Entrepreneur and co-founder of NeuronicLiam Pingree shares insights on brain health, high performance and business strategy.
A company is, by definition, a group of people. That is why people and their brains are essential to the success of a company. The smaller the company, the greater the reliance on each brain to work efficiently and effectively for a successful company.
This article highlights four unknown aspects of the brain that are worth exploring to better understand how we can optimize our own high-performing brain to drive a business forward.
Contents
1. Neuroplasticity: Understanding our ever-changing mind
Neuroplasticity refers to the brain’s ability to adapt and rewire in response to new experiences and our environment. This concept is often overlooked as the myth that our brain develops fully in our twenties embedded in our society. Recent research have actually shown that we never stop learning and that our minds are capable of rewiring all of life.
According to Carol S. Dweck, it’s important to have a growth mindset (or the belief that intelligence is not fixed and cannot be developed). We also need to stay curious to learn constantly. For those who work in business, incorporate a culture of learning and development into your organizations. Sleep, exercisemindfulness, red light therapy and stimulating your brain through external challenges can also be a great way to encourage neuroplasticity.
2. Cognitive bias: Hidden hindering influences
Cognitive bias is a thought process caused by the brain’s tendency to simplify information through a filter of personal experiences and preferences. A cognitive bias can lead you to draw inaccurate conclusions or make uninformed decisions.
Understanding that, due to our personal experience and desires, we don’t always make rational decisions that can help us make better decisions in the future because we can learn to separate facts from emotions.
Financial traders often lose money because they gain too emotionally invested and cannot remain objective. Their desires and/or need to be right can prevent them from making the right decision. The same can be said of entrepreneurs who have an internal desire to be constantly right.
Understanding and identifying our biases is the first step. Next, we must learn to separate emotion from fact. Finally, have systems in place that encourage diverse discussion and are open to challenging opinions, which can improve decision-making within organizations.
3. stress management: Optimal performance between comfort and challenge
Our brains work best in the stage between comfort and tension, that is, in the area where we are.stretched.”
Psychologists Robert Yerkes and John Dodson developed the first version of this so-called pressure performance curve back in 1908, and this theory states that the optimal balance between performance and pressure is somewhere between comfort and load.
It is important that it is the right kind. It should be a kind of controlled stress where we can come from a certain level of comfort and get into a stressful situation and pull back to that comfort level. In other words, it must be a manageable situation.
This is important for everyone to understand as an individual. But organizations need to understand this theory in relation to the amount of support they give employees and the pressure placed on teams to perform. If employees are too comfortable, it can result in less productivity. But too much stress, and this can make a company too thin.
4. Balance: Life And Work
As business leaders, we often ask the wrong questions when we think about high performance, such as: What can we do in our personal time to make sure we’re ready for work? During our free time, how can we ensure that we are ready to perform at a high level?
But perhaps it will have the best effect if we reverse this thought process. We’re actually allowed encourage more sustainable growth and satisfaction when we realize that when we are not working, we can best do what we really like and that has nothing to do with our work or business.
Conclusion
So how can you use these concepts?
Understanding the unknowns about your high-performing brain can accelerate the growth of your business. Embrace these concepts of neuroplasticity and cognitive bias. Develop balance through stress management and lifestyle. By working on understanding these unknowns, you’ll likely be better able to tap into your potential and create a thriving business that’s sustainable for success.
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