🧠Weekly Mind Sweep #119 | Manage Your Mind| Meaning
April 2024
Week 117: Curated Conversation; Meaning
Week 118: Mind Your Business; Meaning
*Week 119: Manage Your Mind; Meaning
Week 120: What’s On My Mind; Meaning
Week 121: Bonus Week, Meaning
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Let’s sweep the brain…
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Brains Are Meaning Makers
Several areas in our brain work in cahoots to recall information from previous experiences and sensory inputs that help your brain determine your reality. [1]
Let's delve into how the brain functions in this complex meaning-making process.
Picture your brain as the entrepreneur and its various regions are similar to the different hats you wear within your business.
Just as the entrepreneur needs input from different departments like your financial, marketing and operations to make strategic decisions, your brain integrates information from various areas to navigate the complexities of reality. [1a]
But remember, our brain has one job. To keep us safe.
Much like the entrepreneur's core team collaborates to interpret market trends and consumer behavior, your brain's regions work together to recall past experiences and interpret sensory inputs.
"The function of the brain is to identify patterns in order to make sense of the world around you. Confirming familiarity is how it determines what is "safe" vs. "danger." The brain stem acts as the gatekeeper, constantly scanning new experiences for familiar patterns and measuring them against your previously stored experiences.
This explains how unconscious bias is formed and why it applies to every human being breathing on this planet.
When you are "triggered," it is because your brain stem is matching some evocative cue (or sensory input) you are currently experiencing with a previous experience it registered as unsafe, and consequently, a traumatic memory was stored." [2]
Your brain stem acts as the cautious financial advisor, constantly scanning for potential risks and familiar patterns to ensure safety, much like the entrepreneur carefully assesses market trends before making big investments.
When triggered, it's like encountering a situation reminiscent of a past business failure [3], leading to a cautious response.
Brains are meaning makers.
"Machines process information that is fed to them. Brains construct hypotheses and test them by acting and sensing. Brains do not process information because the intake through the senses is infinite. Brains sample information, hold it briefly, construct meaning, and then discard the information." [4]
Our brain is wired to act and feel before rational thinking.
Our inner perspective can become a self-fulfilling prophecy; we tend to see what we expect, triggering the very outcomes we envision.
However, just as an entrepreneur can pivot and innovate to adapt to changing market conditions, our brains possess plasticity and choice, enabling us to adjust and reshape our understanding of the world.
You have the power to change your inner perspective with brain plasticity.
Using words, images, stress management strategies, self-care (self-regulation), exercise, and relationships (even with your quirky neighbor) can all help your brain's makeover, like giving it a new stylish hat. Amazingly, our brains are "plastic," meaning they are constantly changing and learning new pathways. They are like that one friend who's always up for a change!
Tap into the brain's plasticity superpowers to improve decision-making for yourself and your business.
What's one thing, whether in your personal life or career, that you've interpreted in a way that might need a little rewiring?
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[1] BrainFacts.org
[1a] MindSweep Month of Reality
[2] What happened to you - Book
[3] MindSweep Month on Failure
[4]HOW AND WHY BRAINS CREATE MEANING FROM SENSORY INFORMATION
[4] Understanding the Meaning Making Machinery of Your Brain
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What I’m reading
What I’m reading:
A very special thank you to Kate Hollis for recommending this book to me! (She has a special gift of knowing which book belongs in front of your eyes, heart, and soul.) Thank you, Kate!
From bestselling and award-winning author Patrick deWitt comes the story of Bob Comet, a man who has lived his life through and for literature, unaware that his own experience is a poignant and affecting narrative in itself.
Bob Comet is a retired librarian passing his solitary days surrounded by books and small comforts in a mint-colored house in Portland, Oregon.
One morning on his daily walk he encounters a confused elderly woman lost in a market and returns her to the senior center that is her home. Hoping to fill the void he’s known since retiring, he begins volunteering at the center.
Here, as a community of strange peers gathers around Bob, and following a happenstance brush with a painful complication from his past, the events of his life and the details of his character are revealed.
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