Happiness

Energy, Gratitude, Happiness, Human Brain, Yoga

Happiness is such a fundamental thing, as far as I am concerned, that I tell all my team members that there’s no point in doing a job if it doesn’t get you to be happy.

I have written a lot about gratitude and how it helps you feel more happy, safe etc. This is one practice that I follow a lot.

In addition I do a little bit of Yoga / Pranayam (different kinds of breathing exercises) everyday in the morning because it gets me tuned a little better to start my day. Just the fact that I take time out in the morning without looking at my phone ensures that I don’t get any SMS or WhatsApp which can cause me to become anxious.

I don’t get a newspaper at home, I don’t watch newspaper on TV and I don’t have any apps on my mobile or tablet that can give me news because all these channels only vend negativity in some form or another, which gets my brain anxious

So while I wrote about activities which stop me from getting anxious (consciously or subconsciously) as per Steven Kotler there are actually methods by which you can ensure happiness.

In his book The Art of Impossible, he also talks about Gratitude as one activity to increase happiness. Then he talks about mindfulness – while I use Yoga. Then he says even exercise makes you feel happy because it helps you reduce cortisol levels, thereby reducing stress, while increasing feel good neuro chemicals.

Finally the most surprising thing that I read was a good night’s sleep. I have known that a good night’s sleep is critical for being alert and active. But this alertness and activeness is because of the higher energy levels that you have after a good night’s sleep. As per Steven, because of the higher energy levels, your brain feels more capable of solving the challenges ahead and therefore you feel more secure, which in turn leads to feeling more happy.

But when you are under pressure, these are the exact things you stop doing, which causes a negative spiral to take place. So how do you ensure that you do these four things even when you are stressed…. I don’t know…but would definitely like to know if any of you has been able to crack this code.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

Habits – Path Dependence

Brain size, creativity, Energy, Habits, Human Brain, Uncategorized

I have generally been talking about how the human brain eats 25% of the energy that a body needs even though it is only 2% of the body mass. This is one of the reasons for procrastination in my opinion because the brain wants to conserve energy and by delaying the process of using the brain it’s able to save energy.

Since motivation is something which is fickle, you would rather convert something into a habit, so that it gets done automatically with a predetermined set of steps – something which B.J.Fogg explains very well in his book Tiny Habits.

Now the challenge with habits is that once formed, they are difficult to dislodge. So you become – literally a creature of habit. The human brain loves habits because they run on auto pilot, and don’t consume too much of energy. Since one of the key functions of the brain is to ensure your survival, the brain loves everything that does not consume energy so that it has enough when it has to figure out ways to survive.

With habits though you always follow a predetermined “path”.

However with changing situations in all our lives, you need to find ways to move away from the so called “beaten path” What made you successful then, will not make you successful in the future. Nokia realised it too late, Kodak realised it too late and there are a whole lot of other names that you can list. All these companies had put up terrific systems (equivalent of habits) to ensure economies, to ensure quality etc.

But the same systems got them blindsided.

Companies are also made up of people and when companies get blind sided, its the people who have actually got blindsided because they have become creatures of habit. To solve a new problem they use the same old tools, the same old sources of data which they have used earlier. But since the problem is new, the old tools don’t work and we are not willing to go back to first principles to solve the problem. Sometimes it pressure of time, sometimes revenue takes precedence and there are a whole lot of other reasons.

So the key thing to figure out is when to use creativity and when to go with something which has already proven useful many times before. When do you travel on the well tread path or choose a different road when you hit a fork.

As team leaders this is a problem which we face all the time and finding better ways to solve a problem is something that I am continuously looking out for. If you have found a way which helped you to creatively solve a problem pls let me know below in the comments.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

Ferocity

Energy, Habits, Human Brain, Marketing, problem solving, Sales

This is another of the new words which have got added to my Lexicon after reading Steven Kotler’s book The Art of the Impossible.

The word ferocious is a well understood adjective generally used with wild animals and people who are very savage or intensely angry kinds.

However Steven over here is using the word as a noun and is calling it a habit. Now that is what I found unique.

Ferocious, fierce are all words which are generally used in the negative or wild sense. I have not found them being used in positive sense and that’s why I thought of sharing this with you.

Here Steven has made it an essential habit if you need to have enough motivation to achieve the impossible. If you know the big dreams you want to pursue ( he calls them MTPs and HHGs) then you need to be at them day -in and day – out for a long period of time. The impossible is not something which can be achieved in the short term.

But if you attack your dreams by ensuring you are continuously solving the big problems that come your way, sooner rather than late you keep getting better at it. Then it becomes a habit. Once something becomes a habit it takes less energy. Something similar to what I was talking about in my post a couple of days back. Once the habit gets ingrained into your system the brain goes into automatic mode. It does not need to spend energy. As I have mentioned in my earlier posts, the brain uses almost 25% of the requirement of energy that the body has. By making something a habit you conserve energy.

The advantage of this is 2 fold when you attack the challenges with ferocity and make its a habit – the first is the saving of energy which means you have more energy to handle other tasks and the second is that you save time. If you can solve more problems in the same time than I can, you will be way ahead of me. This attribute of being able to save time in the long helps you target impossible dreams.

The bigger the problems you solve, and more problems you solve, the more valuable you become. The more valuable you become the more people get aligned with you.

This is true in all facets of life. Even in sales / marketing, the more prospects you interact with, the more challenges you handle, the better your responses become, faster. You therefore are able to handle even larger number of prospects. If your sales team has the habit of ferocity to target a large number of prospects in a limited amount of time, success will be with them. We generally use the term fire in the belly of the sales person. Now this is a new term I have learnt to push my teams

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

Habits and Procrastination

Energy, Flow, Habits, Human Brain, peak Performance, procrastination, Thinking

I have written earlier about the book Tiny Habits by B. J. Fogg PhD. This is one classic book and it eliminates the ideas of doing heroic things to achieve Peak Performance. I have been deeply impressed with the book and the results it has helped me get.

The logic of the book is very simple, yet profound. Actually most profound things have simple explanations. Here the simple explanation is that if there’s something which requires a lot of ability (also known as hard work for the brain) then chances are, that if motivation is not high, then it won’t happen. So you may have the best intentions, but your brain won’t let you achieve it. This is what I was talking about yesterday .

As I mentioned in my post yesterday, the brain has only 2% of the mass of the body but consumes about 25% of the energy, so its always trying to conserve energy as per Steven Kotter in his book The Art of Impossible.

As per Steven to achieve the impossible one of the key ingredients is motivation. He also looks at the various chemicals like dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin etc., which when layered give the brain the power of feeling good and hence the motivation to perform at peak.

Where I think the intersection takes place is that if you make something into a habit, then the brain does not use so much energy and you don’t procrastinate even for tasks where the motivation is low and the amount of ability needed is high.

On the other hand when your motivation levels are high and you’re at your creative best, you can get into a “flow” state and achieve massive outcomes.

I would think you should read both the books because both can help you grow your abilities to perform at your peak.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!