Your emotional brain is smarter than your brain thinks

Yur emotional brain is smarter than your brain thinksYour emotional brain is smarter than your brain thinksDecisions drive our daily activities.The need to decide is never-ending. You make decisions even when you unconsciously think you are choosing not to decide.And we dont always choose the fruchtwein rational option.Everyone processes information with both the rational and emotional parts of the brain. Here is an example that sounds familiar.Follow Ladders on FlipboardFollow Ladders magazines on Flipboard covering Happiness, Productivity, Job Satisfaction, Neuroscience, and moreYour rational brain knows that certain habits like smoking, and skipping even minimal exercise are bad for your health, the emotional part of your brain sometimes overcome this knowledge, justifies and even rationalize these bad behaviours, and convince you to keep doing everything wrong for your health.The timeless and obvious question is why dont we do things we know we should do?Welcome to the divided br ain.There is a lot of information on the power struggle between the emotional and rational part of the brain.In Kahnemans book, Thinking beinahe and Slow,they are described as two separate systems of thinking first, the emotional and intuitive process, and then the slower and more effortful process of rational logic.These two sections of the brain are always competing and typically call upon either section depending on a lot of factors.Certain situations may require more activity in the rational part of your brain, while others will rely on the emotional section to make a choice.Whether your emotional brain operates out of habit, or personal comfort, its a powerful force when you make decisions every day.Heres the real truthYou cant be rational if you are too emotional, but at the same time, you cant be rational if you are not emotional.When you are too emotional, you wont make rational choices, even though you know whats best for you.Think of times youve decided against your better judgment, ate the cookie, had the drink, or smoked the cigarette.When you are too emotional, your rational brain wont win, even though you know what will make things better.Dealing with life choices, especially, life-changing ones can sound difficult. Without the right information to help you rationalize, it could be overwhelming.But if we had to use logic, and reason in all situations, if we had to rationalize, and critically every decision wed be trapped in a cycle, unable to move in any direction because we would be caught in a loop as we analyze, and contemplate the pros and cons of every choice.Decisions, even critical ones, are not just made away from emotions.Your rational brain represents your ability to reason through various options whilst your emotional brain represents your instincts, impulses, and intuition.While your thinking brain is making provision for your retirement, your feeling brain wants to plan for a vacation.The rational brain is systematic and impartial, but also slow. Like a muscle, its built over time if you exercise it more often.The emotional brain, however, makes decisions quickly and effortlessly, even though its often irrational.While too much emotion can impair reasoning, a lack of emotion can be equally harmful.The heart ofreasonThe heart has reasons that reason knows nothing about, says Pascal.Our emotions are trained by years of logic and experience, retaining it all for real wisdom.Gut feelings and intuition are an integral part of the ability to reason. While emotions can overwhelm rationality, rationality cannot exist without emotions.While too much emotion can impair reasoning, a lack of emotion can be equally harmful. When emotion is impaired, decision-making suffers.To make the right call, you need to feel your way?- ?or at least part of your way?- ?there,writesDrake Baer, The Cut.Make no mistake, your emotional brain drives most of your choices.Michael Levine of Psychology Today, says every time we make a choice, our left-brain arm-wrestles with our right, but rationality only represents about 20% of human decision-making. HeexplainsIt is said that emotions drive 80% of the choices Americans make, while practicality and objectivity only represent about 20% of decision-making. Oh, and forget about making a decision when you are hungry, angry, lonely or tried. The acronym HALT is axactly the point here DONT DO IT If you make a decision while feeling Hungry, Angry, Lonely or Tired (or God-forbid some combination of more than one of the above) emotion wins 100% of the time and will likely push you in the wrong direction.Emotions are the most present, pressing and sometimes painful force in our lives. We have the tendency to allow emotions to dominate logical feelings.We are driven more by our emotions. Reason without emotion is impotent.We take chances quickly because were excited about new prospects.Without a doubt, our emotions dictate our thoughts, intentions and actions with superior authori ty to our rational minds. But when we act on our emotions too quickly, or we act on the wrong kinds of emotions, we often make decisions that we later lament,saysDr Carmen Harra.When close relatives are involved, our emotions dominate even more.Human brain research has suggested that, as our minds have more to process, the likelihood to decide emotionally increases.Less time for reflection may lead to more decisions that seem irrational, but the good berichterstattung is that the emotional brain function to reduce and bound our reasoning which then creates the opportunity to reason more fully.Some people succeed in balancing the two some are always logical but depends on values, personality, and education.The most important decisions we make in life tend to be those that overwhelm us and stress us out. And when we have too much information to consider, our ability to make the right decision is impaired. Jacqueline Claire CiraldowritesStudies have shown that when our mind is overload ed with information, the emotional aspect of our brain tends to win out. When confronted with decisions we are usually faced with a lot to consider, which overwhelms the rational part of our brain. With so much stress put on the rational mind, it is too weak to put up a fight against the emotional mind.The emotional brain drives our consciousness more than we think.Ultimately, our emotion drives action. Thats because action is emotion.While the rational brain exists to help you make calculated choices, the feeling brain is the wisdom and stupidity of the entire body.Anger pushes your body to move. Anxiety pulls it into retreat. Joy lights up the facial muscles, while sadness attempts to shade your existence from view. Emotion inspires action, and action inspires emotion. The two are inseparable,saysMark Manson, author ofEverything Is F*cked A Book About Hope.Your emotional brain is stubborn. Even in the face on facts, and data, it will still choose the path of comfort...the two brai ns are like an elephant and its rider. The rider can steer and pull the elephant in a particular direction, but ultimately, the elephant is going to go where it wants to go, says psychologist Jonathan Haidt.The balance of power between the rider (your rational brain) and elephant(emotional brain) plays a large part in shaping your daily decisions and is typically skewed towards the latter, writes Haidt in his book,The Happiness Hypothesis.No matter how you rationalize a decision, if you dont feel like it, you wont obey your thinking brain. Ultimately if the elephant decides to do something there is little the rider can do to stop it.Your emotional brain sees itself as the intelligent, rational brain, and it believes its in control of your consciousness.Even when you believe you are making rational decisions, the actual choice may, in reality, be based on emotion.Rationality depends on a deeper system of regelung that consists largely of emotions and feelings, says Damsio.Emotion can disrupt reasoning in certain circumstances, but without emotion, there is no reasoning at all.Emotions and feelings are not a luxury, they are a means of communicating our states of mind to others. But they are also a way of guiding our own judgments and decisions. Emotions bring the body into the loop of reason, writes Antnio R. Damsio in his book,Descartes Error Emotion, Reason and the Human Brain.Closing thoughtsThe current age of information overload means, a greater amount of emotional decision making because your rational brain sometimes cant handle all the stress that comes with making calculated choicesBecoming aware of emotions has the benefit of correcting many emotional biases. As you make decisions daily, if you can be mindful and become aware of your emotions, you can identify which decisions can be addressed rationally.Despite the strength of your emotional brain, you can correct the many emotional biases, and give yourself the chance to make more complex decisions ra tionally.This article first appeared on Medium.

This is how you can use fear to your advantage

This is how you can use fear to yur advantageThis is how you can use fear to your advantageFor all the things that were taught in school, the most important lesson we learn in life is one that is a product of the school of hard knocks Fear is our lifelong adversary and friend. Fear is what moves us. Fear is what keeps us in our place. Fear is what pushes us backwards. Fear is what scares us. But boy does fear inspire us. Our quest is to learn how this lifelong adversary and friend can both spur us on, and tear us apart.Think of what an education in life really means. Ask yourself - what does it mean to you?Is it about getting good grades to get a good job? Is it about getting to know yourself in a truer, more intimate way? Is it about love? Hope? Faith? Knowledge? What are the things that you truly want to comprise your life - system be damned? And what are you willing to do to get them?Every step of your journey fear will be their by your side. So you better get used to it. And it s helpful to realize that no matter your path, you will learn as much from fear as you will learn from anything else. It will shape you, but you are also empowered to use it to shape the world around you.The Education of LifeWe learn how to read, learn arithmetic, analyze compounds, elements and more, and yet the most important lessons of life overcoming fear and adversity, rebounding from mistakes and failures and developing rock-solid personal and professional relationships come outside of our school system. Were expected to glean these things from parents, friends, even enemies.But what about when we dont?Were left to our own faculties, which are often unable or inexperienced enough to help us with the things that really matter. A great education will take you far. Theres no doubt about it. But where you really go for the win is when you learn how to meld emotional intelligence into your thoughts and actions.Thispiece from Harvard geschftlicher umgang Review, by Matt Brubaker and Foster Mobley, takes into account four great ways to combat fear. Its an excellent step-by-step process to incorporate emotional intelligence and break down four parts of fear and how this cycle manifests itself in our livesStep 1 Acknowledge the Fear In the acknowledge phase, we suggest that people take a close look at their history and examine the choices theyve made and the reasons behind those choices.Step 2 Interrogate the fear to better understand it assess current reality and look at the costs of fear spen(d) time considering what it would mean if (you)failed at something.Step 3 Choose a different course of action. This is about deciding what to do next and making commitments - understanding what truly matters to you.Step 4 Act on that choice - in a way that aligns with your values. The last step is to deliver on your commitments.Attributes like acknowledging, confronting and choosing action and commitment are essential for dealing with fear. This brings out our self-aware ness, empathy, self-care and the courage to combat fear. Absolutely essential for living life on our terms.And yet, so many of us run away from our dreams. Our harte nuss isnt that we arent bold, mindful or thoughtful enough, its that we give-in to fear.Making Your MoveYou can also try this simple exerciseThink about the thing that you love most in life.This may be your family or loved ones, but cast that to the side for a second and place that into a separate bucket. Think about the thing, hobby, activity or venture that you are most passionate about, that gets you excited, inspired, enthused and that truly lights the fire inside of you. What are the things that give color and meaning to your life?The things that you dream about, that deep down your intuition, heart and mind are calling you to do?Now - try this simple exercise Look back at the past six months. How many times have you moved in the direction of this thing during that time period? In fact - if you were to attempt in hindsight to measure your progress toward that thing that you love, how far have you actually traveled?What if I told you that all of the successful people that you admire started out from identical circumstances to you? Im bedrngnis talking about financial status or class, race or background. Im talking about the mental and emotional states in life. The fight or flight response to tackling your biggest dreams and challenges.We either move in the direction of what we want most, or by not advancing - or perhaps even retreating - we stay stuck. We never find out the answer to one of lifes most important questions What if we actually become who were are destined to be?Its never a question of desire. To want or hope begins in our minds. Then, we have to believe that what we want is possible. Thats called faith. By backing faith with enthusiasm, we have formed a firm, rock-solid foundation of emotional and mental well-being. Without this, its doubtful you will ever be able to do somet hing great.The good news is - its very likely you already have this. You certainly have this in you, you need to believe and you need to get excited about it.From this seminal moment - this epic life decision point - is the crossroads of whether you will live the life of your dreams or settle for mediocrity. I dont mean to sound dour or pessimistic, in fact, far from it. Im an external optimist. And Im also hear to tell you that this next step - this willingness and wherewithal to overcome fear - is what will make or break you.Counter-Intuitive FightIf youre willing to fight - you first must be willing to mentally and emotionally prepare yourself to overcome that terrible enemy who threatens to thwart you before you even begin. You must overcome the voice inside your head telling you all of the following liesYoure not talented/good/skilled/able enoughYoure too old OR too youngYou dont have enough experienceYou wont know what to do with successYou wont be able to grow your busi nessYoure better off trying something different this is too toughAnd the list goes on. If youve ever been there before, please, know that Ive been and will continue to be right there with you. And so will the greatest success stories in every field and industry all throughout history. No one knows for sure if theyre ever going to make it. Our success and ideas are dependent on whether tens, hundreds, thousands and millions of other people will accept, need or want themAnd no matter how well researched or prepared we are in the market we aim to penetrate, we will never, ever know until we try. Whether our idea is original or unoriginal, we have to give things a shot.This is why secondly, it all comes down to action. Are you willing to act? Are you willing to go for what you really want? Because if you are, you must turn back to your foundation of desire, faith, and enthusiasm. You must not care what others think. You must fight on by using fear to your advantage. This is how to achie ve the greatest hopes and dreams of your life.Face YourFearsJoin my newsletterfor ways to improve your life and confront your biggest fears. Check out my bestselling book,The Value of Youand if youre interested in working with metry me here.

How HR Best Practice Customization Can Drive Better Results

How HR Best Practice Customization Can Drive Better ResultsHow HR Best Practice Customization Can Drive Better ResultsHow HR Best Practice Customization Can Drive Better Results M. Cantrell and David SmithTodays leading companies are tailoring their work experiences to employees talents and interests. The reward? Greater productivity, higher levels of engagement, lower turnover and a better ability to attract top performers who produce outstanding results.It only makes sense when rewards, learning and jobs are customized to individuals, greater motivation and learning result and peoples work tasks become better aligned with their actual strengths.Customization also improves companies ability to attract and hire top talent by customizing recruiting practices toward specific, desired individuals (and enticing them with a customized experience once they join.) It also increases engagement and lowers turnover costs because people who receive customized offerings often feel more satisfied in their jobs.A Growing Trend toward CustomizationDespite these benefits, few organizations today offer customized HR practices. Consider this shocking statistic only six percent of the 557 employees we surveyed agreed that their human resources practices are highly relevant to them.We think its no coincidence though that the same six percent strongly agrees that their human resource department significantly erleichterungs and improves their performance at work. In an age of increased expectations and fewer resources, generic HR practices have become increasingly hazardous to organizational health. Many organizations face their fruchtwein diverse workforces ever, while they struggle to adapt to complex knowledge needs that no longer fit yesterdays industrialized HR practices.Research from our new book, Workforce of One Revolutionizing Talent Management through Customization (Harvard Business Press, 2010) reveals how a few leading organizations are harnessing new advances in technol ogy to do things differently.Instead of treating their workforce as a single monolithic entity, they are treating each individual as a workforce of one by creating customized work experiences. And they are doing so in a highly structured, coordinated, scalable way that retains some degree of organizational control, consistency and manageability while meeting individuals needs.Four Approaches to CustomizationTo achieve the benefits of customization in a scalable and manageable manner, a number of organizations are pursuing one or more of the following approaches to customization1.Segment the workforce.Straight from the handbook of marketing, companies are grouping employees based on shared preferences and needs, such as their value to the company, role, or generation and then tailoring people practices for each group.Advances in business intelligence and analytics have spurred companies to create altogether new and ever more meaningful segmentation schemes. Companies now also group e mployees by learning styles, values, personality, wellness profiles, mobility, behavioral patterns and even networking and communication styles. For example, Accenture segments employees in part on their overall well-being (e.g., the number of vacation days they have taken and length of time on a project) to identify those who might be at risk for leaving or who cope with high levels of stress.2.Offer bausteinfrmig choices.Companies can also offer employees a predefined list of organizationally-defined options for them to customize and configure their own work experience. At Capital One and Microsoft, for example, employees get to choose from a variety of mix and match workplace options based on their individual needs and changing work tasks.3.Define broad and simple rules.Alternatively, an organization can create a rule so broad and simple that it can flexibly be interpreted in many different ways.Best Buy, for example, sets a broad rule get results and lets employees determine how to accomplish it.The retailer allows many of its headquarters personnel to define when and where they want to work as long as they get the job done.4.Foster employee-defined personalization. Consumers today can define and create their own content using the video-sharing site YouTube or the volunteer-written reference site Wikipedia. In the same way, todays employees can define and create their own people practices. Instead of having a central authority to define employee learning, for example, individuals can define it in highly personal ways through wikis, blogs, YouTube- or Facebook-like applications or even with on-the-job experience.In yet another example at the US Navy, employees, not HR, set the compensation levels in hard-to-fill jobs through an online job auction website. Organizations deliberately decide which practices to foster, monitor and support via processes, technology and incentives.Challenges and Solutions When Transforming the Workplace to MyplaceSculpting work t o fit every employee instead of requiring employees to conform to a standard mold of work is a more complex, sophisticated way of managing talent. While offering vast rewards, it requires organizations to navigate some tricky territory.For example, fairness issues can crop up when peoples employment experiences vary from one another. Organizations that emphasize justice rather than equality and sameness can avoid this scenario.Our research shows that the vast majority of employees will support differential treatment if there are clear, logical, and well-communicated reasons as to why such differential treatment exists.Likewise, as organizations collect more and increasingly personal employee data as a means of offering more relevant people practices, privacy may be challenged too. Yet evidence suggests that once employees understand how the collection of personal information will benefit them, what data will be collected and how it will be used and protected, they are likely to fe el more comfortable sharing this information.Companies that take a deliberate and thoughtful approach to customization for their own organization will have a significant advantage over competitors. By helping employees do what they do best, organizations can become the best they can be, while reaping significant business benefits in the process.Author BiosSusan M. Cantrell is a Research Fellow at the Accenture Institute for High Performance. David Smith is the Managing Director of the Accenture Talent Organization Performance practice.