick to mind information
Your judgments are influenced by what springs most easily to mind.
How recent, emotionally powerful, or unusual your memories are can make them seem more relevant. This, in turn, can cause you to apply them too readily. For instance, when we see news reports about homicides, child abductions, and other terrible crimes it can make us believe that these events are much more common and threatening to us than is actually the case.
Try to gain different perspectives and relevant statistical information rather than click-bait headlines.
Anchoring Bias
Relying on the first piece of information you learn
The first thing you judge influences your judgment of all that follows.
Human minds are associative in nature, so the order in which we receive information helps determine the course of our judgments and perceptions. For instance, the first price offered for a used car sets an ‘anchor’ price which will influence how reasonable or unreasonable a counter-offer might seem. Even if we feel like an initial price is far too high, it can make a slightly less-than-reasonable offer seem entirely reasonable in contrast to the anchor price.
Be especially mindful of this bias during financial negotiations such as houses, cars, and salaries. The initial price offered has proven to have a significant effect.
Optimism Bias
Leads you to believe that you are less likely to suffer misfortune than others
You overestimate the likelihood of positive outcomes.
There can be benefits to a positive attitude, but it's unwise to allow such an attitude to adversely affect our ability to make rational judgments (they're not mutually exclusive). Wishful thinking can be a tragic irony insofar as it can create more negative outcomes, such as in the case of problem gambling.
If you make rational, realistic judgments you'll have a lot more to feel positive about.
Experience
Confirmation Bias
Favouring information that conforms to existing beliefs
You favour things that confirm your existing beliefs.
We are primed to see and agree with ideas that fit our preconceptions, and to ignore and dismiss information that conflicts with them. You could say that this is the mother of all biases, as it affects so much of our thinking through motivated reasoning. To help counteract its influence we ought to presume ourselves wrong until proven right.
Think of your ideas and beliefs as software you're actively trying to find problems with rather than things to be defended. "The first principle is that you must not fool yourself – and you are the easiest person to fool." - Richard Feynman
Curse of Knowledge
Assuming the other person should already know this
Once you understand something you presume it to be obvious to everyone.
Things makes sense once they make sense, so it can be hard to remember why they didn't. We build complex networks of understanding and forget how intricate the path to our available knowledge really is. This bias is closely related to the hindsight bias wherein you will tend to believe that an event was predictable all along once it has occurred. We have difficulty reconstructing our own prior mental states of confusion and ignorance once we have clear knowledge.
When teaching someone something new, go slow and explain like they're ten years old (without being patronising). Repeat key points and facilitate active practice to help embed knowledge.
The Dunning-Kruger Effect
When someone believes they are smarter or more capable than they are
The more you know, the less confident you're likely to be.
Because experts know just how much they don't know, they tend to underestimate their ability; but it's easy to be over-confident when you have only a simple idea of how things are. Try not to mistake the cautiousness of experts as a lack of understanding, nor to give much credence to lay-people who appear confident but have only superficial knowledge. Remind yourself of all those “experts” at the beginning of the Covid Pandemic who ended up getting it so very very wrong.
“The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are so certain of themselves, yet wiser people so full of doubts.”- Bertrand Russell
Almost no-one who suffers this effect is cognizant of it. Everybody else is through. Dare to ask your colleagues?
Distance
Actor-Observer Bias
Attributing your own actions to external causes whilst others act on internal causes
You judge others character based on their actions, but yourself on the situation and your intentions.
If you haven’t had a good night’s sleep, you know why you’re being a bit slow; but if you observe someone else being slow you don’t have such knowledge and so you might presume them to just be a slow person. Because of this disparity in knowledge we often overemphasise the influence of circumstance for our own failings, as well as underestimating circumstantial factors to explain other people's problems.
It's not only kind to view others' situations with charity, it's more objective too. Be mindful to also err on the side of taking personal responsibility rather than justifying and blaming.
Safety
Self-Serving Bias
Blaming external forces for bad things and taking credit for good happenings
You believe your failures are due to external factors, yet you're responsible for your successes.
Many of us enjoy unearned privileges, luck and advantages that others do not. It's easy to tell ourselves that we deserve these things, whilst blaming circumstance when things don't go our way. Our desire to protect and exalt our own egos is a powerful force in our psychology. Fostering humility can help countermand this tendency, whilst also making us nicer humans.
When judging others, be mindful of how this bias interacts with the just-world.
Very few people like to admit to this as most of us are simply too proud of ourselves and find this a little too much humility and honesty.
What are Your Top Biases?
What biases, short cuts and heuristics have you grown and developed over your years of life and experience that aren't being monitored by you. You just carry on with your day allowing your faster, unconscious System1 to get you through today and might not even see the trail of destruction left in your wake.
Over the past 30 plus years, I've worked with a lot of geeks and nerds, and the biases I've seen most in action can undermine your potential career as a leader and sabotage your success. They were all useful for you at some point along the way, but many have outlived that usefulness and could do with an overhaul and a serious upgrade.
From this group of top ten biases, which do you immediately realise that you have operating in some way?
Ask someone who knows you well, that you trust and love regardless, to go through this list with you.
What Next?
Now, become consciously aware that you may be prone to making decisions using these biases, and using the secret power of the pause you can now hold onto your tongue just an extra moment or three. Is there something that you might be missing here? Is there a possible alternative viewpoint? Have I considered all the angles? And test your new decision in a different frame. How does it feel now?
Oh, and please do not concern yourself that you are taking time to think and be silent. Your audience is already beginning to think that you could just be the wisest person they know, and they are about ready to listen.
Consider the biases here and note those that you now notice that you hold and check your own thinking each time that you come across situations that may involve the use of this bias.
Use the The Secret Power of the Pause to interrupt your unconscious thought patterns and deliberately assess your thinking. Adjust your response and behaviour as needed. At the beginning, don't fret too much about your physiology, that will have already happened, but eventually, you will overcome your bias and perhaps, create new ones that serve you better.
Key questions to be considering as you read, watch or listen to this AdvantEdge Coaching Guide:
* What is the ONE thing you will stop doing, start doing or change how you behave or act that will have the greatest impact on your leadership performance from your learning here?
* What is the single, tiniest step you can take immediately that will begin that improvement and by when?
What do I do if I need help to do this?
The first step is to talk to someone you trust. A medical doctor, a pastor, a true friend. Maybe a coach or mentor. Remember, this is a world of rapid change and people want to be reassured by a leader who is consistent (with the same story) yet adapts in good time to changing circumstances (changes the story).
If you want to consider coaching, you can learn more about AdvantEdge Coaching so that you can have Joy@Work and Your Team to becomes United in Trust and Collaboration, contact us here and arrange a complimentary, confidential, no obligation Discovery Session.
How Can We Serve you? – Leadership AdvantEdge
How do I get started? First, we need to focus on what we can control… in our next edition…
Now that we know Why Joy@Work Matters, it’s time to let you know about a battle going on in your brain.
Imagine a battlefield with two opposing sides. Only one side doesn’t realise that it’s in a battle!
The enemy is steadily picking them off one by one and there’s no retaliation. Just acceptance. 🎶 Que sera sera 🎶. “Life is difficult!” “What do you expect me to do?” “They’re bigger, more important, smarter, slimmer, richer, stronger, prettier, older, younger, senior, more talented, more experienced, better connected, luckier…” Did I miss yours? Add it to the list.
In my experience, there are two types of leader who struggle the most in this battle:
1. Those who (secretly) believe they are not good enough - the Imposters
2. Those who need to be recognised as significant and important - the Egomaniacs
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The Imposters
These are people who, often secretly, think they are somehow lacking but don’t want anyone else to know it. Instead they have to be seen as invulnerable. Stoic, “stiff upper lip and all that chaps”. Whatever you do, don’t let your emotions show. In that lies weakness and when people see that I’m weak, they’ll attack and destroy me.
Inside they’re ashamed to be living a lie and, afraid to empathise, don’t open up to deep relationships or dare to ask for what they truly desire and struggle for worthiness. They desperately want to be liked by others for who they are, but dare not show who they are because they don’t like themselves very much.
Instead they allow the enemy to chip away and wear them down thinking that they “deserve it for not being good enough”.
The Egomaniacs
These are people whose ego makes them over-estimate their own abilities and worth, and under-estimate the effort and skill required to achieve their goals. They feel superior to and better than others. And they need to be recognised for their significant greatness.
Ego is the outsized sense of self-importance. It is the toxic force that makes real teamwork, empathy, vulnerability and artistry impossible. Ego Is The Enemy - Ryan Holiday.
The enemy simply has to “poke the bear” and the egomaniac inflicts damage to themselves and bullies and blames everyone else and their own team.
Some Imposters protect themselves by becoming Egomaniacs:
And its easy to flip from one to the other in six steps as Brene Brown shares in Dare to Lead about the armour we use to protect our vulnerability. Here’s six pieces of armour from Imposter (“I’m not good enough”) to Egomaniac (“I’m better than them”):
1. I’m really not good enough. [Imposter Syndrome]
2. But if I’m open and honest about this, people will think less of me or even use it against me. [Shame]
3. No way am I going to be honest about this. No-one else does… why should I? They’re not honest about anything and they’ve plenty of issues. [Accusation]
4. It’s their issues and shortcomings that make me act this way. [Blame]
5. It’s their fault. And they’re blaming me! [Anger]
6. In fact, now that I think about it, I’m actually better than them. [Superiority]
- My Ego is stroked [Egomaniac]
You cannot change what you do not confront!
You cannot control what happens outside. You only control your own thoughts and your own actions. Sorry, you CAN only control your thoughts and your actions. It’s your choice.
You can influence others and some things outside but you do not control them.
It’s time for you to become a thought warrior. It’s time for you to dare to have Joy@Work.
When you dare to have Joy@Work you’ll feel vulnerable and focus your attention on helping and recognising others.
When you have Joy@Work you will feel vulnerable
Many leaders ask me to help their teams trust each other and improve collaboration. They know it’s hugely beneficial and profitable for that to be the case. But they fear being vulnerable to their team because the team isn’t trusted by the leader - so why would they trust each other? Let alone collaborate?
Once you accept that you cannot control what will happen but you still speak or act in an authentic way - that’s being vulnerable. And only when you are being vulnerable are you able to build authentic, supportive and trusting relationships.
When you have Joy is when you feel most vulnerable. But because it is rare (or we only allow ourselves to feel it rarely) it is most often a “foreboding joy”. We insist on rehearsing tragedy (when will the s**t hit the fan?)
It is beauty and fragility and deep gratitude and impermanence wrapped up in one emotion.
Why? Because joy is rare and we’re not used to it. And we don’t trust it… yet.
When we practice Joy@Work we focus on others
Those who practice sustaining joy have one thing in common, they practice gratitude. Not an attitude. It’s a practice!
At dinner everyday you say or sing grace; thanks to God for your food, share one thing you’re grateful for today.
And recognise other’s achievements at work! Every day and eventually, every one. Rinse. Repeat. Celebrate the small wins. It could all go sideways in five minutes. Celebrate now and recognise good work. Engagement increases, retention improves, performance goes up.
And for those with Imposter Syndrome (“I’m not good enough”)
You are not how other’s say (or have said) you are. God says “I say how you are. You are qualified to achieve my purpose for you.”
It’s time to have the courage to be vulnerable, to practice gratitude and recognising others, it’s time to dare to have Joy@Work!
The Biblical way to win the battle in our brain.
The apostle Paul in Phi 4:12 and 2 Cor 10:5 shares:
1. The battle for your life is won or lost in your mind
2. Your thoughts will control you. So you have to control your thoughts.
OK. Are you ready to Dare to have Joy@Work? Excellent.
Now, we need to spend a little time understanding and recognising that each of us are biased! And knowing your own biases is incredibly important. Next Pride and Prejudice.
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Have you shared this GuidePost yet with someone who needs it?
The number of people worldwide reporting feeling stress or anxiety is massive! 80% of US workers say they experience stress on the job (American Inst of Stress). (70% according to APA). Covid added to the problems with a spike in anxiety (37% up from 8% pre-Covid!) and depression (30% up from 6%!) according to the World Economic Forum.
One positive thing about Covid though has been that employers and Governments are beginning to take mental health a lot more seriously. Though many fall back on the health systems who seem intent on flawed idea of medicating people out of the problems rather than dealing with the root causes.
In this AdvantEdge Guide Series, we’re taking a rather special approach to the issues by looking at the flip side of fear, stress and anxiety in the brain, by comparing and contrasting these with Happiness and Joy in the brain. One side raises performance, the other inhibits it.
Why Joy@Work?
Every one of us has this war going on inside our minds. Only one side doesn’t realise that it’s in a war!
Within Joy@Work lies the bedrock of wisdom and insight into the art and neuroscience that underpins your journey as a leader. This invaluable resource is your AdvantEDGE to begin Winning the War in Your Brain.
* Encourage you to Understand the war that’s ongoing
* Develop and Equip you for the battle
* Guide you to transcend the limitations holding you back, and
* Empower you to UnStuck your true potential for unparalleled joy and fulfillment in both your personal and professional life.
With this incredible knowledge, you will forge a path towards building a thriving and successful organisation, with collaborative, high-performing teams comprising of engaged, joyful employees.
This powerful AdvantEdge Coaching Series has been refined and developed and is the basis for helping many clients to have Joy@Work, improve their own performance and that of their teams and businesses. Throughout 2023, we’ll be making this powerful AdvantEdge 11 part series available by Podcast, Text and Video.
This series has 11 parts and we intend to publish in order a new part each month. The working links below (in red) are available to you now. If you want access to them all now, that’s great and you can sign up for AdvantEdge Coaching here.
Subscribe now to Joy@Work! And be first to receive new GuidePosts, Podcasts and Video.
Winning the War in Your Brain - AdvantEdge Guide Series:
* We’ll begin with why Joy@Work matters and then I’m going to share something that has discouraged far too many people from even thinking that they can do this. I trust that this will encourage you to know that you, me and everyone else on this planet - we all doubt we deserve to be joyful and that’s a lie from the pit of hell.
* Why Joy@Work Matters - Live
* Do You Dare To Have Joy@Work? - Live
* Then we need to understand that you, me and everyone else are biased and prejudiced! That is we each have our own set of lenses through which we see and interpret the world around us, and how these lenses may alter our perception. Understanding our own biases and how to mitigate any negative impact is essential for personal development progress.
* Pride and Prejudice - Live
* Then we’ll develop your understanding of the circles of power, influence and concern so that you can easily assess what challenge is within your power to change or affect, what matters to you and what is beyond the reasonable possibility of your control.
* Understanding Your Circles of Power, Influence and Concern - Live
* We’ll then develop your knowledge about fear, stress and anxiety in the brain and compare and contrast these with Joy, pleasure and happiness in the brain.
* Fear, Stress, Anxiety and Depression in Your Brain - Live
* Joy, Happiness and Pleasure in Your Brain - Live
* Next, we’ll guide your understanding of how we respond to challenges choosing to be “At Cause” for our life or “At Effect” of others, events and the challenges we face.
* Choosing to Be At Cause or At Effect - Live
* Finally we’ll empower you with four practical guides that you can choose to raise performance @work, Increase happiness in your whole life, Increase Joy@Work, and lastly, how to bounce back from stress to joy.
* How to Raise Performance and have Joy@Work - Live
* How to Increase Happiness in your whole life - Live
* How to Increase Joy@Work - Early December ‘23
* How do we shift from Stress and Anxiety to Happiness and Joy? - Late December ‘23
This GuidePost talks about how we are always in pursuit of happiness. But happiness is based on chance and not something that can be constantly achieved. Pleasure is also temporary and not something that should be constantly strived for. Instead, we should focus on having joy, which is more internal and based on making peace with your self. To have Joy@Work, we should focus on leveraging our talents and doing something purposeful for others. Although it will take time and effort, the benefits will be worth it in the end.
This GuidePost answers the following questions:
1. What is the problem with the pursuit of happiness?
2. What are the benefits of aiming for joy instead of happiness?
3. What does research show about the benefits of being happy at work?
4. What did the Energy Project find were the benefits of going beyond engagement?
5. What is the most underutilised way to increase productivity, engagement, and performance?
6. What are the three things that bring joy in the workplace?
7. How can you have joy@work?
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Seeking Pleasure, Finding Joy
When you ask people what they want in life, the No 1. answer is “Happiness”. But, there’s a problem with the pursuit of happiness found in the root of the word which is “hap”. Which is the same “hap” in perhaps, haphazard, happenstance and happen. It means luck, chance or fortune and to have happiness means it has to happen to you.
And another problem, when many people think about happiness they’re really thinking about what gives them pleasure and having more of those things. Pleasure is extrinsic, visceral and temporary.
Joy, on the other hand is more consistent and cultivated internally. Joy comes when you make peace with who you are, why and how. Whereas, happiness is externally triggered and based on other people, places, things, events and thoughts.
Aiming for joy is far more beneficial and less transitory. So how can you have Joy@Work
Imagine that someone created a green pill that adds years to your life; it reduces the risk of having a heart attack or stroke; cuts your risk of Alzheimer's disease by more than fifty percent; helps you relax during the day and sleep better at night; it doubles your chances of staying drug and alcohol free after treatment; activates your natural killer cells; diminishes your inflammatory cells; increase your good cholesterol (HDL); and it repairs your DNA.
What if this imaginary green pill reduced hospitalisation so much that it put a big dent in the national health crisis?
Oh, and as a special bonus, it gives you better sex.
The company that made that green pill would be worth gazillions right? The green pill's inventors would win Nobel Prizes and have institutes named for them.
But it's not a green pill. It's the Resilience of fulfilling Your Purpose. And it's free.
And you get side effects. More friends. Greater happiness. Deeper engagement in life. And better sex.
Now imagine a red pill that makes your work almost effortless, yet simultaneously fulfilling. Every moment at work you are in the zone. You're flowing and your performance is so good, and your productivity increases and you are more engaged with your work and with your colleagues.
The company who made that red pill would be worth even more gazillions and businesses would be clamouring for their workers to take this magnificent drug so they could profit even more and keep staff happily employed and engaged for years to come at higher wages with shorter working hours and greater productivity.
Well those red pills would be flying off the shelves faster than an speeding bullet.
But it's not a red pill. It's leveraging your Talent. And it's also free.
Now, what if you take both the green pill and the red pill?
What if you were joyful at work, found deep pleasure in doing what you do and it felt effortless and your job was meaningful for you?
I've worked with so many people who want this to be true for them. I'm certain that you do too.
And there is a way that you can have this. But I must warn you. This is not a magic trick for instant success, nor a silver bullet that will instantly make everything bad disappear.
Some things will appear to be magical but they're actually social cognitive neuroscience. Some things are going to turn your world on its head.
It will take you some time and effort. So if you don't like taking on things that take time and effort you should turn back now before you get a glimpse of the potential joy you could be having at work.
What do you want out of life?
You want to be happy right?
Of course you do. Ask anyone what they want in life and the vast majority will reply that they want to be happy.
They want their partner to be happy. They want their kids to be happy. They want their entire family to be happy.
Ask them if they are happy at work, and you'll be met with a kind smirk as if you had lost your marbles. Ask them if they experience joy at work and they'll laugh at the absurdity of the idea.
Yet a 2015 study shows that happy staff are 12% more productive than unhappy staff. And happiness has an even greater impact in sales - raising sales by 37%!
We've known this for years! Centuries even!
3,000 years ago, the wisest and wealthiest man who ever lived understood this: “So I decided that there was nothing better for a man to do than to enjoy his food and drink and his job.” Ecc 2:24 TLB
So every organisation everywhere has implemented fantastic training and coaching to make sure that their staff are all happy? This is immediately evident as you walk into almost any workplace in any country. How everyone is smiling, laughing, being friendly, helpful, cooperating. How they’re so joyful its contagious you cannot help but smile and wish earnestly that you could join that organisation and get paid handsomely for having fun and enjoying every day… or perhaps not 🤷
In the Happiness Advantage, Shawn Achor's research shows that an individual's job success is 25% predicted by IQ. Meanwhile, 75% is predicted by your optimism levels, your social support and your ability to see stress as a challenge instead of a threat. That is: your success is largely dependent on your happiness
Conventional "wisdom" holds that if we work hard, we will be more successful. And, if we are more successful, then we'll be happy.
This is broken and backwards!
The problem is two-fold:
1. When you achieve (i.e. your brain has a) success you just change the goalpost of what success looks like. Now success is beyond and you never achieve it. So if happiness is based on success and you never achieve success you cannot achieve happiness.
2. Secondly, by raising a brains positivity in the present, they gain a happiness advantage and the brain performs significantly better than at negative, neutral or stressed. Intelligence rises, creativity rises, energy levels rise and every single business outcome improves: Increased 31% productivity, greater resilience, less burnout, less staff turnover, 37% greater sales (Lyubominirsky, 2005)
But being happy isn't enough!
Being happy isn't the only ingredient to a life well lived.
When I spent several days recovering in hospital from a quadruple bypass, I spoke with many other patients who had had similarly close calls to meet their maker. Two things became abundantly clear:
1. Those with a positive and grateful attitude recovered more rapidly and were discharged sooner.
2. The closer someone had been to death, the more determined they were to live a life filled with meaning and that always, always meant doing something FOR other people.
Why this matters to your organisation
The statistics on workplace engagement are grim to say the least. Depending on the survey you read, anywhere between a whopping 70% of employees in America do not feel engaged at work. Around the world, that increases to 87% who are not engaged. In Singapore alone, a Gallup survey has 77% of employees are unengaged and 6% are actively disengaged.
Going beyond engagement
The Energy Project undertook a survey with Harvard Business School and found that employees who derive purposeful meaning and significance from their work were more than three times as likely to stay and reported 1.7 times higher job satisfaction and were 1.4 times more engaged at work.
Increasing a sense of purposefulness at work is one of the most potent - and underutilised - ways to increase productivity, engagement and performance.
What if employees were happy AND derived significance and meaning from their work aligned to their own purpose in life? Wouldn't that be Joy at work?
Joy appears 214 times in the NIV Bible - and always associated to living in your purpose. When psychology, neuroscience and the Bible concur, I get kinda excited to find out more, don’t you?
What brings joy in the workplace?
- We derive joy from our using our talents and strengths.
- We derive joy from doing something purposeful, meaningful and significant.
- And we derive joy from our relationships (at work and at home).
- We are joyful when we feel as if we are in control and feel safe and optimistic and that we matter.
- And we get most joy from doing something for others.
- And money helps ... to a point.
Do you Dare to Have Joy@Work? Let’s find out…
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