Fear: It's A Brain Thing

"It is not so much what happens to you as how you think about what happens."

   Epictetus, Greek Philosopher, writing in the 1st Century

As Epictetus suggested more than 2,000 years ago, our fears are not based on the facts of a situation but on our beliefs about the situation.

Epictetus was no brain scientist but he could have been. Neuroscience confirms what Epictetus was telling us.

If you take a moment to think about a fear you have, you'll notice that just thinking about it produces an emotion from mild discomfort to outright panic. Think of walking down a dark alley alone at night. Snakes. Phone calls to people we don't know (or, sometimes, people we do know). Asking for money (or, sometimes, asking for a favor). Giving or getting feedback. Job interviews. Dying.

None of that is a problem, however, unless the thought prevents us from doing what we want to do or need to do.

For example, I've worked with people who avoid delivering presentations or won't voice their opinions or are terrified of confronting a coworker even when they know their career and their life would be enhanced if they did so. A friend's entire business is based on helping people get over their fear of making phone calls to business prospects. There are brilliant people who freeze when taking a test.

So why are we afraid? Here's the neuroscience part.

Over millions of years, our brains have evolved to make sure we survive by predicting the future. After all, if a cave man needed to go into the forest to collect nuts and berries and could predict that the noise he hears is a predator and not just the wind moving tree branches, his life will be saved by not going in the forest.

The cave man did this by comparing sights and sounds he had heard in the past to the current sights and sounds and using that data to predict whether the noise was the wind or a predator.

This is exactly what our brains are doing today, right now, this minute. We take data from the past and use that to predict what will happen in the future all in the interest of making sure we survive.

As we imagine ourselves delivering a presentation, making a phone call, taking a test or being interviewed for a job, our brains try and predict what will happen so that we can be prepared.

The problem is we can't accurately predict the future. How could we? The future, you may have noticed, hasn't happened yet.

The future may occur as we have predicted, but that's only by chance. Strategic planning experts, astrologers and investment advisers may congratulate themselves when the future turns out as they predicted, but that's only because they've taken educated guesses and been lucky. There's no way to actually know what happens until it happens (even the "Back To The Future" movies had trouble with the future and the characters knew what was going to happen). 

Sometimes we're right and the future conforms to our prediction. Sometimes we're wrong.

This doesn't mean we shouldn't plan for the future based on our predictions. Make lists of pros and cons. Consult the experts. Talk it over with those you trust. Attend seminars to practice the skills you want to use. Chance seems to favor the prepared mind.

But if chance does favor our preparation well...that's just more chance.

Why is this important? Because, when we're afraid, it helps to know that it's just the brain doing its thing.

The knowledge that we create our fears is the knowledge that there is nothing to fear.

We can't control the future. But we can control our reactions when the future comes. And our big, amazing, brains will ensure that we survive that real future.

I'm creating my fears. I'm creating my fears. I'm creating my fears.

Say that over and over instead of what you currently may be telling yourself when you're afraid.

It's Words Not Wishes That Create A Future

"Whether you think you can or you think you can't you're right."

                           Henry Ford

We are largely unaware of how powerfully what we think shapes our actions. But we can gain some insight into what we think by noticing what we say. After all, "In the beginning was The Word."

In the article, “How Language Shapes Your Organization” published in the Harvard Business Review Blog Network on July 24^th, 2012, Kevin Allen discusses how language shapes a corporate culture.

He uses Enron as an example of a culture where phrases like “We’re an aggressive culture,” “We’re guys with spikes,” and “Money is the only thing that motivates” produced a culture where it was permissible to shut off energy supplies to California and manipulate markets.

Contrasted with Enron is Horst Schulze who headed the Ritz-Carlton group for many years and is credited with introducing the principle "We are ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen."

Allen suggests that the words that become the “catch phrases” of any organization provide the “cultural permission” that creates the behavior and attitudes of an organization and its people.

“Cultural permission” is a great phrase and has implications well beyond the Corporate world. For example:

“We are better than (other countries, other people, other races)” has created the cultural permission for genocide.

“That’s a no brainer” provides the cultural permission to cut off dissent by suggesting that the person who disagrees with what everyone else thinks is obvious has no brains. To see the power of the “no brainer” phenomenon in action, consider how long it took to disprove the "no brainers" that if we travel far enough, we’ll fall off the end of the earth, bloodletting will cure almost any illness and the sun revolves around the earth.

“It’s every man for himself” will produce behavior very different from “We’re all in this together.”

“Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing” may give permission to act unethically in order to win. “Winning isn’t everything, but wanting to win is” (the actual Vince Lombardi quote) may produce actions that are disciplined, committed and responsible.

“I’m too busy to think” may produce thoughtless people. Lives that are stressed and rushed follow naturally from the statement, “I haven’t got the time.”

In an article in the New York Times on August 10^th, 2012 (“Beware The Nocebo Effect”), the cardiologist Bernard Lowen is quoted as saying, “Words are the most powerful tool a doctor possesses, but words, like a two-edged sword, can maim as well as heal.”

Perhaps most worrisome of all are the words we use to describe ourselves. “I’m a shy person,” “I’m an angry person” or “I’m a forgetful person” generate people who behave in ways that conform to their self descriptions even though those adjectives represent a miniscule portion of their total behavior.

We use our self descriptions as proof of our limitations, leading to statements such as “I’d love to but I’m too shy” (ignoring the many times we were outspoken), or “If only I weren’t fearful, I’d tell people my opinion” (disregarding those times when we told others exactly what we thought) or “I’d have better relationships if only I weren’t so afraid of commitment” (discounting the many commitments we have made in our lives).

Perhaps “be careful what you wish for, you may get it” is on a par with “be careful what you say, you may create it.”

A Journey Of 10,000 Hours Begins With A Single Step

Good news! It only takes about 3^1/2 years to be an “overnight success.”

In his book, “Outliers,” Malcolm Gladwell writes about the"10,000-Hour Rule", claiming that the key to mastery in any field is a matter of practicing a specific task for a total of around 10,000 hours. That’s 416 days, working 24 hours every day. Multiply that by three if you work an eight hour day and that’s 1,249 days or about 3^1/2 years of consistent devotion. Shorten that time frame, of course, if you’re willing to practice for longer hours.

Gladwell supports this contention through several examples, including the 10,000 hours the Beatles played together before becoming famous and the 10,000 hours Bill Gates spent programming computers before creating Microsoft.

What distinguishes an “overnight success” from the rest of us is the 10,000 hours the “overnight success” spent practicing.

This is similar to the quip attributed to Mark Twain (but not actually authenticated) that “it takes a lot of practice to speak extemporaneously.” Thomas Edison made a comparable remark when he famously said, “genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.”

Or we may read about the film actor who did 100 repetitions of a one-minute scene in order to create one take to be printed. When we watch the movie, we marvel at how effortlessly the actor performs and might even think, “I could never do that.”

Could it be that the difference between the “I could never do that” and those who do it is the 10,000 hours of practice it took to “just do it?”

In fact, the athletes we see performing in Nike’s famous commercials (or at the Olympics) have spent at least 10,000 hours to achieve their level of performance.

If you are skilled at anything, you probably spent about 10,000 hours to attain your current proficiency. You may not achieve fame (Gladwell writes in his book about the importance of being lucky), but if expertise and professionalism are what you’re after, you will certainly achieve those.

Necessity may be the mother of invention, but it’s repetition that is the mother of mastery.

To paraphrase a famous saying, a journey of 10,000 hours begins with a single step.

You may never complete the journey. After all, there are no guarantees. But, in truth, it’s not the destination we’re after, but who we get to experience ourselves as being in the pursuit of that destination. We get to be courageous and fearless and free of the constraints of our past. And, I suggest, that’s what we’re after anyway as we take that first of 10,000 steps.

What do you dream of achieving? What will be your single step today?  

If Everyone Is Crazy, You'd Be Crazy To Be Sane

“If it’s just your belief, it’s autism. If it’s everyone’s belief,

it’s culture”

     Sheldon Solomon, Professor of Psychology, Skidmore College

 

It takes courage to challenge the prevailing culture. Indeed, the lesson many of us have learned is that when one finds out the Emperor has no clothes, it’s best to keep it to yourself or you’ll be thought of as crazy. In the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale, a child cries out that the emperor is naked and the cry is taken up by all the townspeople. Adults know that’s not what happens in real life.

 

In real life, the whistleblower, the outlier (to use the title of Malcolm Gladwell’s book), the team member who objects, is often criticized and discounted. He is the “autistic” who disagrees with what everyone else “knows” to be true.

 

After all, when everyone is crazy you’d be crazy to be sane.

 

Even the term “whistleblower” suggests someone making a piercing, obnoxious noise and not someone simply disagreeing with what everyone else seems to agree with.

 

Yet it’s the failure to challenge cultural beliefs that can destroy a business (see Enron), a family (see Bernie Madoff) and, sometimes, even lives (see the story of Sally Ride and Roger Boisjoly below).  

 

Sally Ride died on July 22^nd of this year. You may remember that she was the first female astronaut, spending six days in space in 1983.

 

That was memorable enough to warrant a two-page obituary in the New York Times.

 

Just as memorable to me was that she hugged Roger Boisjoly when no one else would.  

 

When the Challenger shuttle blew up in 1986, Ms Ride was appointed to the panel investigating the reasons for the disaster.

 

Roger Boisjoly was an engineer who had worked for the company that made the shuttle’s rocket boosters. He had warned his bosses of problems with the rocket booster seals that, you may recall, turned out to be the reason for the explosion. Roger’s warnings had been ignored and, in fact, his colleagues shunned him when he reported to the panel that he had warned his bosses.

 

Sally’s hug, Roger recounted, “helped sustain (me) during a troubled time.” No one else on the panel offered Roger any support.

 

Think about that phrase, “a troubled time.” Why was it “trouble” for Roger and not for his bosses?

 

We often read of whistleblowers and “outliers” who are ostracized and thought of as pains in the ass. And they are pains in the ass to the prevailing culture. They are the ones telling us over and over again that it is insane to do the same thing over and over and over again and expect a different outcome.

 

As hard as it can be sometimes, it’s important to listen to those who disagree with us because they are our real teachers in life. Learning and growth are only possible in the presence of someone with a different point of view. By definition, learning requires a point of view that challenges our own.

 

And by that definition, we all have something to teach one another because we each have our own point of view.

 

After all, the prevailing culture is nothing more than what most people agree with and that culture may have some flaws. Perhaps those flaws won’t produce as tragic a result as with the Challenger shuttle explosion. But there’s no way to know if we ignore, ostracize and demean those who are imploring us to question what everyone “knows” to be true.