Tom’s Infectious Laugh and Happy Life – The Neuroscience of Happiness

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When we dedicate ourselves to being happy, we change our brains for the better.

Recently Tom Magliozzi of “Car Talk” passed away due to complications from Alzheimer’s. I loved this man’s laugh. Although I’m not what you would call a diehard car person, his gift to disarm and connect with people drew me to the show on a regular basis.

Tom was dedicated to living the life he loved, and the catalyst for that took place on a busy Boston freeway when he was in his early 20s and nearly collided with a truck. The experience propelled him to resign from his job and to become, as he called it, “a bum.” He and his brother, both MIT graduates, eventually partnered in a series of business ventures—from the Good News Garage (the name makes me smile) to “Car Talk.” And I’m delighted they did because their voices, and especially Tom’s laugh, were chicken soup for my soul after my father passed away.

What was it about Tom’s laugh that brightened my day? What does it take to increase happiness? And what does happiness do to the brain?

We have the power to increase our happiness throughout our lives. It’s a matter of choice. And when we dedicate ourselves to being happy, we change our brains for the better because the function and structure of the brain is connected to our emotions and behavior. The old school of thought posited that our brain changed but lost vitality over time. This couldn’t be further from the truth. (I love that neuroscience has advanced so much over the past 20 years that we’re able to see how the brain evolves, and better understand how systems link together.) The new school of thought says that we can engage our body to change our brain, which, in turn, changes our body.

When we partake in an activity we love, like dance, yoga or even sex, the insula deep in our brains tracks signals (sensations) from our body and transmits them back to the brain. The more the insula is activated, the more it thickens and produces additional grey matter—created when neurons wire and fire together. How cool! It’s neuroplasticity in action.

Science has also shown that the insula is part of the brain’s social system and central for empathy. When we feel another’s emotions, we actually engage the same neural circuits as the other person and feel the same feelings as well. The bottom line is that the more in tune you are with yourself, the stronger your insula; the happier you are, the more strongly you experience connections with others. It makes me happy to think that listening to a show I loved and partaking in Tom’s laugh made my insula create more grey matter.

Since we know what makes us feel good, that begs the question — Why do we spend so much time thinking about negative things? Why do we choose to play and replay movies and messages that are self deprecating and harmful to our sense of self? Negative thoughts leave neural information behind which can poison how we feel about ourselves and affect the way we connect with others. Interestingly, our brains have a natural bias toward negativity. Thanks to our ancestors who were extremely adept at survival, we have adapted to approach what’s safe but avoid what’s risky. For example, man has learned to dodge the rock and pick up the carrot; however, he’ll look for the rock before he goes for the carrot. Yes, he needs food to live, but if he doesn’t stay clear of the rocks he won’t survive to pick up the carrot. This negative bias is very effective for passing along genes but not necessarily beneficial for our quality of life.

So what can you do to increase your happiness factor and sense of connection with others? Here are some ideas:

1. Take notice of the good things that happen.
Soak up the good stuff and turn positive experiences into wonderful memories. Since we’re wired to focus more on the negative, take an active note of the positive things that happen to you during a day.

2. Remember that what wires together, fires together.
Think about something good that happened for a few seconds and allow it to seep into your being and become part of you. Takes a few seconds.

3. Finally, become aware of how you affect people.
If you lead people, watch your verbal and non-verbal language. You don’t want to set off alarms in others. Focus on developing rapport and helping people feel safe around you.

On one of those days that’s not so good, I’m going to remember Tom and his infectious laugh. I know it will put a smile on my face and warm me up inside. And if I create more grey matter along the way, I’m all for it.

Imagine

sophia Leave a comment

We’re starting a blog!

Neuroscience fascinates me and I see infinite possibilities for it in the field of leadership. Isn’t it amazing that we are capable of change throughout life? What can we do to make change more deliberate and long lasting? These questions led me to pursue my masters in neuroscience, to conduct studies on how biology affects our actions in organizations and to start this blog. I’ve got a lot to say on the topic.

I want to inspire you to be your most authentic and creative in life — through the understanding of the most powerful tool you possess: your brain.

What’s exciting is that neuroplasticity is real — but it’s more challenging than you might think. We first need to understand what we can change about ourselves, how to approach an effective change process and finally how to maintain it over the long term. (No, we can’t change everything.) I have found that neuroscience grounds the change process — what we become aware of empowers us.

Brain science helps us go beyond personality to understand the biological relationship between thoughts, behavior and perception — vital awareness all leaders must master in order to engender trust, rapport and success within teams and organizations. (There’s some work to be done!) And although we do this naturally to some degree, it’s helpful to have a new perspective to ease the learning pain and to foster greater awareness.

What I’ve seen is that people who use brain science to further themselves as leaders become better at managing themselves, their minds and their environments. They express more happiness, communicate with increased clarity and feel more connected with themselves as well as people around them. Doesn’t that sound good.

Share your thoughts and experiences with me and your colleagues, family and friends. I look forward to a rich, ongoing conversation with you.

The Neuroscience of Communication: Your Lens of Leadership

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The more senior a leader becomes, the more important it is for them to adapt to the communication styles of those working for them.

Here’s another blog post that originally appeared at Emergenetics International.

Whether we like it or not, people determine our effectiveness and competence in less than one millisecond. After that, it’s all over. Moreover, when people are forming an opinion of us, verbal communication only accounts for 7% of what they remember. I don’t know about you, but this piques my interest. The truth is, we are watching behavior all the time and creating lasting impressions based on it.

Over my 15 years of coaching, I’ve consistently found that leaders are not adequately aware of how their behavior affects the people they lead. Additionally, many have a hard time understanding why they must adjust their approach in order to increase trust, rapport and effectiveness. To lay the foundation for change two tools have proven handy with leaders – the Emergenetics Profile for awareness and explaining the neuroscience of language.

Think about the three Emergenetics Profile behaviors: expressiveness, assertiveness and flexibility. For me, these behaviors represent the heart of the Profile, and are a critical tool when helping my clients understand how they appear to others. During coaching, I use the Emergenetics behaviors to explain how one’s action can create an unintended perception. For example, I coached a marketing executive in a large engineering firm. Sara was outgoing or silent depending on the situation. Her behavior perplexed her colleagues because she was either engaged or aloof. As a result, her trust factor decreased and uneasiness about her grew because people didn’t know who would show up.

By learning about her behavior, Sara realized that when she was responsible for a meeting or had a vested interest in an outcome, she would be outgoing, expressive and would drive to a conclusion. When she was a meeting participant and unfamiliar with the content, she was more withdrawn, pensive and flexible. I asked her to experiment with language. For example, she could lightly joke to colleagues about how she was more silent in some meetings, and explain that at times she needed to reflect before sharing. After a month, people reported feeling more relaxed around her. They said Sara was in a better mood. We were successfully able to shift people’s impressions and slowly she reduced the chasm of misunderstanding generated by her non-verbal behavior. As a result of her newly gained awareness and change in behavior, she was promoted to the c-suite.

We want our thoughts and words to match our actions so that we’re giving people an accurate picture of our intentions. This can be challenging, but it is possible when we have a framework from which to work.

Let’s take a step back and look at brain science to see how it might affect behavior. Communication is created through language, and we tend to take this ability for granted. Language makes us unique among all species. If we lose language, we lose our ability to interact with other human beings.

The rich field of the neuroscience of language identifies the neural signals deep in the brain that create the seeds for what we think of as language. However, that’s not the whole story. The way we learn language is deeply entwined with environmental experiences and culture. One elegant study by Boroditsky and Gaby (2010) illustrates this very clearly. People were asked to arrange a set of pictures depicting a temporal progression of events (i.e., a person at different ages). Western, English-speaking people (Americans) always arranged the cards from left to right, relationship to their body. However, Aboriginals from the Pormpuraaw tribe, arranged the pictures in absolute space, in relationship to the rise and set of the sun — east to west. They completed the task consistently this way even if they were positioned in different directions in the room.

This study illuminates what makes science sublime. It shows how language plays a causal role in how we think.First we learn language, then we position our language in context to our culture, and finally we think. In the case of the Aboriginals, they always knew their position directionally and then they could respond to the task. One could extrapolate from this that learning a new language is learning a new way of thinking. I would argue that when we work with a diverse workforce, we have the opportunity to learn how each person communicates in relationship to their background and to their specific organizational culture. I tell my clients it’s like learning many different variations on the same language.

Let’s look at another real-world scenario. Steve is a leader in a financial firm, and his division is floundering because he’s resistant to change. When he brought me in, he told me he was open to changing his communication style, but he consistently employs language indicating that he wants other people to change their approach first. He has more seniority and thinks others need to adapt to him.

I submit that it’s the other way around. The more senior a leader becomes, the more important it is for him to adapt to the communication styles of those working for him. The leader needs to actually demonstrate nimble communication. This motivates people and creates rapport because they feel heard and valued. I asked Steve to do two things: 1) Ask at least three questions of the people working for him to empower thought and decision making; and 2) Continually play back to folks what he hears. This helps everyone reflect on how they’ve communicated and ultimately creates better understanding.

It took nine long months, but he turned his attitude around and inspired his people. At the end of our engagement, he said he realized how difficult communication was, and he recognized that it was the tipping point for his career in the company. Today the division is a well-oiled machine and collectively they’ve increased revenue by 20% over the past year.

Knowing how to assimilate by understanding verbal and non-verbal communication is super important to leadership success. Therefore, leaders, never stop reflecting on the feedback people have given you about your behavior and watch people’s reactions to you. Ask yourself: Do your people trust you? Do your clients? Are you projecting one assimilated message? Ask your trusted advisors to observe your behavior and actively seek ways to become better navigators of your own personalities. Above all, keep your communication lenses highly polished to enhance success.

References
Boroditsky, L, Gaby, A Psychol Sci. 2010 Nov; 21(11): 1635-9