CHAPTER 8
The Science of Showing Up. Explore It.
Your brain and body will back you up.
The majority of this book is devoted to leading with self-awareness. Self-awareness is fundamental to being (positively) contagious. Why? Because when you are contagious, you have a strong presence. And to have a strong positive presence requires internal and interpersonal well-being, cognitive awareness, and command of your internal state (mental and emotional).
I’ve intentionally placed this chapter in the middle of the book to give you ample space to integrate the principles of Contagious You into your life and to build your own self-awareness. Now I’m going to take you into some of the science of contagiousness. If science is not your thing, and your intuitive mind prefers to stay in flow, skip this chapter and go to Chapter 9. Otherwise, let’s dig in.
Our Magnificent Brain
The human brain is in a continuous state of change, constantly rewiring itself to be different than it was the moment before. It’s always at work, even when we’re sleeping. This is neuroplasticity. Neuroplasticity is an inherent state of the brain that continuously alters existing neural pathways in order to adapt and accommodate new life experiences, learn new information, and create new memories. One of the most important roles the brain needs to play is “sense making” to perceive and respond to internal or external stimuli according to its interpretation. Like great leaders, we can influence and guide how well our brain performs this task of “sense making” through the process of neuroplasticity by taking excellent care of it.
How? By doing what we’ve been discussing in this book. Taking care of ourselves, pausing, rebooting, reframing, meditating, sleeping, exercising, and being intentional with what we put into our bodies. Yes, these are all things that make us feel good, but as you’ll see in this chapter, there is science that shows these actions also make us better leaders and decision makers, calmer parents, and more powerful positively contagious human beings.
With every tool and idea I’ve shared with you in this book, your physiology has been at play.
For example . . .
• Recovery time and resiliency? This is a critical period when new neural pathways are built and re-establishment of a state of balance and equilibrium of the new pathways is achieved. As a result, our brain’s ability to cope with and respond to stressful events expands!
• Showing up? That’s your brain choosing the courage pathway to “step in” and show up instead of hide out and if you reward it (with a positive result, a good feeling, or even an internal word of kindness), it will do it again even easier and faster next time!
• The bubble? Bubble up, because your brain is creating space for you—peaceful, thoughtful, responsive space—that allows you to choose how to feel and interact with your world.
• Holding your space and not matching the lowest vibe in the room? (Or not holding your space and getting sucked in?) Your mirror neurons are at work! They are firing and deciding which way to go. You have a lot of control of which mirror neurons win here—“doom and gloom” or “light up the room.” Up to you!
• Feeling inspired and positively contagious? Well, your brain has learned to look for the good, overcoming its inclination toward bad, and make even the “bad” work for it. It’s learned to quickly sort for gifts.
• Getting over disappointment and anger or contraction quickly? Yes! Your brain has built new neural pathways that know exactly how to recover faster, find the gifts, and be even better.
• Feeling disconnected, slow, and depressed—and your main relief is alcohol, TV, social media, or some other form of check-out self-medication? You’re toxifying your neural pathways and killing your cells. While these things are making you feel better for a minute, they’re making you slower, lonelier, and less confident.
• Building your resource state by strengthening your IEP and taking good care of yourself? Well . . . yes, love. That’s because self-care is what heals, builds, and fortifies your ability to think smart, show up well, hold your space, and come to the table peaceful with all cylinders humming.
Yep, every time you choose to pause (versus react), have a positive thought or assumption (versus negative), choose a positive new behavior (versus an old bad habit), or hold your space (versus match the lowest vibe in the room), you override old neural pathways, rewire and build new pathways (that support you in doing this again in the future more quickly), build emotional resiliency, and regulate your stress hormones and immune system and thereby building physical resiliency as well.
All that for a little self-care and presence? Are you in?
Of course, I’m completely simplifying what’s happening with all the magical players at this party inside your brain. In this chapter, I’ll spend more time fully explaining what I mean. Just know from the start that there are good reasons to do the practices we’re talking about in this book. For this chapter, I spent significant time researching the work of several experts in the area of neuroscience and biology, including the HeartMath Institute, Dr. Bruce Lipton’s work in The Biology of Belief, and Masuro Emoto’s work with water (although they’re not discussed here, I’ll talk about them in bonus material).
I also dove deeply into some of the most recent findings on neuroscience, leadership, and trust. And I wanted a live conversation and collaboration with someone who gets the IEP work and could help translate science into something meaningful for all of us. So I worked with Dr. Seonok Lee, a Neuronal Cell Biologist at Neurona Therapeutics (formerly at UCSF) who works on developing stem cell–derived neuronal cell therapeutics to treat chronic refractory neurodegenerative diseases. The science of what is happening in the brain and body in terms of our presence and contagiousness is truly expansive and continually evolving. This chapter distills the scientific discoveries and ideas that I found most helpful in understanding and navigating being contagious and the IEP work.
Contagious Me, Contagious You
Our contagiousness starts with the energy we bring to everything we do. Our energy is generated from the inside out, as is the experience we’re creating for ourselves, which can then be felt by those around us. Whatever we’re feeling internally is generating an experience externally, and whatever is happening externally influences our experience internally. We proact and react. We project and receive.
The stronger, more present, and more intentional we are, the easier it is to create our experience, to decide what we’ll take on, to know when we’re projecting our energy on others (and they on us) (more on this in Chapter 11), and to be more intentional about it all. Which means we have great influence on creating a positive and productive experience and on being positively or negatively contagious. When we own this and support it with our well-being, we can more effectively partner with and influence whatever is happening versus be reactive or victim to it.
Everything I’ve invited you to do in this book plays a part in strengthening your physiology and helping your brain support and manage your presence. For example, physically—being present, pausing, breathing, and taking care of yourself. Mentally—utilizing choice points, reframing, making conscious decisions, using your superpowers, and setting intentions. And energetically rebooting, changing your emotional and energetic states, bubbling up, and being conscious of the energy you bring into the room . . . These things all support you in up-leveling your presence, influence, and impact (while feeling good doing so).
Our Operating System: Neuroscience 101
Our brains are the primary operating center managing all of this.
First, it will be helpful to have a shared understanding of key introductory basic concepts in neuroscience to give us a playground to play on. Dr. Lee shared the following points (which can be more fully referenced and learned about in the plentiful research and data available to us in the world right now):1
• Our nervous system is largely divided into two systems: the central nervous system (CNS) that consists of the brain and spinal cord and the peripheral nervous system (PNS) that consists of neurons outside of the brain and spinal cord.
• Our brain is three pounds of lipid-rich tissue organized into two hemispheres, right and left wherein reside about 100 billion neurons (only 10 percent of the brain mass). It receives (or gathers) information through sensory neurons that translate external stimuli from the environment into internal electrical impulses. It sends out commands through motor neurons that carry signals to move organs, muscles or vocal cords for language for example.
• Neurons are composed of a cell body that sprouts out dendrites on one side and a single axonal fiber on the other. Axons are insulated with a fatty substance called myelin (white matter) while dendrites are not (therefore gray matter). On average, each neuron receives about 5,000 connections, called synapses, from other neurons.
• Neurons communicate through electrical firing and chemical exchange of neurotransmitters. As it’s receiving synapses (via dendrites), a neuron gets signals—usually as a burst of chemicals called neurotransmitters—from other neurons (via axons). In turn this transfer of neurotransmitters triggers electrical firing of the receiving neuron’s axonal fiber.
• A typical neuron fires 5–50 times a second. Neural oscillations, or brain waves, are rhythmic or repetitive patterns of this neuronal firing in the brain. Typically, there are five different brain waves that can be measured by EEG (electroencephalography): alpha, beta, delta, theta, and gamma
• Neural circuits or pathways are generated when a population of neurons are interconnected by synapses that fire and wire together for a specific function.
• The brain is always active no matter what we are doing at the moment, busy processing information and shaping our mind. Therefore, even though it’s only 2 percent of the body’s weight, it uses up 20–25 percent of its oxygen and glucose.
• Mirror neurons are part of this operating system, a small circuit of cells that reside in the various areas in the brain that modulates both sensory and motor neurons. They are activated when we perform a certain action such as smiling or speaking and when we observe someone else performing that same action, blurring the boundary between seeing and doing. They are known to be one of the most important players that influence our social cognition, empathy, and language.2–4
The Power of Presence Comes from a Good Operating System
The operating system is supported and guided through presence, meditation, sleep, and self-care. The stronger our self-care and IEP, the more we tend to our brain nourishment. The more we honor ourselves proactively, the easier it is to build stronger neural pathways that support us in feeling good and clear, shifting our states, balancing our left and right brains, commanding our energetic presence and responses in the most effective ways, and being the best and most influential leaders possible.
This explains why when we’re exhausted or not well resourced we’re short-tempered and less patient. We also make impulsive and less than awesome decisions. We are also less resilient, take things more personally, make negative assumptions, and are less able to “hold our space” and not get sucked into negativity or drama. This impacts our leadership significantly. As we lead, it’s essential to command our state, hold a safe space for the humans we’re with, and be thoughtful and intentional with feedback and others’ careers.
It’s also essential to not take things personally, to operate with care and compassion, and to make the best decisions out of often difficult situations. Just think about the last time you were in a meeting that went horribly, or you lost your patience, or you made a terrible decision on the fly, or you had unintended negative impact because you were tired or moving fast; how did your self-care play into that? Did it help? Might you have been able to have responded or held space differently, or accessed more curiosity and wisdom, if you were more fully resourced? We need our resources to show up well. We can’t lead our best from burnout or exhaustion. Presence, self-care, meditation, and sleep are key to helping us strengthen our resources. Is a bit more self-care worth your leadership impact?
It’s All About Energy: How’s Your ATP?
Everything comes down to energy. Everything about being contagious takes energy. Everything.
• The brain utilizes 20 percent of the body’s glucose.5
• We maintain and recharge our neuro-system with our energy system called ATP (adenosine triphosphate) that is generated in the mitochondria in neurons.6
• ATP is basically the energetic currency of life that every cell in our body uses in all cellular functions, including neurons. Therefore, it is the very source of energy we need for doing the things we do.
• There is an energetic exchange in each moment of being together and being contagious.
• Our shared moments require an energetic exchange through similar neural responses (e.g., brain waves).7
• We need to exercise and eat good nutrition to clean the body and support the brain in clearing out metabolic waste products.
• We need to sleep in delta brain waves for lymphatic drainage to clear out our brain’s and body’s by-products, create more energy, and support our memory and long-term storage.8
• We need to support efficient ATP production and efficient consumption of energy to make sure we zoom and are at our best.
• We need to focus, be quiet, and be meditative to take in all information, command, and participate in energy-expansive activities.
• We need to honor our energy, not waste it, but rather consume and distribute it more efficiently. This comes from managing our state, being intentional about what we take on, showing up in our own space, being conscious of the impact of negativity in our lives, and taking excellent care of ourselves.
• Just like erratic jerky movements take more energy, anger, judgment, blame, and negative states consume energy as well. They’re exhausting. They take ATP. And then, even better, they accumulate more by-products of that activity (judgment, anger, etc.) as well as producing the stress hormone cortisol and one of the neurotransmitters called glutamate whose function is to excite neurons. When glutamate accumulates in high levels, it causes uncontrolled neuronal excitation, seizures, and eventual neuronal cell death. In general, our neurotransmitters need to be recycled, cleaned out, and redistributed appropriately. This can be promoted by the calming of the mind through meditation and exercise.
How are you doing on the list above? To elevate the power of these, where I’ve written “need to” replace it with “want to.” What changes?
The Killers
You’re doing all your magic; you’re integrating the practices in this book, tending to your beautiful brain, rebooting, showing up, and getting stronger and stronger. You want to keep going, right?
Pro tip: Don’t kill your neurons, trigger “dendritic pruning,” and lose synaptic connections.
How would you do this?
Alcohol,9,10 drugs, TV, social media,11 things that make us feel bad—these create neural cell death and lessen dendrite branching and growth, and therefore “prune away” healthy synaptic connections.
Did you get that? These things change our brains, kill our precious cells, and make our dendrites smooth (without synaptic “docking sites”) and wimpy (we want them bushy and exuberant!).
Don’t worry; this does not mean you have to cut everything out. This just means be intentional with it.
Now that you know the basics of your operating system, how to fuel it, and how not to kill it, let’s look at what’s happening in that beautiful system of yours.
The Science of Showing Up
I asked Dr. Lee to walk me through what’s happening with our brains when we are “showing up.” Here’s what she shared:
In order to “show up” we have to empower ourselves with a positive outlook on life. To do that we have to overcome our innate propensity for negativity and the fear-based actions that our brains have acquired as a default protection mechanism to survive environmental threats throughout human evolution.12 How do we do that? We redirect neural pathways for negativity to those positive pathways, and then rebuild a new neural pathway of showing up. As we experience the reward of reframing whatever that fear was and show up well, we rewrite that old path all together. How does that work? Luckily, our brain is extremely adaptable and malleable to change. Literally, what we do, how we think and where we live will change the anatomical structure, cellular composition and neural wiring of our brain. This is “neuroplasticity”—the ability of the brain to change, rewire and pave new pathways for better (or worse) outcomes.
Furthermore, in order to show up big and go beyond what we think (or thought) was possible, we literally have to expand the threshold of our “neuro-container,” or our “brain capacity,” to handle the higher level of challenge (cognitive resilience)! It takes courage to do this. We can do this by overwriting the previous fear neural pathways and rewriting a new path of showing up. This requires self-directed neuroplasticity, being the creator in our lives, and constant enforcement of rewards for any experience of showing up at the end in order to lock it in. The reward is essential to making this all stick!
So How Do You Do Strengthen Your Ability to Show Up and Expand the Field of Possibility?
Here’s how. When something happens:
1. Look for positive facts of what’s happening and let them become positive experiences.
2. Savor the experience:
• Sustain it.
• Have it be emotional and sensate.
• Intensify it.
3. Sense that the positive experience is soaking into your brain and body—registering deeply in emotional memory. (Breathe and stay present with this.)
Basically, when we “show up,” we activate new neural pathways that overwrite the old pathways that kept us small or scared. The more we show up and choose the new pathway and are rewarded for it (meaning we get our result, experience more space, or don’t die from doing something scary), that neural pathway is stronger, and it’s easier next time we do something positive. The more present we are to the experience, the more it gets locked in and we rebuild our brain!
The Science of Meditation
When we meditate, we build stronger neural pathways, expansive gray matter, exuberant dendrites, robust resiliency, and everything good that makes us show up better and feel better.13
With meditation, the area of the brain (prefrontal cortex) interprets all incoming info and communication with clarity and lucidity by calming the area of the brain (amygdala) that activates fear and judgment. This makes us better able to interpret information and decide what to do with it.
Curiosity, presence, mindfulness, compassion, self-care, and sleep develop our dendrites and increase their capacity to make more synaptic connections. This means we are better able to process more information, declutter it, make sense of it, and move forward with clarity to make our next move and decision. Violà, our neuronal capacity gets increased, and therefore, so does our inner threshold!
If we are fear-driven, or in a state of fear (like in a meeting that’s going badly), we can’t receive all the information present or make our best decisions because we’re spending too much energy dealing with fear or judgment or blame or any of the lower-vibration states. In a state of contraction we have a very narrow lens for interpretation and a weak filter. Meditation strengthens our left and right brain connection; helps us relax, breathe, and connect; and allows more information in through the command center. The end result is that we make good decisions.
With the recent advancement of scientific tools, scientists are better able to measure and demonstrate the benefits of meditation. For example, in the brains of people who have been following an 8- to 10-week mindfulness practice, the front part of the left side of the brain is highly activated and gray matter is significantly increased when measured in functional MRIs.14 This is gold. Why is this so great? Dr. Lee explains, “Gray matter is where the neuronal cell body resides as well as dendrites. [White matter is where the axons are and they are myelinated—insulated—in white lipid matter.] Gray matter is gray, as the dendrites are not insulated. Dendrites are like tree branches harboring docking sites for axonal fibers of other neurons to connect and form synapses. The more meditation and mindful presence practice, the more the dendritic branches become exuberant. With more exuberant dendrite branches, we have greater ability to intake and better process sensory inputs and exert motor output.”
The Science of Matching and Holding Your Space
Let’s say you’re in a meeting and Georgette comes at you—she’s angry, afraid, contracted, the room feels off, and now you feel off. What should you do? Well first, let’s look at what’s happening. When we’re in a negative or toxic room, the field is filled with fear response. Our mirror neurons are alerting us of the negativity by making us experience it as well. Our amygdala is firing—we’re sensing threat. If we have a more developed prefrontal cortex and a more balanced left and right brain, it’s easier to modulate and calm the fear, redirect it into confidence, and then turn around and move the energy to something different. We can also override our amygdala with neuroplasticity by taking a pause and choosing a different response.
This is not reactionary. If our left-brain prefrontal cortex is well developed, we don’t have to react or respond to threat; we can exude confidence and be contagious for good. Then the other person will match it through his or her mirror neurons. Because now, based on what we’re projecting and our own chemistry, that person feels safe. Even in the case of angry Georgette, if you hold your space and stay present, she’s more likely to “catch” that and match you than the other way around. And if she doesn’t, at least you are not clobbered by her energy.
What Happens During a Reboot?
Here’s what happens during a reboot to hold your space, change the field, and get others to match you . . .
1. You override the fear response by focusing on the positive.
2. You activate and reboot the mirror neuron of confidence, projecting inner composure and peace outward (this takes energy by the way).
3. This is contagious and those near you will then mirror it! (They mirror your confidence; you are not mirroring their fear.)
Overriding your fear response will become easier if you’re meditating, thereby developing your prefrontal cortex and attaining left and right brain hemispheric synchronization, so that you can more easily shift from a negative vibe or experience to that of positive. If you’re not meditating and strengthening and balancing your brain, this is harder but still doable with practice. A trick in rewriting? We are coming from either fear or love at all times. Fear shuts us down, contracts us, and panics our circuits, activating the negative contagions. Love opens up possibility, creates more space and calm, and activates the positive contagions. Choose love.
The Science of Being Contagious
When it comes down to it, contagiousness is an extreme form of empathy. We see or feel someone, we relate, and we get hooked into them for good or for bad. What’s actually happening scientifically though? When I asked Dr. Lee to walk me through the physical process, she shared the “Neural Substrates of Empathy” and their three simulating systems: “Actions which ‘mirror’ systems and are in the temporal-parietal lobe of the brain; feelings, which resonate emotionally and are in the insula; and thoughts, which are the ‘theory of the mind’ and occur in the prefrontal cortex. These three systems interact with each other through association and active inquiry. They produce an automatic, continual re-creating of aspects of others’ experience. This is what is happening scientifically with empathy.”
The science of being contagious boils down to this: I am with you, we have brain waves, mirror neurons, group dynamics, energy exchange at play—these simulating systems working together all at the same time. You see and hear and feel me; your mirror neurons respond to mine, matching them, and meeting me at the vibration I’m at (or mine respond to yours).
Basically, one of us is going to catch the other’s vibe. It takes energy to maintain one’s energy and focus to be contagious, so whoever has the strongest intention, holds his or her space best, and has the healthiest neural pathways and mirror neurons is likely to win. It’s hard to be positively contagious (or fight off negative contagions) when we’re not present, we’re exhausted, and we’re not fully resourced or taking care of ourselves.
Let’s look at how this plays out in real life.
Story: Mirror Neurons on Stage
We hear about mirror neurons all the time. They’re the things that make us mimic another person’s facial expression without even realizing it. They’re why when someone talks about a painful experience, we wince even though we weren’t there. They’re why when you meet people, you decide almost instantly if you like them and trust them. They’re how we learn new behaviors. They’re how a room full of people gets suddenly calm (or chaotic) because of how one person shows up. They’re magical. Especially if we understand them and know how to nourish and optimize them.
Mirror neurons are composed of sensory and motor neurons working together. They receive input through sensory neurons and exert command through motor neurons. Our hand movements, facial expressions, mouth movements, and sounds are all part of the circuitry and essential for mirror neurons. Mirror neurons are how we learn and impact how we react and judge.
Here’s an example of how this plays out. When I first met with Dr. Lee, I’d given a keynote the day before. It had gone well; the audience was engaged, I felt in flow, and the content came out of me beautifully. Basically, all systems were humming. There was total connection with the audience from the minute I came out on stage. Dr. Lee walked me through what was happening during my event from a neuroscience standpoint.
When I walked out on stage, I was incredibly present and tuned in. I came out standing strong. I was clear about my message, curious about the audience, excited to contribute, full of conviction, and exerting contagiousness. I had the intention of service and being a positively contagious contribution to the room.
My neural state was “cohesive” and “synchronous.” This means my left and right brain hemispheres were firing in sync so that I could exert my presence coherently and so that my audience watching me could perceive me as congruent, confident, contagious, curious, clear, and present. When the members of the audience perceived this, and saw and felt me congruent in my state, their neurons fired reflecting back mine, mimicking me and experiencing what I was projecting. They saw me and how I stood. They heard my voice and the sound waves it produced. They received and perceived me. This established trust, allowing the audience members to then follow me through their own mirror neurons and the brain waves between us.
We had a brain wave match. The atmosphere was coherent. They matched my vibration.
In other words, because I was congruent and coherent in my energetic state and presence, and I was practicing my seven C’s (which I’ll reveal later in this chapter), they “believed me” and reflected that back to me. We had a lovely experience. Dr. Lee reinforced for me scientifically what I’d always sensed and noticed about connecting with other human beings: when we are intentional, congruent, present, resourced, coming from love, and in service of—energy flows.
Locking in a Good Experience
That keynote felt great. I felt the audience—I felt expansion and connection. My sensory input came in, and my brain reorganized itself to make that feeling the new norm. Note that the brain reorganization and “lock-in” doesn’t happen instantly. More neuronal membranes have to be created and neural connections settled. It takes energy and time for the neural connections to settle and become the default/norm. As we do this, we are able to build the neural network and access it more quickly with each situation so it gets easier until we can access that state of being on demand. It ultimately becomes a default. In other words, the more often we do it, the less time it takes; “practice makes presence,” and “presence, not perfection.”
Turning a Bad Experience into Good
Let’s go further to learn how you can use all this science to improve your ability to be positively contagious. Let’s go back to my event. Now this event could have gone a couple of other ways. I could have come on stage incongruent, stressed out, nervous, distracted, self-focused, or worrying only about me and whether the audience members liked me. I wouldn’t have had to say a word and they would have picked up on those brain waves and vibes and reflected back my negativity. Or they might have ignored me, gotten lost in their phones, or walked out. In either case that experience would be very different.
Another scenario? I could have come out exactly as I was: positive energy, in flow, and totally focused on service, and I could have had a bunch of Georges and Georgettes in the audience in a low state, with arms crossed and nasty facial expressions (or simply on their phones) and disregarding my ideas. When you experience a situation like this, you have two choices: (1) hold your state and stay solid (inviting them to match you) or (2) match them, in which case you change your state and your presence, feel bad, and ultimately lose the room.
Let’s take this one step further. Let’s say you have the latter experience; the keynote (or conversation) is crashing. Then what? The good news is tht at any point during any interaction you have a choice to reboot, bring the energy back up, and get command of the room again. This will require courage, a pause, a breath, and getting yourself back to a higher and more congruent state of being.
And this can happen in any conversation or situation—it doesn’t matter if it’s one-to-one or one-to-a-thousand. While you have zero control over others (however, a ton of potential influence), you have total control of you. Changing the energy of the conversation—being contagious—is very doable.
Regaining Command of Your State
When you find yourself in a situation where you want to shift the state of challenging energy, try my favorite technique, which is to breathe and acknowledge three core things:
1. I’m still alive.
2. People still love me (even if not in this room right this minute).
3. This is a time to access any pleasurable thought I can. Anything. This might be remembering that you are with other humans and you’re all in this together. Or that you are here to serve. You might think about something or someone you love. Or “Presence, not perfection!” Or simply reconnecting with your intention. The moment you can take a breath and access a more pleasurable thought, you will be back online.
Each of us has been in a meeting or conversation that was going off the rails, and yet you somehow brought it back. You may have tapped something on this list to pull you through and not even known it.
If you choose not to reboot or access a pleasurable experience to shift your state and your quality of contagiousness, then you’ve likely hardwired in your miserable experience and taught your amygdala to forever fear that situation. The next time you go to do that thing again, it will be scarier. (This can always be rewritten; it’s just easier done sooner than later.)
But here’s really great news: even if it’s a truly bad experience, you have one more chance. If you can catch it and change the story, you can rewrite it. “Recently,” Dr. Lee shares, “how the brain assigns emotions to different experiences was revealed when scientists identified two distinct populations of neurons in the amygdala that process positive and negative emotions.15 In this remarkable study (done by Kim et al., 2016), neuroscientists discovered that how we learned that a particular experience was good or bad depended on where these distinct populations of neurons projected into, even though they initially originated from the same location intermingled acting as a gate for sensory information coming into the amygdala. Most remarkable of all was that shutting down pathways to the fear circuit not only impaired fear learning [negative] but also enhanced reward learning [positive] suggesting that they engage in a push-pull interaction with each other influencing resultant emotional outcomes.”
In other words, the experience comes through the same place in the amygdala but homes in on two distinct places dependent on whether it’s “perceived” as a negative or a positive experience. The same experience bifurcates into two different outcomes—it’s a choice point!
In the case of a bad experience, this process in your brain allows a window of opportunity for us to influence whether we will code this experience as positive or negative. Neuroplasticity enables us to change the outcome of positive or negative based on where we decide to land the experience in our brain.
For example, with the same exact data and situation, I can tell myself the story that I was a complete failure and I’m terrible. Or I can say I was a success because I was brave, I tried, I learned, and I’m loved (even though I didn’t have my intended impact). I can tell myself that George doesn’t like me because he said “no” to my request. Or, I can tell myself that he does like me, he did me a service by being honest, there’s something more fitting for him to say “yes” to, or there’s someone better I can ask. (Thereby putting myself in a stronger, more positive state to move forward and find the next solution.) I can tell myself that my coworker is horrible and out to get me. Or I can assume good, be grateful for the opportunity to sharpen my collaboration skills, and get curious about the coworker’s behavior. (Thereby becoming better resourced to explore what’s actually “here” and consciously navigate any issues.) When I get pulled over for speeding, I can be mad that I got stopped. Or I can be grateful that the officer may have just saved my life and maybe the lives of others. (Being grateful likely creates a better experience with the officer, and me being more present and conscious while driving in the future!)
Notice that with each of these choice points there is a different feeling and outcome. The first options feel contracted and negative—narrowing possibility, learning, and the opportunity to create a better outcome or relationship moving forward. The second options feel more positive and expansive, opening the field of possibility for more learning, connection, and solutions. We can strengthen our ability to default to either type of choice point.
Had my keynote been absolutely terrible and I couldn’t bring it back up, if I could code the story as positive (honestly), I could rewrite that experience in my brain. This might mean coding it as a “great learning experience,” or focusing on the one person I saw be positively impacted, or acknowledging my risk taking and courage. Any positive story would help me process that experience (and learn from it), so that the next time, my neural pathways would be ready to rock versus I would never go on stage again.
Mastery Tip #1: The Seven C’s of Being Positively Contagious
Want to get into a positively contagious state fast? Access any (or all) of these states:
• Confidence
• Curiosity
• Clarity
• Conviction
• Compassion
• Contribution
• Congruence
Confidence, clarity, and conviction communicate that you’ve got this, you are present, and you can be trusted. Curiosity, compassion, and contribution communicate that you care, you are present, and you are human. Congruence communicates that you are present, aligned, and trustworthy.
To exert contagiousness as a leader, you have to be curious toward others, how they are, and their emotional state. Having an emotional intention toward them strengthens the brain waves between you and them and helps create more coherence.
Having a hard time with feeling confident authentically? Access contribution. Contribution is a gateway to confidence. Why? Because when you’re contributing, you’re not coming from a self-focused or judgment space, but rather from service and care. Subtract judgment and instead add service and boost confidence.
Finally, compassion releases serotonin and dopamine, which shift our physiological states and make us more compelling and relatable to people around us. Contribution, curiosity, and congruence activate oxytocin (a hormone and neurotransmitter known to be involved in breastfeeding, childbirth, and the experience of being in love), which increases trust, creates safety, and makes people feel good. Ahh . . . the virtual cycle of contagious good!
Mastery Tip #2: Connect with Your Future Self and Create Your Experience
In my work with clients, I’ve found that when we work with a version of their future self, they have more access to their innate wisdom and are more likely to make better decisions. Why? The brain needs to be able to experience a reality in the future so that it can create it. Imagination and visioning (that can come with meditation) are essential tools for doing this. When you connect with your vision for your future self, seeing yourself being and doing that behavior (e.g., learning a skill or solving a problem) and feeling the experience of it, you have a better chance of creating it.
Writing a vision for what you want to create, and then reading and living it every day, is one of my personal favorites for becoming.
Another way to look at this is to see yourself as contagious externally and internally. Whatever and whomever you see yourself as, you can create it (consciously or unconsciously) by envisioning it and living into it, as if turning on mirror neurons to mimic your own future self. The more you do this, the less effort you need. It becomes a default. The more you show up, create your reality, and even embody it—feeling the way you want to feel—the more contagious you become and the more others respond accordingly. If you mirror what you want to see and be, your internal map of your reality expands, you increase your neural threshold expanding your range for what’s possible and how contagious you can become, and you build your neural pathways—making this your new way of being.
Fieldwork: Make It Real
Here are several things you can do to make this chapter real in your life—do one or all and see what shifts.
1. Digest this chapter as it serves your analytical mind. Then go take a nap so your brain can process and absorb it.
2. Experiment with the impact of sleep, meditation, presence, and self-care. Whatever you’re doing right now to take care of yourself, level-up. Do it more and with greater intent. (If you’re starting from scratch, that’s good too.) Keep a journal to track what you do and the impact of it. You can measure the following:
• Sleep quality and time
• Meditation quality and time
• Self-care, the quality of it, and what you do for it (i.e., food, exercise, rest, etc.)
• Presence awareness, reboots, and time simply being present with yourself
Then measure how it impacts you and your leadership:
• The quality of my presence and focus today
• The quality of my reactions to stress and overwhelm
• My level of intention and thoughtfulness
• My general energy level
• What I learned
3. Practice choice points for 24 hours
• For every situation that comes up today, no matter how aggravating or disappointing, find another frame for it. Remember, this does not mean being “Pollyanna” about it or pretending it didn’t happen; this means choosing to find a more expansive thought and frame that will support you in moving forward.
• Do not complain for 24 hours. Not once. Instead, for every complaint you have, simply consider the request or the suggestion underneath it. (This is another form of “choice pointing.”) For extra credit, find the requests under the complaints when others come to you complaining. (You can intuit what the request is and check it out. You can also just ask and then coach them as needed to explore it.)
4. Play the Mirror Neuron Game
• At your next meeting (this could be a one-to-one or with a group), before you even walk in, check yourself—your energy, your state, the vibe you’re putting out, your posture and facial expressions, and so on. Set an intention for how you want to show up and for the quality of the experience you want to create. See what happens when you set the tone.
• If it doesn’t go so hot, or you notice energy starts to dip or tension is in the room or things are feeling heavy, take a breath, sit back, and practice what you’ve learned in this chapter.