CELLS THAT FIRE TOGETHER, WIRE TOGETHER

Our brain is quite the awesome organ.  Who we are, what we do, how we think and feel, and pretty much everything else about us is largely determined and conditioned by our brain!  A big part of our wellness challenge is to make our brain our friend and ally.  Some scientific findings about the wiring of our brain are especially encouraging, as they can help us appreciate how much positive scope there is to intentionally change our present and future self.

The idea of brain cells firing and wiring together originated in 1949 when Donald Hebb coined the phrase.  Hebb suggested that the brain has neurons that electrically and physically wire together to allow for learning, memories, habits, and new behaviours.  Brain imaging later confirmed his conclusion.  When we learn, neurons form new connections which capture that learning,  Remembering occurs when we deliberately sustain these new connections.  Memories revisit these connections.  Enhanced understanding is when we network these connections into more complex clusters.  Habits are patterns of connections which fire together without our mindful attention.  Changing our behaviour means we must deliberately dis-connect existing wiring and re-program our mind to form new networks of responses to a given situation.  I am sure you have had the experience where suddenly “the light goes on” and something makes better sense; well that involves a lots of cells networking together and producing your own long term understanding of something: its hardwired into your brain.

One amazing discovery of this brain science is that we can intentionally wire or re-wire our brains to better become the person we want to be.  Remember, 40% of who we are is determined by our intentional thoughts** so we can change and re-frame how we experience and perceive our circumstances.   

I have discovered since learning about this cell wiring that I can encourage it and almost feel the circuitry occurring in my mind.  If you  know what you are trying to do with changing your behaviour it is wonderful to imagine what is going on within the wires of your mind.

An absolutely fascinating video which explores this topic can be found by following this link, well worth the 6 minutes and 11 seconds: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9K6GDBnByk

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*:  Pursuing Happiness: The Architecture of Sustainable Change, Sonja Lyubomirsky, Kennon M. Sheldon, David Schkade, Review of General Psychology 9(2):111-131 · June 2005

ACHIEVEMENT AND YOUR CALLING

The notion of achievement has really got my fancy.  It seems to explain so much of my awesome life journey.  Somewhere in my early forties, my life fortunes seem to fall into place and stay that way. Particularly, achievement, engagement, purpose and calling joined up and my well-being almost permanently was improved.  Looking back, what brought all these circumstances together: it was achievement!

Sometime in my forties I began to enjoy significant career satisfaction: going to work was like going to play. The more time I was involved in my career, the more I enjoyed it.  I was in the FLOW for so many moments from when I left my home until I returned.  But what was it that brought such pleasure and purpose? It was the countless very small successes that happened every day.  Lectures became shows.  Learners were the audience.  The curriculum was the music and art.  Building lectures was my canvas.  Achievements were everywhere, and unconsciously many task I did became a chance to achieve and excel.  Even the most mundane task of marking exams became an art form where each script was an opportunity to impress me and let the learner shine.  Effort and talent were working together as a team. 

Purposeful opportunities were everywhere.  Encouraging my students to understand better and more deeply became my educator goal.  Wondering why something made sense to me became a mystery adventure.  Imaging WHY became my mission statement.  My lectureship career became a calling.  The cycle of flourishing repeated itself and continues to this day.

I hope I don’t come across as boasting or proud, rather I am sharing the eureka of discovering why and how my calling evolved.  It was all about inventing baby step achievements such that the smallest task was a joy I savoured and a chance to do a little better. 

Many of us can harmonize our engagement, meaning (purpose), achievement and calling.  Want to upgrade your career to a calling? Use achievement as the catalyst.  Design micro achievement tasks and moments into your day and relish those successes.

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ACHIEVEMENT AND GRIT (Part Two)*

Achievement, a sense of pride in finishing a task well and properly, is for many an important dimension of their well-being.  Especially in the early and mid-part of your career, learning and mastering new skills is what defines the degree of success you achieve and the promotions that follow.  Striving to do better gets you up in the morning and allows you to enjoy your employment position. Later on, it is those eureka moments when a subtle mystery or revelation opens a new door to self-discovery.  Your career becomes a calling, those achievements really matter, even though others would likely not understand why.

The equation:  Achievement = Skill x Effort provides some interesting insights into the psychology of achieving, especially about what exactly is Skill. 

Skill is what learning, practice and time mature.  But what is going on as you become more skillful?  Two parallel processes are occurring, one fast and one slow, simultaneously.  As you gain experience, more and more of the everyday processes become easier, quicker and more automatic.  You don’t have to think about many of the aspects of the tasks as you are unconsciously capable, and you have a natural intuition of what is going on.  An important aspect of learning is making more of what you know automatic and instinctual.

But behind the scene, the brain width you are not using as you are on automatic pilot allows you to focus on slower, deeper thinking, as you engage the higher order executive brain functions. The faster the speed, the more the knowledge you have, and thus the more time left over for these executive functions to be used.  Thinking slowly involves the voluntary, heavyweight processes of achievement, such as planning, checking for errors, using new information, inhibiting fastness and CREATIVITY. To be more skillful means you are both faster and more automatic but also slower and better at not making mistakes and identifying/resolving unexpected circumstances in a timely manner.  Having natural talents is a blessing, but working passionately and persistently can overcome talent in the longer run.  

So what?!  Achievement is more about GRIT and determination than IQ or natural talents.  The better athletes, experts, executives, scholars and managers are likely the ones that have more GRIT, rather than those with higher IQ or natural gifts.  Eventually the slower, more executive skills become purposeful and distinguish you from others. That slow thinking is what professional judgement is all about and what distinguishes the exemplar from the average.

Whether achievement matters to you on a career or well-being level, learn how to recognize and promote it!

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*: Flourish: A New Understanding of Happiness and Wellbeing: The practical guide to using positive psychology to make you happier and healthier by Martin Seligman and

Grit: Why Passion and Persistence are the Secrets to Success by Angela Duckworth

NEUROPLASTICITY

A part of me used to believe that I cannot change, that what you see is what you get.  I was finished goods and largely set to stay the way I was.  Fortunately that is not true, one can change in often significant ways.  Scientifically this ability to change or “re-wire” the brain is called neuroplasticity. An adult’s mind is somewhat like plastic and can be re-shaped. What a wonderful possibility! One can become a better person, and well-being is a real possibility.  As positive psychology research has found, around 40% of our well-being is a function of our intentions and willful actions.  That’s a lot of scope for change and improvement.

But how?  To start, change is not automatic or unconscious, you have to be aware and intentional.  Habits take on average take 66 days of practice to be routine and part of your natural repertoire.  So be modest, and take baby steps that are within your reach. 

If you want to become, for example, more thoughtful, seek out or plan multiple daily situations where being thoughtful could be exhibited.  Re-frame the way you see and do things through a “thoughtful” lens.  Observe in others examples of thoughtfulness.  Bring thoughtfulness for others into your conversations.  Make those close to you aware of your new mission and ask them to acknowledge and praise you when you act thoughtfully.   Ponder the depth and breadth of thoughtfulness, how it has many characteristics and expressions.  Journalize your thoughtful achievements.  Pride in one’s success is one of the more positive emotions, so use it to encourage yourself that you are succeeding.  Expect setbacks and bad days.  Over those 66 plus days your brain will be subtly re-programmed to become more thoughtful. 

Neuroplasticity, being able to change for the better, enables your well-being to grow.  Positive change is deliberate, gradual, and awkward at times, but immensely rewarding.  So go for it.

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HAPPENSTANCE

Happenstance can be defined as circumstances that seem to be due to chance, especially those causing fortunate results. But are they really? So much of my life has been blessed by allowing for and/or seeking out such moments.

For example, when I travel one of my guiding principles is: “When in doubt, turn left.”  The corollary of this travel tip is: “Get lost.” If I am walking down a street in a calm neighborhood and I see a side-street on my left, that’s where I go. I have been amazed by the number of curious sights I have come across, or interesting characters I have met.  Most of my wonderful memories occur when I am lost.

When I am alone in a crowd I often greet the person next to me with a respectful question that starts with” Hello my friend ….?”   Rarely has that person been other than keen to answer or help.  Almost without exception those I interacted with were helpful, open and eager to be helpful. 

Similarly, my definition of success is when preparation meets opportunity.    Setting yourself up for more success requires one to cause deliberate happenstance.  Put yourself in opportune circumstances and then risk being notable and present. 

To improve the effectiveness of this strategy it is recommended that you start by ensuring that the environment is SAFE, however you define safety. Recognize that you are likely at the edge of your comfort zone, and that is good, so risk being in this zone.  Acknowledge you are letting go of control and then LET GO.  Please be respectful of others that you will engage with. Count backwards from 5 to 0 and GO for it. 

Allowing ourselves to be vulnerable to new situations and people empowers several of our strongest positive emotions: awe, interest, and curiosity.  Push yourself to the limits of your comfort zone, and make it bigger. If you are coming from a good place, so often taking chances in this way will bless you richly.

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BAD, BUT (MUCH) BETTER*

Try answering the questions below:

1. On average, how many fewer year(s) of schooling does a 30 year old woman have than a 30 year old man?  A: 1 year   B: 2 years   C: three or more years

2. In the last 20 years, the proportion of the world population living in extreme poverty has …    A: almost doubled   B: remained more or less the same            C: almost halved

3. There are 2 billion children in the world today, aged 0 to 15 years old. How many children will there be in the year 2100, according to the United Nations? A: 2 billion   B: 3 billion   C: 4 billion

4. How did the number of deaths per year from natural disasters change over the last hundred years? A: More than doubled   B: Remained about the same C: Decreased to less than half

5. How many of the world’s 1-year-old children today have been vaccinated against some disease? A: 80%   B: 50%   C: 20%

6. In 1996, tigers, giant pandas, and black rhinos were all listed as endangered. How many of these three species are more critically endangered today?         A: Two of them   B: One of them   C: None of them

 How did you do (correct answers below)? These questions were posed to over 12,000 people in 14 “developed” countries. The average person got only one right and very few (less than 2%) got them all correct*.

 So what?!  The awesomeness of these questions is that the world is actually making some significant progress in these areas, more than we sometimes imagine. Girls are almost as well educated as boys. Poverty levels are the lowest ever.  Population growth rates are stabilizing.  Given the quadrupling of world population, the relative devastation from natural disasters has been reduced by almost 90%.   Infant illness prevention is happening. Conservation is working. Things may be BAD, but they are MATERIALLY BETTER than they were.  The problem is our awareness about well-being is about 30 years behind the true situation.

 Good news does not sell.  Tragedy and violence is news worthy. Joy and peace seem to be uninteresting.  Gradual and significant improvement is ignored.  Misfortune is assumed the normal state of nature. A nearly empty cup of blessings is the default condition.

 Real progress is occurring, and at a historically high and persistent rate.  Be certain that the state of well-being of the least fortunate may be bad, but it is MUCH better than it was.  That’s encouraging. It shouldn’t make us complacent, but it does give us cause to hope.

 Correct answers: 1: A, 2: C, 3: A, 4: C, 5: A, 6: C

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*Source of the questions and data: Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About The World - And Why Things Are Better Than You Think" by Hans Rosling, Ola Rosling, Anna Rosling Rönnlund. The raw data comes from UN data bases.

CURIOUS?!?

The world and what you and I know about it is changing at an alarming pace. What we were taught seems to be less relevant or timely with each passing day.  How does one stay ahead or on top of what is current or useful? Additionally, just behind us is artificial intelligence, which is challenging our employment prospects. The standard response is lifelong learning.  I agree that lifelong learning is a useful defensive measure, but what might be a more effective offensive strategy?

Let’s use my area of expertise, financial accounting, as an example.  When I was learning the trade in the 70’s one could largely master most of the body of knowledge with a reasonable degree of diligence.  When I taught it, things began to change as more and more issues were raised and addressed, in an increasingly complex world.  Specialists emerged, where previously there were few areas of specialist expertise. Now that approach is falling short for the generalists and the specialists, as there is just so much information and not enough time to absorb it all.

My suggestion when confronting the challenges of the knowledge explosion and artificial intelligence is to apply our uniquely human quality of CURIOUSITY to the situation.  We need to risk being truly curious about what ever newness we are confronting.  Rather than being trained and re-trained, we must become fully engaged in the marvel of whatever new or novel learning confronts us.

To me, curiosity is the blending together of at least eight of the ten positive emotions*, being joy, savouring (remembering), interest, hope, amusement, inspiration, love and awe, applied to our area of expertise and life more generally.  Learning and knowledge growth is most effective when one is joyfully and actively engaged. Being curious means investing in order to grow and internally prosper. Artificial Intelligence will never be able to beat us on emotional curiosity.

Let’s use our “curiosity” advantage to our advantage.

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*: See 26th February, 2019 for more detail of the ten positive emotions

THE FIVE MINUTE ETHICS COURSE

I will never forget one particular learning experience:  a student of mine taught me a method to test whether an action was ethical or not, all in under five minutes.  I have experimented with the system he taught me and it seems pretty much bullet proof. 

If you are confronted with an ethical dilemma and your answer is a confident YES TO ALL THREE of these questions, it is highly likely that what you are contemplating IS ETHICAL.  If one answer is a NO, then you are likely offside.

First, apply the Golden Rule Test, which is: Do unto others as you would have others do unto you. (Or the Confucian form which is: Don’t do unto others as you would not have others do unto you.)  If someone did what you are considering to you would you be offended, harmed or displeased?  Reciprocity or tit-for-tat is an essential test for much of our behaviour.

Second, the Role Model Test, which is:  If you were a parent would you want your child to do what you are considering?  Would you want to set this action up as an example which your offspring would follow and consider “normal”? Is this the type of role modeling you want to promote?

Third, the Front Page Test, which is: If you had editorial privilege and the entire front page of the newspaper, could you fully explain and justify your action to an objective, informed and diligent reader?  By definition, ethical dilemmas are complex, full of contextual details and awkward trade-offs.  Would a thoughtful and independent observer, after evaluating the full circumstance of your situation, decide in your favour, or at least give you the benefit of the doubt? 

I have shared these tests with many and pondered them, appraising situations I have heard about or experienced through their lens. I would recommend this five minute ethics course as highly effective, and a good primer for life.  It is simple enough to teach young children, and robust enough to guide seasoned professionals.

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CIRCLE(S) OF COMPETENCE

My career was blessed by two simple but fortunate decisions I made in my early teens.  The first was to decide very clearly what I did not want to do or become, and avoid these topics like they were the plague.  Secondly, I listened carefully to my heart and head at the same time, and heard what they suggested in terms of what I was naturally better at or interested in.

I sensed early on that I was better with numbers than the arts.  Next, I observed that I preferred dollar signs to co-sines, so I pursued business rather than engineering studies.  I was more comfortable being loud than quiet, and made lots of similarly small trade-offs. What I deliberately did was to make the circle of what I was better at or more interested in smaller and smaller.  Warren Buffett calls this “staying within your circle of competence”.

What this means is to decrease the range or breadth of things you find meaningful, whilst at the same time increasing the depth of how you understand and improve the skills related to this body of knowledge and expertise.  I mindfully stumbled into things that spoke to me emotionally and intellectually, committed to what I was expected to learn, was privately proud of my self-learning and let these insights wholeheartedly lead me on. By my middle twenties I found my career and in my early thirties I discovered my calling.

What was critical was to always stay within my decreasing circle of competence.  And at the same time, to TOTALLY BUY-IN WITH HEART, BODY AND SOUL. Decreasing the scale but increasing the scope of my world was awesome and completely ME.  It became easier and easier to enter a state of flow where a sense of self and time disappeared, where high challenge was coupled with high levels of skill.  A career becoming a calling that happened organically.  Even now I still discover or re-invent new circles of competence which I get totally excited about.  I focused almost exclusively on my strengths, but managed my weaknesses where unavoidable.

You can do the same: find, invest in, commit to and be proud of your circles of competence.

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I DON’T KNOW

Early in my career, when I was asked a question that challenged my knowledge or understanding I would venture an answer based on my best educated guess.  Partly out of pride and false confidence, an answer would emerge. 

 Then one day I changed my reply to: “That was a good question. I don’t know. Can I get back to you on that?” if I was less than certain of the answer.

 Publicly acknowledging that I did not know was wonderful; a true breath of relief to admit my limitations.  Letting go of thinking or acting as if you know more than you really do is such a joy.  It encouraged my learning and zeal in my area of expertise as I now had topics to explore more carefully and curiously.  That small uncertainty was so exciting, I could probe some obscure issue with a new perspective.

 I have learned to understand the empowerment of admitting I don’t know and sharing my limitations that with others.  This honesty increases the confidence in what I do know and understand, but adds a note of humility and sincerity to my advice and instruction.  It is okay to have gaps in your knowledge.

 I noticed that others were fine with me not knowing the precise answer, particularly when I did get back to them later.  This ignorance seemed to increase their trust in what I otherwise suggested.  Being overconfident in your expertise is unnecessary and possibly even unprofessional.

 Being humble and honest about what you don’t know opens you to being in awe of your body of knowledge.  Exploring these omissions is good for your critical thinking abilities.  Humbly admitting you don’t know something is excellent medicine for your well-being.

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HESITATION AND THE FIVE SECOND RULE

Who doesn’t hesitate at least occasionally, if not often?  While in a warm shower, who wants to get out?  A few more minutes in bed?

“I should phone so and so.” “I should start the painting”.  We have all been there a hundred times. Joseph Addison wrote the often quoted line, “He who hesitates is lost,” yet we persist in our inability to move on or engage.

Hesitation is a combination of reluctance, fear and pleasure (short term,) prevailing over wellness (long term).  Hesitation is costly not only in lost time, but more importantly opportunities foregone.

One day I accidentally came across the simplest, most effective and cheapest solution to the hesitation dilemma.  Mel Robbins coined The 5 Second Rule* and my, does it work.  When you are in one of those hesitation situations you simply say,

“5, 4, 3, 2, 1, GO”

and you enact whatever you are delaying, fearful of, or debating.  Get out of the shower, bed, say hello, leave or whatever.  Mel got the idea from watching a rocket launch where they say 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, LIFTOFF and so she launched her own career as a motivational speaker on overcoming hesitation. Why 5 to 1, not 1 to 5?  That is part of the success formula, as counting up has no limit but counting down does hit a limit, and you have no alternative but to go.

I have shared this effective remedy with others and it really works.  Soon you appreciate that over thinking, stopping, and second guessing yourself are just defense strategies to avoid your current situation.  And then you learn that whatever you are reluctant to do was actually not that bad – you just have to get started sometimes – and that is the hardest bit.

I heartily recommend the video link below for more inspiration:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSn-L9IXbOY

5, 4, 3, 2, 1, GO  and click the link above (I dare you).

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BEING IN THE FLOW

We have all been in the flow** and relish these moments.  This is where one is engaged in an activity which is both high in challenge, but matched with a high level of personal skill.  Awareness of time disappears, one is totally absorbed in the task at hand and in a state of peace, joy and total presence in the moment.  In sports, the experience of flow is described as being “in the zone”.   The importance of having a high degree of personal control over your circumstance makes the flow that much more authentic.  By contrast, the opposite of flow is apathy or boredom, where one is using few of one’s skills, and the level of task challenge is low, with generally limited autonomy.

There are challenges to being in the flow, and they can be overcome.  A good place to start is to appreciate the importance of deliberately combining high levels of challenge and skill together.  The synergy of skill and challenge can motivate you to design part of your career or leisure time to allow for more flow situations. 

Creatively and carefully look at your job or leisure time and consider where there are opportunities to develop new skills or challenging opportunities.  Look at some of your more frequent but boring or less satisfying obligations and see if they can be re-engineered to being more skillful or challenging.  I disliked the exams marking aspect of university lecturing.  Subsequently I re-engineered the exam papers, questions, answer booklets, grade allocation/calibration, marking pens, marking space and work space arrangement such that grading was more skillful and properly challenging (though never a joy).  Also see where there are opportunities for increased autonomy and design activities for skill improvement and challenge.

The awesome thing about flow is that by deliberately embedding it into your daily rituals, your occupational and intellectual well-being improves (two of the seven aspect of wellness).  

 

**: Mihály Csíkszentmihályi coined and researched flow extensively.  The TedTalk video noted below provides more details on flow:

www.ted.com/talks/mihaly_csikszentmihalyi_on_flow?language=af

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Student or Learner?

I have taught in a university environment for over thirty years, so I have seen a lot of students and learners. What I have concluded over all these years is that students study and learners learn. 

 In my experience, those who study memorize, re-perform, cram and try to second guess the exam. They often fail to engage with the more intriguing and less easily accessed aspects of the topic.

 Learners learn by pondering questions, engaging, visiting the theory and the rich “WHYNESS” of the materials. It goes without saying that they get a lot more out of the course.

 It is very easy to differentiate between learners and students.  Learners come to class and life prepared, having invested some time in advance to plan, and they try to understand the nature of the problem or topic under consideration.  Conversely, students in school and life often avoid preparation, fuss about unimportant tangential details, are adverse to ambiguity and intimidated by reflection. They are convinced there is a magic bullet, a short cut or trick to success, and they avoid engagement with the complexities of an issue.

 As in the classroom, so in life. For the student of life, as the problem gets more complicated and rife with unpleasant trade-offs, they often seek simple black and white solutions.  The learners of life appreciate that interesting challenges are not black and white, there are better but not right solutions, and an understanding of the underlying issues behind a problem may yield some interesting insights that will help to ultimately resolve it.

 Life and learning is not fair or kind: learners tend to have higher employment satisfaction and remuneration. Their preparedness and more thoughtful approach pays off. Learning also connects us with our more positive emotions, ultimately improving our well-being as we lose ourselves in the sheer joy of exploring something new.

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