To be human is to be creative.
Metaphors are Powerful Communication Enhancers
I wonder if you have ascribed to the notion that metaphorical literacy is just for poets and other creative writers. At its most basic level, metaphor involves describing one thing in terms of another, as in, “Oh, my love is like a red, red rose” by Robert Frost.
When you become attentive to metaphor, you can discover that it is everywhere! Markets soar, climb, leap higher, drop off cliffs, surge and bounce back. These frames of reference set expectations at the unconscious level of mind, are persuasive and can lead to erroneous decision making.
Metaphor is an amazingly deep subject that involves setting expectations and influencing decision making with the ‘this is like that’ frame of reference used, many times leveraging natural, human cognitive biases. Hearing about markets climbing, for example, can lead to positive expectancy that the trajectory will continue when logic would tell you that this optimism is unwarranted…leading, for example, to erroneous decision making in buying and selling of stock or purchasing a home.
Conversely, there is MUCH to say about the positive influence and power of metaphoric competency!
The Golden Path from Visualization to Manifestation
Visualization leverages your natural ability to create mental pictures, or mental movies of what you intend to manifest in the world. Whether you are seeking innovative ideas, improved health, prosperity, improved performance or inner peace, for example, your capacity to visualize a clear image or idea of the goal (immersed in positive emotion) will propel you along the path to achieving it.
And when you focus on your goal or intent repeatedly, in this way, giving it ever increasing positive energy, you may be delighted to discover just how quickly your vision becomes a reality in your life
Everyone Can Use Visualization to Accomplish Goals
Many people have heard about the power of visualization to enable them to reach their goals but question their own ability to visualize. It’s critically important not to let this stop you. It is not at all necessary to mentally ‘see’ an image. But as you practice, you will likely get better at seeing images in the mind’s eye.
While some people are naturally more visually oriented, others are more auditory or kinesthetic (touch and feeling oriented). We all use our imaginations constantly and whatever sensory experience you have is just fine. Stay tuned for more posts on how to visualize. It’s a power just waiting to be tapped, and you will be amazed at what you can accomplish.
Muhammad Ali Made Powerful Use of Visualization
What Lies Beneath: Hypnotherapy is Helping Me Get to the Bottom of My Depression
Below you will find an informative, and humorous article about hypnosis that I was interviewed for by The Root publication. It provides information on how and why it works and reflections on the experience of hypnosis by a client.
https://www.theroot.com/what-lies-beneath-hypnotherapy-is-helping-me-get-to-th-1834881753
William James, on the Power of Mind
The greatest revolution in our generation is the discovery that human beings, by changing their inner attitudes of mind, can change the outer aspects of their lives.
#4 of 4: Four Core Brain Networks that Leaders Should Know About
Unlike the other 3 brain networks discussed (Default, Reward and Affect) by Waytz and Mason in their HBR article, the Control Network operates at a conscious level. The authors point out that the Control Network is what makes us distinctly human. Unlike animals that operate at purely instinctive levels, we have the capacity to reflect on ourselves, our actions and the world, and to make conscious choices about actions that counter what is instinctively driven at an unconscious level. We can decide whether or not to stay at a job, to pursue a goal, and even to break an unwanted habit.
As a consulting hypnotist, and from the perspective of vast study and practice in the field, the author’s discussion of the Control Network seemed to be least aligned with my experience. They describe the Default Network and the Control Network as “bookends,” because, “they are essentially countervailing forces.” According to the authors, “The more engaged the control network is in distributing resources to achieve goals rooted in the real world, the less engaged the default network is in detaching from the real world and imagining alternatives, and vice versa.”
My experience has taught me that the Control Network (which is commonly called the Executive Function) is indeed the part of mind that sets goals, plans, prioritizes and makes decisions. But, very importantly, the Default Network (i.e., part of the unconscious mind) is the part of mind that follows through on, and executes those goals and decisions. The Default part of mind does not make decisions, but it is THE powerhouse of resources that can offer creative solutions and innovations in response to a decision made by the Control Network. People have far more power than they may have ever imagined when the Default (i.e., unconscious) part of mind is aligned with the Control (i.e., conscious) part of mind.
You may recall that when discussing the Default Network (i.e. part of unconscious mind), I made the point that the conscious mind and the unconscious mind can be guided to work seamlessly together. When the Default Network understands what the Control Network intends to accomplish, it sets about scanning the internal landscape for ideas, opportunities and solutions to meet the goal. And it can do this concurrently with activation of the Control Network. While the Control Network goes about its daily tasks, the Default network can be instructed to work beneath the level of conscious awareness in finding a creative idea or solution. And when it has discovered a response to a question or a solution to a challenge, for example, that answer or solution is delivered up to conscious mind, and voila, you have a Eureka! Experience.
I often describe the conscious mind as the captain of the ship. It is that part of mind that stands on high and calls out instructions through a megaphone to the crew beneath the deck. The crew beneath the deck is the part of mind that simply follows through on the instructions given by the captain, without judgment or veto power.
Hence, the idea presented by Waytz and Mason of the Control Network being tasked with “policing all the brain’s other networks,” and “suppressing” the Default Network simply doesn’t fit with my experience. I believe that the powerful alignment of both the Control Network, operating at a conscious level of mind, and the Default Network, operating at an unconscious level of mind, can work in beautiful, harmonious synergy.
#3 of 4: Four Core Brain Networks that Leaders Should Know About
The Affect Network, or in the parlance of brain anatomy—the Limbic System—is the emotional system of the body. Events that take place in the world, as well as thoughts in the mind trigger a whole host of internal biochemical chain-reactions within the body that ultimately lead to physical outcomes such as alterations in heart rate, blood pressure and body temperature. And that biochemical and physical process is what emotion is comprised of. Heart rate, for example, goes down to normal levels when experiences and thoughts are happy, and up when they are anxiety producing. This is important to understand for a wide variety of reasons. But for our purposes here, let’s apply it to the experience of ‘gut instinct,’ and leveraging this internal compass for business success.
It’s important to start with a step back, to look at how memory and learning work, because memories and learnings stored in the brain are the elements that trigger emotions. Over a lifetime, people continuously build up a bank of memories that are categorized by association (i.e., this experience is like that experience and that experience is like this experience). Each time we have an experience in the world, the mind automatically compares that experience to the bank of memories stored and either finds a match—this is like that—or finds that experience to be a novel one.
Waytz and Mason, in their HBR article, use an example of someone having a powerfully bad encounter with a habanero pepper that burnt the mouth and left an indelible lesson: habanero peppers are bad. “The point is,” say the authors, “you don’t have to do any rational analysis to decide whether to eat habaneros the next time they’re presented to you.” You now have a fast track to decision-making in which you don’t need any further data to analyze. I would add to this example that the mind, even at an unconscious level, can generalize to other kinds of peppers, concluding that all peppers are bad. In this scenario, the individual may be unnecessarily limiting their eating experience, because all peppers are not hot, or not as hot as the habanero. In some cases, the associations made by the brain are unnecessarily generalized.
Now, let’s round this back to leveraging the gut instinct by imagining a professional with a big, high risk decision to make, the outcome of which will have significant impact on the business, either positive or negative, depending on the outcome. And the decision maker is a seasoned professional with great depth of experience, who has had a large team analyzing data gathered to facilitate making the big decision. Let’s say the decision is around whether to invest significantly in a new partnership. All of the due diligence data looks good, pointing to a ‘go’ as opposed to a ‘no go’ decision. Yet, the decision maker is uncharacteristically plagued with sleepless nights over this decision, waking up frequently in the middle of the night with a pit of soreness in her gut. She knows that all of the data point to a positive outcome, but she just can’t rid herself of a ‘feeling’ of doom and gloom. What should she do? Because she is operating within a business culture that relies on data and logic at the expense of ‘gut feelings,’ she procrastinates on bringing her concerns to her boss.
The point of this example is that the negative feeling this professional has about her situation should be deemed important, because she has a wealth of experience that the inner mind has to draw upon to set off alarm signals, even if she is not consciously aware of what is triggering her concerns. This is not to throw the baby out with the bathwater and discard or dismiss data and rational input. But the subjective, internal knowing could be at the very crux of what this company needs to pay attention to.
‘Gut feelings’ are by no means always accurate. Take the example above in which learning and associations have led to the belief that all peppers are bad. On this very small scale, this can lead to a life of unnecessarily bland eating. Associations can be distorted, as well, all the way up to the scale of a critical business decision. Having said that, more business are embracing the full scope of inputs, including emotions, to guide their judgments and decisions and reaping excellent returns.
#2 of 4: Four Core Brain Networks that Leaders Should Know About
The second core brain network discussed by Waytz and Mason in their HBR article is the Reward Network. This network should be understood by organizational development professionals, marketers, and anyone who manages and leads people. (Please note that you can find discussion of all 4 Brain Networks discussed by Waytz and Mason in a recent HBR article under the category of “The Brain Terrain” on this blog.)
This Reward Network is activated whenever one experiences pleasure in life. When this brain network receives a ‘rewarding’ stimulus, such as when eating a favorite food, it sends a signal for activation of a part of the midbrain known as the Ventral Tegmental Area (VTA), where dopamine is produced, and we feel pleasure. Dopamine transmits the sensation of pleasure and this experience encourages us to want to repeat the behavior—in this case eating a favorite food—in the future. So, for executives and leaders with responsibility for generating good feelings among employees about a workplace, loyalty and optimal conditions for top performance, this particular network is worthy of attention. Likewise, marketers and brand managers who seek to create trial, repeat purchasing and loyalty among their customers are greatly benefited by knowing what types of products and experiences engage and activate reward networks of customers.
Prior to the late 20th century, the level of scientific understanding was that the body’s reward system was activated when primary survival needs were met, such as eating, drinking much needed fluids, and having sex (i.e., survival of the species). According the Waytz and Mason, research has now demonstrated that the reward network in the brain is also sensitive to secondary rewards, including money. And with further research, ‘immaterial rewards’ were added into the mix of what activates the reward center, including status, social approval and anticipation of learning. Curiosity is central to human nature and, for most people, learning is very rewarding.
Delving deeper into the applied realm, a body of Reward Network research has focused on discovering the types of experiences that motivate employees, which Waytz and Mason outline in their HBR article. If a company conducts a survey, they may or may not get honest answers, but direct observation of activation or deactivation of the reward center, through the use of brain scanning technologies, always tells the truth. Waytk and Mason describe research by Jamil Zaki of Stanford and Jason Mitchell of Harvard, that demonstrates that ‘fairness’ is critically important in motivating people, even those who are part of the “privileged few.” When research subjects were assigned the task of dividing up small amounts of money between themselves and others, findings indicated that the reward centers of their brains were much more activated when they made “generous, equitable choices.” Hence, one among many suggestions made by Waytz and Mason is that “companies that maintain a reasonable level of internal pay equity would do well to publicize that information among employees. A workplace deemed to be fair is a happy workplace that garners respect and loyalty.
Conversely, unfairness, in all of its expressions, demotivates and deactivates the reward center. This ‘unfairness,’ say Waytk and Mason, includes experiences such as being left out of strategy meetings when one is fully qualified to be there, withholding information from employees, and skyrocketing executive pay. All of this knowledge provides a wealth of information about how to structure cultures that motivate and engage employees, and promote job satisfaction, company loyalty and high performance.