Kerrie Phipps and Dr Jeffrey Schwarz

This picture was taken when I met Dr Schwarz at the first NeuroLeadership Summit in Sydney a couple of years ago.

In this video Dr Jeffrey Schwatrz discusses at the United Nations how focused attention can change the brain…and this is why I’m so passionate about coaching people to the outcomes they dream of.

I was reminded of an article I wrote a few years ago about a clients experience – it’s a useful peek into what’s possible… read it here..

“I need to rewire my brain…” a client told me recently. This motivated professional defined the essence of coaching accurately. In three months she’s completely changed her focus in several key areas of her thinking, so that she’s no longer traveling down the highway of negative thinking and reacting badly, but choosing an empowering, positive focus.

By paying attention to her goals, she literally has created new wiring, or neural pathways in her brain. With deliberate thinking and actions, she has created new habits which support her continued success.

You can literally rewire your brain to create sustainable success by paying attention to your goal, or desired outcome. While we are keeping focused on the goal, there’s no room for negative thinking or discouragement; the brain is in an energized state with an increase in the feel-good chemicals such as dopamine and serotonin. More possibilities arise and insights flow as the brain makes more connections. When we pay attention to the insight we are strengthening those networks in the brain – basically, the brain gets used to the insight and when enough attention has been paid to the insight it becomes the natural way of thinking.

6 recent discoveries about the brain… adapted from Quiet Leadership by David Rock.

1. The brain is a connection machine.  Every thought we have is not contained in one key area, but is a map created across different areas of the brain. The connections or information the brain considers important become hardwired, anything else is lost.
2. Up close, no two brains are alike.  The implications of this are enormous. Just to consider one aspect is to realize that we can’t expect someone else to see a situation exactly as we do.
3. The brain hardwires everything it can.  Broadly speaking, there are two parts of the brain: working memory and long term memory. The brain works hard to get things out of short-term memory and into long-term memory – it uses less resources that way.
4. Our hardwiring drives our perception.  We see what we’ve conditioned our brains to see. “We don’t see things as they are. We see things as we are” ~ Anais Nin, (1903-1977),
5. It’s practically impossible to deconstruct our wiring.  Anything we give focus to can become hardwired. Therefore, the more we focus on an area, the more we deepen that connection.
6. It’s easy to create new wiring.  This is the good news, and it’s what the brain was designed to do. Therefore the old hardwiring becomes obsolete as the new wiring can become the dominant wiring – if you give it more attention.

The implications of these discoveries by neuroscientists over the past 15 years are enormous. What do they mean for you – for your own thinking and the way you have conversations with others?

If you’d like a conversation that leads to your own empowering insights and creating new habits, please feel free to contact me on 0409 982 342 or on our contact page.

Contact Kerrie

“There are more possible ways to connect the brain’s neurons than there are atoms in the universe”. – Dr John Ratey. 2001