What Were You Thinking?

Okay all you left-brainers out there, strap yourselves in because I'm about to lower the boom on you. As it turns out how we decide has as much if not more to do with our emotions and right brain than our logical left. Let me be clear. We absolutely need both halves of our whole mind to make the best decisions however neuroscience has shown us that no sooner do we arrive at some logical conclusion then our emotions wash over our minds and thoughts to give it another dimension, perspective, insight and depth that was missing. Stimuli from all directions are hitting our brains and setting off a virtual fireworks display inside our brains transmitting thoughts, connecting pieces of information and making us feel a certain way about what is going on. In his most recent book, How We Decide, Jonah Lehrer - a neuroscientist - takes us on a fantastic voyage through that 3 pound mass of gray matter and offers scientific-based studies revealing the truth behind how we come to make choices. A great story teller, Jonah shows how the various "players" on the team called BRAIN work together to help us sift through options in the middle of a crisis, when we're on the job, on a football field, pondering which flavor ice cream to pick, etc. Why do we get paralyzed when we're presented with too many options? (Ever wonder why a child cries when presented with many options and the parent demands for them to choose...now!?) It is even shown which side of our brains serves up the way to the best choice given certain circumstances.

As it turns out, we can overthink things logically about matters that our emotional brain compadres already know to be true or to be the best choice. Grab 10 minutes and listen to this interview with Jonah and if you have the time, click on the link that will let you listen to the whole hour interview. It's fascinating, thought-provoking and highly useful. Better yet, get the book too.

This insight is highly relevant no matter what you do, who you are or where you live. We humans all tick the same in the noggin anatomically speaking. How we put it together and which parts are more developed (since we can develop certain mental capacities and levels of ability beyond their current status) is obviously different. Think of it as superhighways and rural roads. The Superhighways are the parts of the brain that we all have that serve the same function and drive the same main operating functions. The rural roads are the connections and shortcuts and pathways we develop to place in certain areas of the brain the information we gather from learning, experiences, and other influences throughout our lives .

So the next time you make a decision that goes awry or you're stuck in a loop, it is appropriate to ask yourself "What was I thinking?" That really is the right question. How your brain put the pieces together, what you did with the emotional messaging your were probably receiving and what connections you made, drove you to come to a conclusion upon which you acted or instructed others to act. That exploration can help you make a better decision next time. I call it, the anatomy of a decision. The brain learns from its mistakes and failures. This is why it's important to allow our children to fail. To learn how to fail and pick themselves up. This is one of the key learnings of which we must not deprive our children. It's not about being negative because we're focusing on the failure but looking at the steps our mind followed to end up in a place that didn't work well. This is the way we learn things. Try, fail, try fail, try success! If we did try, success, we may not truly understand why we succeeded.

Taking this into the context of business life, we also must allow ourselves and those we are grooming to take over leadership roles to experience this. Failing forward is a good thing. It helps retrain your mind, build new connections and roadways along the superhighways of your brain. It's how we get better at sports, at business decisioning, at relationships...at life.

What are you thinking these days? Sound off here!