🧠Weekly Mind Sweep #124 | Manage Your Mind | Inclusivity
May 2024
Week 122: Curated Conversation; Inclusivity
Week 123: Mind Your Business; Inclusivity
*Week 124: Manage Your Mind; Inclusivity
Week 125: What’s On My Mind; Inclusivity
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Let’s sweep the brain…
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In today's world, our conscious brain recognizes the importance of diversity, while our unconscious brain quickly categorizes information (over 11 million bits per second 🤯) to conserve energy and increase efficiency.
Your brain's core function is to regulate complex needs in the body, known as the "Body Budget." [1]
It keeps you safe and ultimately alive.
As humans, we are biased.
It takes our brain about 200 milliseconds to judge and categorize others who do not look or behave like us. [2]
These survival instincts are shaped by our upbringing, the people who raised us, and our experiences, all inherited from our ancestors. Essentially, what happened to you during your brain's development as an infant, child, and young adult affects your perceptions. [3]
Feeling 'other' can have a lasting unconscious bias in a diverse conscious world.
Consciously knowing what you "should" do isn't enough. Over the last decade, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) training has been prominent in corporations, businesses, and non-profit organizations to bring awareness to needed changes.
However, the human brain needs exposure to change.
We conform to social norms daily without questioning them. We often follow the crowd without understanding why. Take a look around yourself. [4]
Do you use the same cell phone as those around you?—fitting in feels good, and you feel comfortable knowing you can receive tech help if needed. If you were handed a different phone, it would feel uncomfortable, but over time, your comfort level would increase.
Do you make your bed because a parent or caretaker created the routine for you to do it? Being praised for doing a good job feels good to our brain, and we will continue a behavior we are rewarded for. #OhHIIIIDopamine
Or, maybe you use Windex to clean everything around you because that's what your mother did. đź‘€ I'm looking at you (in the mirror), Jamie Chapman.
You do the things you've always done because you've been taught to do them or because your unconscious mind is trying to fit into the tribe. It feels amazing to be welcomed, liked, and loved.
To rewire the neuropathways for change requires action.
Once you recognize your brain's bias, you must actively seek environments and experiences that challenge it. Your initial reaction may be fear due to a lack of exposure, but this doesn't matter. What matters is practicing sitting in uncomfortable spaces, engaging in difficult conversations, and embracing vulnerability.
We improve inclusivity by actively practicing it. [5]
Similar to things you have trained yourself to do, like riding a bike, reading every night before bed, or actively joining in Curated Conversations on Monday morning at 8am, you can consciously expose yourself to things outside of your comfort zone. (You may even retrain your brain to love Monday mornings!)
You hold the power to make change without always understanding "why."
Your brain is desperate to understand the WHY so it can seek connections to form new thoughts. By surrendering to the unknown and beginning to create new pathways, you can grow and stretch beyond your comfort zone and become a better human.
Building an inclusive world starts with you. You have the awareness; now it's time to take action.
Can you share an experience where stepping out of your comfort zone helped you overcome a bias or changed your perspective?
Reply and share with me!
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Jamie’s Second Brain Corner:
[1] Listen to Lisa Feldman Barrett, PhD, about Body Budget (She is also the author of 7 ½ Lessons of the Brain.)
[2 ] The Neuroscience of Inclusion
[3 ] What Happened To You
[4] We conform to societal norms. Thank you, V L'bassi, for contributing to our conversation this week!
[5] Practice makes perfect Neuroscience News.
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What I’m reading
What I’m reading:
A very special thank you to Mo McGraw Bentley for reflecting my gifts to me in a book.
As David Brooks observes, “There is one skill that lies at the heart of any healthy person, family, school, community organization, or society: the ability to see someone else deeply and make them feel seen—to accurately know another person, to let them feel valued, heard, and understood.”
And yet we humans don’t do this well. All around us are people who feel invisible, unseen, misunderstood.
In How to Know a Person, Brooks sets out to help us do better, posing questions that are essential for all of us: If you want to know a person, what kind of attention should you cast on them? What kind of conversations should you have? What parts of a person’s story should you pay attention to?
Collaborations!
Business Community & Collaboration!
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For 2024, we'd like to make a focused effort to support you and your business. For June, we'll discuss:
Guest Speaker: Jeff Coleman of Four Factor Consulting to discuss Running Google Ads... Profitably
Google makes it easy to set up a new Google Ads account, but that does not mean it will give you a good return on investment (ROI). If you are curious about whether Google Ads could work for your business, or you have started a campaign and want to make it more effective, please join us on June 7th. Jeff Coleman, owner of Factor Four Consulting, will show you:
Why starting with a "bullseye" keyword phrase makes your campaigns more effective
How to work with the algorithms and not against them
Why negative keywords are a positive force for your success
Jeff has been running Google Ads for the past 19 years (16 with his own agency) and managed tens of millions of dollars in ad spend for 75+ clients -- several have been with him for more than a decade. No matter the size of the budget, his primary focus is driving profitable results for clients.
Learn more about Jeff at https://www.factorfour.com/
Agenda:
Join Shannon Dalton Giordano of Serendipity Social Media and me of Chickbook Creative for this two-hour interactive business community experience.
We’ll discuss ways to cultivate business through Sales, Marketing, and Communication methods that support relationship building, showing up authentically, and connecting deeper with colleagues and the people you serve.
9-10 am - Jeff Coleman, Four Factor Consulting
10-10:45 am - Open discussion, community support, brainstorming ideas
10:45 -11 am - Clear and actionable takeaways to start your month in forward momentum
Join us to meet business owners in our community. Leave with new tools in your toolbox to help you make connections and build your business!
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