E – End insecurities – MOVE Up in the World Today, Part 4

How can you make yourself more efficient and productive? You can MOVE. A business coach can help you do that. Just remember that you and your coach can make you and your business MOVE – through Motivation, Opening your mind, Venturing out, and Ending insecurities.

Perhaps the most difficult introspective task for productive professional is learning the ability to critically evaluate and accept feedback. Being critiqued or even criticized can be hard to hear. At SuccessWaves, we challenge you to take this already tough lesson to a higher level: use feedback to increase your confidence.

At the graduate level of higher learning, mentors and educators use the Socratic approach toward created confident expert Masters and PhDs by continually requiring students to defend their work, ideas, and hypotheses. These educators constantly question students on the premises of their work, the logic behind a statement, and require an always-deepening knowledge base of their students. In fact, many of these educators do not consider such students ready to graduate until they have reached the point of being able to adequately respond confidently to such insecurity-developing questioning. Taking a lesson from higher education, being questioned and critiqued can tear us down or give us the tools to learn how to defend our ideas, make better ideas when necessary, and fully own and understand our areas of expertise, and most adept skills.

Such feedback can be found if you look for it, from dissatisfied clients, happy customers, and a business coach; who can holistically evaluate your merits and weaknesses and guide you in assimilating them into a better you, a better business, and increased success.

Embrace your faults and celebrate your strengths. Confidence comes from an honest understanding of your short-comings and heavily employing strengths to your advantage. Trying to hide faults and pretend that they’re strengths only increases insecurities. End insecurities by learning your strengths and using them daily.

Consider a business coach, partner, and friend to train you how to stay motivated, open minded and focused, teach you to venture into creativity and end insecurities! Remember to utilize positive mantras, a sounding board, brainstorming, and critiques all to your advantage in making your business MOVE.

Sue Stebbins
Is the CEO of Successwaves.com
And the Creator of the Groundbreaking Elite Neuro-Entrepreneur
Program- a cutting edge brain science based business growth coaching program,
proven to accelerate a business, or sales leader’s skills
At maximizing their ‘adaptive genius’ and sales, profit, and leadership skills, faster, and smarter.

Known as the ‘Brainy Profit Whisperer” – she has been known to
Add nearly ½ a million in revenue in a month for her clients.
She helps creative and innovative
Leaders, build their skills, their teams, and their neuro-marketing distinctions
So they can be the go to authority in their niche.

To apply or inquire for the Elite Neuro-Entrepreneur program
Click Here

The post E – End insecurities – MOVE Up in the World Today, Part 4 appeared first on Brain Based Strategies for Success.

V – Venture out – MOVE Up in the World Today, Part 3

How can you make yourself more efficient and productive? You can MOVE. A business coach can help you do that. Just remember that you and your coach can make you and your business MOVE – through Motivation, Opening your mind, Venturing out, and Ending insecurities.

Congratulations! You’ve decided you want to make your business more profitable, more efficient, and more productive. As an entrepreneurial small business owner, accomplishing all of this hinges on being your personal best. You’ve decided to MOVE up by learning what kinds of tools you need to stay motivated, increase your focus, and how a business coach might help you achieve your goals. The next step in the process is venturing out – learning how to harness your assets to keep you creative. Luckily for you, creativity is the natural product of being Motivated and Open minded to focus and attention. Positive and philanthropic motivations, which you’ve already learned to internalize and let guide you, can plant seeds of creativity when you feel backed against a wall. Knowing that your business is in part contributing to a greater good can help you ‘think outside of the box’.

A great tool for increasing and cultivating long term creativity is brainstorming alone, with your business coach, and with a team of colleagues. Making word clouds, diagrams, recording stream-of-consciousness ideas and allowing your brain to think and roam uninhibited sparks creativity. What’s better, the more you do these things, the more naturally creativity will come. Brainstorm and journal alone for the ‘rawest’ form of creativity, as solitude releases you from the need to explain your ideas while they’re evolving in your mind. Brainstorm and diagram with a coach for support and critical evaluation, and an environment where you can completely engage in right brain thinking with someone else trained to guide both your creativity and left brain productivity. Host idea-generating meetings with colleagues and workers to foster group collaboration and cooperation.

Take time to be alone, in a calming space like a park or your favorite room in your house. Think about your business problems and creative lapses openly, without stalling on one idea. Mentally moving away from a ‘block’ or seemingly unsolvable problem relaxes your mind and allows it to access the information you already have to help these situations.

Remember that motivation, attention, and powering down all naturally lead to creativity thinking. Use these tools listed to keep your already cultivated creativity high, and MOVE forward to the last step in enhancing your personal productivity, Ending Insecurities.

Sue Stebbins
Is the CEO of Successwaves.com
And the Creator of the Groundbreaking Elite Neuro-Entrepreneur
Program- a cutting edge brain science based business growth coaching program,
proven to accelerate a business, or sales leader’s skills
At maximizing their ‘adaptive genius’ and sales, profit, and leadership skills, faster, and smarter.

Known as the ‘Brainy Profit Whisperer” – she has been known to
Add nearly ½ a million in revenue in a month for her clients.
She helps creative and innovative
Leaders, build their skills, their teams, and their neuro-marketing distinctions
So they can be the go to authority in their niche.

To apply or inquire for the Elite Neuro-Entrepreneur program
Click Here

The post V – Venture out – MOVE Up in the World Today, Part 3 appeared first on Brain Based Strategies for Success.

O – Open your mind  - MOVE Up in the World Today, Part 2

How can you make yourself more efficient and productive? You can MOVE. A business coach can help you do that. Just remember that you and your coach can make you and your business MOVE – through Motivation, Opening your mind, Venturing out, and Ending insecurities.

Attention is directly linked to efficiency of planning and doing, though most of us will admit to feeling attention deficit more often than not. Having someone (or a group of people) act as a sounding board giving immediate, honest feedback can increase your attention and focus. The process of brainstorming and coming up with on-your-feet responses makes you focus, think quickly, troubleshoot, and plan ahead. These things increase the power of your prefrontal cortex ­– the part of your brain responsible for executive function. Executive function covers all higher order thinking including decision-making, problem solving, logical thought, reason, and analysis. The executive function of your brain is analogous to a business executive; in control, decisive, forward thinking, and efficient. These powers reside in the recesses of your brain and need only be utilized to strengthen these skills. A business coach can help you learn to be continually decisive, and give you the tools you need to practice step by step logical though and analytical approaches to problem solving.

You can also learn to train your mind to focus by powering down. Increase your attentive abilities by taking time to focus on your motivating mantra, or simply nothing at all. Much more difficult than it sounds, turning off your thinking can actually create the brain pathways to increasing your ability to focus on one thing by conditioning your brain to tune out the white noise of distractions constantly around you. Increasing your attention span will make you a more efficient businessperson and increase your capacity to learn and retain new information.

Open your mind the SuccessWaves way by opening it selectively; open your mind to attention, calm focus, and single-track thinking while closing your mind to frenetic thought, distraction, and visionless planning.

Increased Motivation and selective Openness to visionary, attentive thinking will enable you to Venture out and be more creative in your business, the next step in MOVE.

Sue Stebbins
Is the CEO of Successwaves.com
And the Creator of the Groundbreaking Elite Neuro-Entrepreneur
Program- a cutting edge brain science based business growth coaching program,
proven to accelerate a business, or sales leader’s skills
At maximizing their ‘adaptive genius’ and sales, profit, and leadership skills, faster, and smarter.

Known as the ‘Brainy Profit Whisperer” – she has been known to
Add nearly ½ a million in revenue in a month for her clients.
She helps creative and innovative
Leaders, build their skills, their teams, and their neuro-marketing distinctions
So they can be the go to authority in their niche.

To apply or inquire for the Elite Neuro-Entrepreneur program
Click Here

The post O – Open your mind – MOVE Up in the World Today, Part 2 appeared first on Brain Based Strategies for Success.

M – Motivate - MOVE Up in the World Today, Part 1

How can you make yourself more efficient and productive? You can MOVE. A business coach can help you do that. Just remember that you and your coach can make you and your business MOVE – through Motivation, Opening your mind, Venturing out, and Ending insecurities.

Motivation is the purest foundation of entrepreneurialship and the very core of success itself. It can also be quicksilver in your hands. Often times, our very basic motivations – to feed our families, take care of the future, improve lives, or better the world, is always there. But the day-to-day motivations to push through tough times can slip away. A business coach can motivate you when you can’t do it yourself. Even better, a coach gives you the tools, like self-esteem and a mantra, to help you motivate yourself.

What good is a mantra, you ask? It’s incredible the way that the subconscious soaks up information and emotion like a sponge. Tell yourself everyday a simple phrase that motivates you to success, like “my company strives to make a difference, and will make a difference, in people’s health” (or whatever is specific to your business and inspires you to push forward), and in less than a month your brain will have stored away that message. It will bleed into your thoughts when you are not even thinking it. It will motivate you! Your business coach can help you come up with a mantra for yourself, and help you see the positives in your leadership abilities and styles, what to accent from your own arsenal of strengths, and point out what innate assets you have that you’re not using to your full advantage. Do you think you’re too soft-spoken to be a good boss? You can learn to use your personality and characteristics to your advantage instead of working against them.

A business coach will help you improve motivation and leadership by being a sounding board as well. Having someone listen and react to your ideas in real time can energize you, motivating you in a forward direction.

Defining a strategic plan enhances your abilities to set goals and gives you something to focus on. Defining your mission, values, and purpose can encourage you when things feel overwhelming.

Strategic plans, vision, and feedback do more than just motivate you. They can also open your mind, the next step in MOVE-ing up in today’s business world.

Sue Stebbins
Is the CEO of Successwaves.com
And the Creator of the Groundbreaking Elite Neuro-Entrepreneur
Program- a cutting edge brain science based business growth coaching program,
proven to accelerate a business, or sales leader’s skills
At maximizing their ‘adaptive genius’ and sales, profit, and leadership skills, faster, and smarter.

Known as the ‘Brainy Profit Whisperer” – she has been known to
Add nearly ½ a million in revenue in a month for her clients.
She helps creative and innovative
Leaders, build their skills, their teams, and their neuro-marketing distinctions
So they can be the go to authority in their niche.

To apply or inquire for the Elite Neuro-Entrepreneur program
Click Here

The post M – Motivate – MOVE Up in the World Today, Part 1 appeared first on Brain Based Strategies for Success.

Entrepreneurial Productivity
Time and Attention Control by Training the Homunculus
(Your Brain)

Businesspeople are plugged-in more than ever before, we’re wired. Google, Wikipedia, smart phones, news apps, and market watching create a paradox of never stopping but never engaging.

Imagine the stereotypical businessman with a Bluetooth earpiece, playing Internet games on his phone while checking stocks on the TV and talking to a client at the same time. We’ve all met him in line at Starbucks and hate him. Why? Because he’s distracted, hyperactive and exudes a lack of focus.

Over-connectivity and constant media exposure hinder abilities to focus and filter out distractions. It creates an environment where your mind is always bouncing from one slice of information to the next and not digesting or retaining anything. Researchers have even demonstrated that constant Internet fact-checking hinders long-term memory because we have learned to use the Internet as our long term memory storage. The hippocampus, the structure deep in our brains that controls learning and memory is not engaged during “surfing” periods.

Studies indicate that too much media exposure correlates with lower grades in children. What’s it doing in the adult brain?

The part of your brain that resides directly behind your forehead is called the prefrontal cortex, and it’s responsible for planning, organization, higher order thinking, and decision making. Early anatomists likened it to a homunculus, Latin for “little person”; a diminutive self behind the wheel of your actions. Constant media use does not engage the prefrontal cortex thereby decreasing executive function activity. It limits the power of the homunculus.  Overstimulation without learning decreases personal reflection, analytical thinking, and imagination resulting from a lack of opportunities to utilize the homunculus. Activities that engage the prefrontal cortex and sharpen executive function include goal setting, time management, organizational skills, and the like.

Generally, these skills are honed throughout development into young adulthood but the brain is plastic, meaning that anything requiring such organization skills improves executive function and reinforces underlying neuronal circuitry. To sharpen his or her skills, the homunculus has a need for self-discipline, time awareness, decision-making, and organizational skills. These things can be learned at any age, and practicing them will reinforce healthy pathways in the prefrontal cortex.

How can you improve executive function? By engaging in practices that rely on prefrontal cortex activation and homunculus input.

1) Critical Problem solving puzzles/games. Games and activities that involve mystery or problem solving hone critical, logical thinking skills. So does putting together a project like a model airplane or refinishing a piece of furniture. Anything that require foresight, trouble-shooting, and pre-planning can rewire your brain to think along these pathways more often.

2) Memorization practices. If you have young children, play memory card games with them. If not, you can play similar adult-oriented games on your computer. Sharpen memory skills by memorizing your favorite poems, song lyrics, or pieces of literature. If you play an instrument, attempt to memorize an entire piece. There are many ways to exercise the memory organ, and doing so will increase your capacity for memorization and the speed at which you memorize information.

3) Practice organizing workspaces in the ways that they’re used. If you organize your office and home workspaces in a functional way that increases efficiency, you’re putting your executive function to the test! In your kitchen, organize mugs to go near your coffee pot, knives to go near cutting boards, and the like. Think of the tasks you do most and group the tools you use, together. Do the same thing in your office, both at home and at work. There’s no need to waste time shuffling for important papers, so keep them together in a place that makes sense.  The ability to organize in a sensible, efficient fashion is not a talent unique to certain individuals; it’s a skill that is developed by utilizing your prefrontal cortex. Taking the time to organize your life (and reorganize if you come up with a more efficient system) develops executive function pathways in your brain.

These activities and exercises will force you to practice decision-making, develop and improve time management, and sear pathways in your mind involved in logical thought processes.

The post Entrepreneurial Productivity appeared first on Brain Based Strategies for Success.

Are you in “overdrive”, as an entrepreneur, executive, or person with a dual-career?

The word overdrive indicates negative emotions, stress, feeling overwhelmed. Perhaps it’s more mental than situational, and if it is, then it is the mind and not the situation that needs bending.

Standardized Mindfulness Meditation is a form of mental training that does just that. It increases attentional regulation of certain types of brain waves that encourage top-down modulation; meaning that essentially, your thoughts and ideas are proactive rather than reactive (which is bottom-up processing). Mindfulness Meditation enhances control and sensitizes practitioners to better detect and regulate when the mind wanders from present focus. Mindfulness training that leads to enhanced cognitive regulation and metacognition.

Present-moment focus improves well-being by allowing individuals to become aware of sensations, emotions, and thoughts without judgment or reactivity. Increasingly common in the healthcare system, MBCT (mindfulness based cognitive therapy) is thought modulate neural networks and decrease responses from the amygdala, the brain structure responsible for fear and emotional reaction.

Controlling your brain waves through mindfulness training has been shown to decrease symptoms in chronic diseases like fibromyalgia and cancer, and increase healing.

At Successwaves, we believe that you can similarly control your brain waves in order to become more successful.

Studies have shown that mind-wandering underlies problems with test taking, and that a wandering mind decreases your working memory capacity (or the amount of things you can think about at one time, keeping that information ‘at the ready’) and even intelligence. Some people also report increased restfulness during sleep.

Therefore, by harnessing the channels of mindfulness training you can keep your mind sharper and create stronger neuronal networks of focus, clarity, and productivity.

How do you do it?

Many researchers agree that starting in the traditional way of sitting cross-legged in an upright posture with gaze lowered is the best way to start. Focus on your breathing; train yourself through breathing exercises to breath deeply, and slowly. Minimize distractions by focusing your mind on one thing, like a mantra or a single thought. The most important part of mind-training for focus and decreased wandering is to remove any judgments from your thoughts. Don’t allow yourself to be distracted by assigning value, qualities, or judgments to your thoughts. Take time to focus and breathe. The goal is to allow the hum in your mind to fade. Once you’re able to focus on one thing, you may be able to clear your mind by focusing on nothing at all. Being worried that you’ll lose track of time while mediating can distract you and take away from the goal of mind-training, so setting a gentle alarm can be helpful. At first, training periods may be short, but as you continue to train your mind the sessions will naturally become longer.

Mindfulness training will disengage your mind from wandering, increase awareness, and improve focus and memory. Doing this creates neuronal networks that underlie these mental states, adapting your brain toward continued, enhanced awareness and focus. You can harness the power of your mind and flexibility of your brain for better business practices.

References:

Kerr, C. E., Sacchet, M. D., Lazar, S. W., Moore, C. I., & Jones, S. R. (2013). Mindfulness starts with the body: somatosensory attention and top-down modula  tion of cortical alpha rhythms in mindfulness meditation. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 7, 12. doi:10.3389/fnhum.2013.00012

Mrazek, M. D., Franklin, M. S., Phillips, D. T., Baird, B., & Schooler, J. W. (2013). Mindfulness Training Improves Working Memory Capacity and GRE Performance While Reducing Mind Wandering. Psychological Science. doi:10.1177/0956797612459659

The post Get Your Success Neurons On With Mind Training appeared first on Brain Based Strategies for Success.

A *new (*October, 2011) brain imaging study led by researchers at Yale University shows how people who regularly practise meditation are able to switch off areas of the brain linked to daydreaming, anxiety, schizophrenia and other psychiatric disorders. The brains of experienced meditators appear to show less activity in an area known as the “default mode network”, which is linked to largely self-centred thinking. The researchers suggest through monitoring and suppressing or “tuning out” the “me” thoughts, meditators develop a new default mode, which is more present-centred.

A report of their findings is due to be published online this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Meditation can help deal with a variety of health problems, from quitting smoking, to coping with cancer, and even preventing psoriasis, one of the researchers said in a statement. For this study, they wanted to look further into the neurological mechanisms that might be involved.

Lead author Judson A. Brewer, assistant professor of psychiatry at Yale, and colleagues, used fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) scans to observe the brains of both novice and experienced meditators as they practised three different forms of meditation.

They found that the experienced meditators, regardless of the type of meditation they practised, seemed able to switch off the default mode network, which has been linked to lapses of attention, and disorders such as attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and anxiety. This part of the brain, comprising the medial prefrontal and posterior cingulate cortex, has also been linked to the accumulation of beta amyloid plaques in Alzheimer’s disease.

They also found that when the default mode network was active in the experienced meditators, other parts of the brain, associated with self-monitoring and cognitive control, were active at the same time. This was not the case with the novices.

This could be the result of meditators constantly monitoring mind-wandering and the emergence of “me” thoughts, and suppressing them. These are the kind of thoughts, when in extreme or pathological form, are associated with diseases such as autism and schizophrenia.

The fMRI scans showed the experienced meditators’ brain activity was the same both during meditation and when they were just resting, or when they were not being told to do anything in particular.

Thus the researchers concluded that perhaps experienced meditators have developed a new default mode, which is centred more on the present than on the self.

Meditation has been a central part of philosophical and contemplative practices for thousands of years: it helps the practitioner to be mindful of the present moment, Brewer told the press, and studies have shown it is also linked to increased levels of happiness.

“Conversely, the hallmarks of many forms of mental illness is a preoccupation with one’s own thoughts, a condition meditation seems to affect,” he added.

This study appears to have uncovered some clues as to the neural mechanisms that underpin this process. Understanding more about them will hopefully help us investigate a host of diseases, said Brewer.

Written by Catharine Paddock PhD
Copyright: Medical News Today

The post How meditation benefits the brain appeared first on Brain Based Strategies for Success.

Creativity is the source of Productivity
The business that you created, run, and optimize is built upon the strength of your ideas and the prowess of your management skills. Creating and then losing an exceptional idea can then be thought of as lost profit, and surely can be thought of as lost productivity. Similar to keeping an updated calendar handy, journal and jot down your creative moments and savvy business notions as soon as they hit.  As a calendar frees your mind from anxiety over forgetting a meeting, journaling also frees your mind from the worry about losing a novel, undeveloped idea. When possible, it’s best not to even think through them too thoroughly before starting to write – steam of consciousness writing stokes creativity while putting forth too much left-brain logistical constraint can stifle it.  Now that you’ve freed up mental capacity that used to focus on daily stresses, you can devote more of that capacity to developing and growing the ideas that are life-blood to your business. Training yourself to spare a few minutes to scribble out a few lines when creativity strikes gives you live, stream of consciousness accounts of your ideas. This allows you to explore and grow these ideas. Never losing a brilliant idea or losing time ‘recreating’ a lost thought is increased productivity of the mind. Equally important, prolonged engagement in the practice of stream-of consciousness writing and thinking hones the skill and sharpens the creative resources of your mind. Thus the more you jot down your ideas as they come, the more ideas that you’ll have (Smith et al., 1995). You can then focus on developing these immature seeds overtime.

Productive thinking does not waste energy on problems
There are times when productivity in the workplace is hampered by an unresolved problem. For the person who owns and manages her own business, problems can feel personal and solution absolutely vital. Studies suggest that the most creative and effective problem solvers are the ones who actually refuse to dwell on the issue. Aptly termed “fixation”, focusing solely on a problem is the least efficient manner to arrive on a solution. Psychologists suggest that creative problem solvers become just that by mentally leaving an issue with the intent to revisit. This causes you to broaden your thought patterns outside of the problem, thus allowing your mind to access potentially associated ideas, situations or knowledge that can be linked to your problem. Subconsciously, your mind is able to make connections, resulting in the light-bulb moment of illumination that makes you feel as if the answer suddenly dawned on you. In reality, by not dwelling on the issue at hand, your mind was able to more efficiently conjure up connections that suggested a solution (Howard-Jones and Murray, 2003). Efficiency of thought leads to productivity of thought.

Productivity relies on efficient management of resources
An idea intuitive and implicit to successful businesses, we all understand that wasting resources is ill advised for building a sustainable business or increasing profits. We would never encourage employees to log hours during which they were not working, or to run high energy-consuming equipment when unneeded because, frankly, it makes no business sense. It’s a waste of resources. Why then do we allow ourselves to run our brains on constant ‘high’ and not expect the same outcome as wasting precious work related resources? A wise businessperson can evaluate the usefulness of a tool and where that tool is best utilized. A computer, tablet, and smartphone are viewed in the same way by a productive mind. When not actively working, stop mindlessly trolling websites, obsessively checking emails, and staring at computer and smart phone screens. These habits zap your energy, tire your eyes, and achieve nothing, all the while sending signals to your brain to stay active (Blehm et al., 2005). Don’t underestimate continual neuronal assault achieved by technology. An entire field of neuroscience focuses on the problems related to technology-induced overstimulation (Miller et al., 2010). Understand and respect the need to disengage. In the same way a computer gets turned off to avoid overheating, a rested brain protects against mental burnout.

References:

Appelbaum, S.H., Marchionni, A., and Fernandez, A. (2008). The multi-tasking paradox: perceptions, problems and strategies. Management Decision 46, 1313–1325.

Blehm, C., Vishnu, S., Khattak, A., Mitra, S., and Yee, R.W. (2005). Computer Vision Syndrome: A Review. Survey of Ophthalmology 50, 253–262.

Howard-Jones, P.A., and Murray, S. (2003). Ideational Productivity, Focus of Attention, and Context. Creativity Research Journal 15, 153–166.

Miller, D., Bierman, A., Figueiro, M.G., Schernhammer, E.S., and Rea, M.S. (2010). Ecological measurements of light exposure, activity and circadian disruption. Lighting Research and Technology 42, 271–284.

Smith, S.M., Ward, T.B., and Finke, R.A. (1995). The Creative Cognition Approach: Edited by Steven M. Smith, Thomas B. Ward, and Ronald A. Finke (MIT Press).

Villarreal, G., Hamilton, D.A., Petropoulos, H., Driscoll, I., Rowland, L.M., Griego, J.A., Kodituwakku, P.W., Hart, B.L., Escalona, R., and Brooks, W.M. (2002). Reduced hippocampal volume and total white matter volume in posttraumatic stress disorder. Biological Psychiatry 52, 119–125.

Part 1

The post Your Brain + Your Productivity – Part 2 appeared first on Brain Based Strategies for Success.

Do you ever feel like you’re not as productive, efficient, or sharp as you know you could be? In our success driven, work oriented society it can be hard to ignore the pressures for achievement, and even harder not to be worn down by the stresses of everyday life. You can change this, though – you can train your brain to help you be productive.

Yes, it sounds a little crazy. Perhaps a little bit sci-fi, even. But your brain is a malleable, adaptable super-computer more powerful and more elegant than any man-made piece of equipment. It’s easy to make analogies about the brain using computers as a point of reference, but the truth is, computer science and technological advancements focus almost entirely on making algorithms and programs as sensible, logical, and intuitive as the human brain.  That means that you should think of your brain as the most elegant and complex computer every created. And with a tool like that at your disposal, it’s time to harness that power for your best productivity now.

Productive Minds are Clear Minds
Likening your brain to a computer once more, imagine you’re working on big project on your laptop, with every single program open, and multiple windows for every program. It’s slow. Running multiple programs at the same time requires a lot of energy and the distribution of power decreases the amount of energy focused on any one given program. Your mind works in a similar manner. If you’re thinking about many different things and focusing active thought on too many different topics, the amount of energy you’re giving to any one “priority” is decreased.  Neuroscientists and Psychologists have actually demonstrated that multi-tasking can be detrimental to the overall quality of everything you’re simultaneously doing (Appelbaum et al., 2008).  Multitasking is not something that we can avoid, though, so productivity starts with de-cluttering our minds in the most sensible way possible.

Although it may sound too simple to be applicable, the most effective way to de-clutter your mind is to keep a written, rather than mental, record of tasks, important dates, and important facts.  Whether digitally or with pen and paper, keep a journal handy at all times. Write down appointments as soon as they’re made. Even better, consider keeping an up-to-date calendar. Doing this disengages the need for constant schedule worry and anxiety. You’ll no longer need to ask yourself “what am I forgetting?” Essentially, you outsource the need to schedule and keep track to your calendar/journal, and free up your cognitive faculties for more important things – like generating new ideas for profits, products, sustainability, management, and efficiency. After all, how can you create an efficient business model with a cluttered mind?

Utilizing a simple tool like this keeps an organized, centralized log of appointments and dates, freeing up the part of your brain normally focused on keeping track of these things. It takes energy to remember the many appointments, working lunches, deadlines, and personal appointments. If you can put all of this information into written or digital record instead, you’re no longer wasting useful brainpower. Remember the computer analogy. Why keep open more windows than necessary? You also abolish the need to fret and focus needless energy on mentally keeping track of important activities, and to-do lists, thereby decreasing stress. It is a well-established, scientific fact that chronic stress and fatigue decrease cognitive function, and actually cause shrinkage in the important brain structures that enable you to learn new information and make new memories (Villarreal et al., 2002). Decluttering your brain leads to de-stressing your mind, which improves brain health and function. An optimally running brain that is free to focus all of its energy on the task at hand is your best bet for mental productivity, which is crucial because as businessperson, your ideas are often your bread and butter.

References:

Appelbaum, S.H., Marchionni, A., and Fernandez, A. (2008). The multi-tasking paradox: perceptions, problems and strategies. Management Decision 46, 1313–1325.

Blehm, C., Vishnu, S., Khattak, A., Mitra, S., and Yee, R.W. (2005). Computer Vision Syndrome: A Review. Survey of Ophthalmology 50, 253–262.

Howard-Jones, P.A., and Murray, S. (2003). Ideational Productivity, Focus of Attention, and Context. Creativity Research Journal 15, 153–166.

Miller, D., Bierman, A., Figueiro, M.G., Schernhammer, E.S., and Rea, M.S. (2010). Ecological measurements of light exposure, activity and circadian disruption. Lighting Research and Technology 42, 271–284.

Smith, S.M., Ward, T.B., and Finke, R.A. (1995). The Creative Cognition Approach: Edited by Steven M. Smith, Thomas B. Ward, and Ronald A. Finke (MIT Press).

Villarreal, G., Hamilton, D.A., Petropoulos, H., Driscoll, I., Rowland, L.M., Griego, J.A., Kodituwakku, P.W., Hart, B.L., Escalona, R., and Brooks, W.M. (2002). Reduced hippocampal volume and total white matter volume in posttraumatic stress disorder. Biological Psychiatry 52, 119–125.

Part 2

The post Your Brain + Your Productivity – Part 1 appeared first on Brain Based Strategies for Success.

The Entrepreneurial Mind and the Brain

Motivation drives who we are as people. It drives survival. For entrepreneurs, motivation is intimately linked to your success and professional identity. Research indicates that different types of entrepreneurs are motivated by different innate desires, and these motivations are integrally related to how successful that entrepreneur can be.  Analogous to survival oriented ancestors whose daily mission was to avoid starvation, survival oriented entrepreneurs are those whose basic motivation is to avoid failure. Commercially oriented entrepreneurs, on the surface, strive for success, money, and power. These things are not always the origin of motivation, however, and the origin of motivation can matter more than the rewards of success. A medical entrepreneur for instance, may operate out of a desire to cure a disease, particularly if her family member is afflicted. She is more likely to be successful than a peer whose only inspiration is power. (Carsrud et al., 2009)

Then, the foundation of training your mind for success is by understanding your motivations for success. If your aim is to avoid failure, your goals and aspirations may be more shortsighted than if you dream of positive impact or humanitarian aid. Examine your motivations carefully. Negative motivations, such as revenge or fulfilling a long unmet emotional need may initially seem useful but are damaging in the long run. Negative motivations can cloud your judgment and motivate you to make decisions in the best interest of your subversive intentions rather than your idealized goal. Positive emotions and goals that are specific and inspiring foster productivity when morale or situational motivation is low, because intuitively, we understand that the end reward far outstrips temporary miseries like exhaustion, venture flops, or attempting too much at once. Spend time daily focusing on your positive, inspiring, and specific motivations. By visualizing your primary motives on a regular basis, you train your mind to conjure them up when most needed (when exasperation strikes) allowing you to push forward and in doing so, meet the goals of your secondary motivations like increased profit, clients, fame, or knowledge.

Another key aspect of training your brain during positive focus sessions is developing something called autosuggestion – the ability of your subconscious to link a connection between your conscious thought and an unconscious one. Focusing on how the culmination of your short-term goals will help achieve your long-term goals of profit and sustainability, will train your mind to “autosuggest” the latter concept when you consciously focus on the former. Daily focus sessions will take about a month to sear connections together in your mind, and should synthesize the ideas of focusing on positive, inspiring motivation with the relationship between short term goal meeting and long term success and sustainability.  The concept of autosuggestion has been in use since the late 1800’s when identified and subsequently practiced by pharmacists Émile Coué (Coué et al., 1922), who suggested repeating one’s mantra 20 times a day.

Vitally linked to our sources of motivation is our hard-wired survival instinct, sometimes referred to in tandem with our “fight or flight” responses. Early humans had little else to occupy their minds than surviving from one day to the next, and as their modern descendants, we also possess such instincts. But relying on survival instincts in business can be very damaging, exemplified by every national economic downturn. A declining market is instinctually perceived as a threat, compelling most people to sell, creating the negative feed forward cycle of economic recession.  Success in modern business can call for relying on rational thought when feral instincts to fight or run feel empowering and inescapable. It is not always wise to challenge someone in the business world or to flee from an investment, despite often channeling the primitive instincts of fight or flight. Precarious scenarios require research, planning, and foresight. Imagine the repercussions of each of your possible reactions to a situation, and use your knowledge rather than your instincts to determine the best course of action.

As an entrepreneur, your mind is your strongest and most vulnerable asset. Approach the abilities of your mind as a function of your brain, and your brain as an extension of your body. A healthy brain is the root of continued learning and increased concentration. Brain-derived growth factors and hormones that stimulate neural-circuit adaptability and neuronal health are physiological. As you cannot expect to run a marathon with poor cardiovascular health, you likewise cannot expect to succeed in a mental marathon with a physiologically weak brain. A healthy brain is the key to a focused mind.  Lack of sleep, too much alcohol and/or caffeine, and improperly balanced nutrition directly impact the function of your brain. Scientific research indicates that neural circuitry can be weakened by an onslaught of processed food, and brain structures crucial for learning and memory atrophy (shrink) during chronic stress and fatigue. All of these problems can be positively impacted by exercise, which increases the signaling molecules your brain needs for creating new circuits, remaining adaptable, and warding off depression and anxiety, which can both lead to mental cloudiness and reduced productivity. Your optimal mind function starts with optimal brain function (Rojas Vega et al., 2006).

References:
Carsrud, A., Brännback, M., Elfving, J., and Brandt, K. (2009). Motivations: The Entrepreneurial Mind and Behavior. In Understanding the Entrepreneurial Mind, A.L. Carsrud, and M. Brännback, eds. (Springer New York), pp. 141–165.

Coué, É., Van Orden, A.S., and Coué league of America. [from old catalog (1922). Self mastery through conscious autosuggestion (New York, Malkan publishing co., inc.).

Rojas Vega, S., Strüder, H.K., Vera Wahrmann, B., Schmidt, A., Bloch, W., and Hollmann, W. (2006). Acute BDNF and cortisol response to low intensity exercise and following ramp incremental exercise to exhaustion in humans. Brain Research 1121, 59–65.

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