The Science of Emotion

Leadership is a Science

Leadership used to be referred to as an art.  Now it is a proven science.  Every component of this process has a purpose.  Like the endless lines of zeros and ones in binary code, it is not only the content of each component but the space between that produces the results.

Humor with a purpose

In live presentations I am most often described as a humorist, but my purpose is not laughter.  I use humor to share difficult lessons in an entertaining way.  Most of us don’t appreciate being preached-at or talked-down-to but we all want to be part of an energizing success story.   I combine powerful real life stories of business, science and spirit to create life-changing lessons wrapped in packages of side-splitting laughter.  The challenge has been how to continue associating new ideas with positive emotions.

Stages of change

The first stage when applying any new idea is often described as uninformed optimism.  This is the time when the benefits are clear and we have not yet experienced the discomfort of developing a new habit.  Learning anything new, regardless of its benefits, is typically awkward and awkward is uncomfortable.

This stage is described as informed pessimism and virtually every change we make includes this stage.  Without an understanding of the inevitable experience of this process and peer support for moving to the next level of informed realism 70% of change efforts will result in failure.  Our logical minds are puny in comparison to the awesome power of our emotional minds.

Emotion Vs. Logic

Our logical and emotional minds are separate with logic being resident largely in the cortex and our emotions in our limbic or reptilian minds.

More than just big emotions like love and fear, our limbic minds establish the value of EVERYTHING.  Every logical thought is attached to an emotional rating system without which thoughts have no meaning.  Those who have damage to a part of our limbic brain called the amygdala may logically know everything they have always known but lose the ability to place an emotional importance to their understanding.  They remember what a venomous snake is but no longer feel fear.  The point is that our emotions drive our actions.

Logic Looses

Our limbic minds are the heroes in crisis by initiating action before our logical minds even begin to process the experience.  But as life saving as our emotional mind is in crisis it is also equally powerful at debilitating our logical abilities when we are under stress.  Stress effectively shuts down our ability to think reason and even see.  The condition is called Attention Deficit Trait and its presence in our workplace has increased tenfold in the last decade.

Where are we so far:

• Change begins with Uninformed Optimism. (:

• Quickly changes to Informed Pessimism. ):

• Fighting negative feelings with positive thoughts is a waste of time.

We are wired for FEAR

Millions of years before we thought, we felt.  This means that in the evolution of our species our emotional (limbic) mind has a huge head start.

We have learned that our emotional brain is stronger and faster than our thinking (cognitive) brain.

But our feeling mind also has one HUGE disadvantage in that it is not very discerning.  Our amygdala does not differentiate between a charging lion and a boss that is simply lying.  Both are considered a threat.  The response to real “Claws” is perfect but having the same physiological response to an inaccurate “clause” is entirely inappropriate.  This limbic deficiency is further amplified by our super power survival instinct.

All our perception is prioritized to ensure our survival, which puts any perceived threat at the very top of our limbic to do list.  If you want to always remember exactly why we notice and remember every perceived threat.  This one phrase says it all.

You can eat many times, but you
can only be eaten once.