…integrating thinking and feeling is a desirable mental state, but many people have a hard time reasoning clearly when they’re upset, or bringing emotion into conceptual activities like planning.
Researchers have recently found that the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) is very involved with weaving thought and feeling together. They’ve also shown that the conscious control of attention is centered in the ACC, which is measurably strengthened by activities that train attention such as meditation. In another example, studies have shown that tuning into the emotional states of others–a central component of empathy–depends on the activity of the insula. The insula also handles interoception, the sensing of the internal state of the body, so mental activities such as sensory awareness activate and eventually thicken the insula, and thereby increase empathy.
In effect, investigators have found that a method used for one purpose (meditation, or sensory awareness) can stimulate and strengthen brain regions that are also involved with another purpose (integrating thinking and feeling, or empathy).
—Rick Hanson, Ph.D. is a clinical psychologist, author, and teacher with
a great interest in the intersection of psychology, neurology, and Buddhism.
He has written and taught extensively about the essential inner skills of personal well-being,psychological growth, and contemplative practice–as well as about relationships,family life, and raising children. A summa cum laude graduate of UCLA,Rick did management consulting before earning his Ph.D.
Lab rats can teach us a lot about the rat race at the office.
I had the great privilege of talking with eminent psychoneuroimmunologist Dr. Lydia Temoshok last night in Reston, at a Chez Nous event. Dr. Temoshok has been a pioneer in the scientific study of stress on our immune systems and its impact on the progress of diseases, especially HIV/AIDS.
She reviewed for us the classic result published in Science in 1983. Three groups of rats were studied. One group was subjected to shocks administered from the floor of their cage but they also had a lever that, when pressed by a rat, would stop the shock. A separate group felt exactly the same shocks as the first group but had no relief lever to press. The third group of rats had no shocks. The rats subjected to uncontrollable shocks suffered suppressed immune systems. The rats subjected to shocks with some control over their environmental stress, group one, not only did better than the rats without control but–by at least one measure–had a better immune response than the control group of rats with no shocks at all. The conclusions of the study have been repeated and extended by many other experiments, including some that showed this change in immune system response affected the speed at which cancer tumors grew.
I asked Dr. Temoshok if it was sensible to compare these conclusions with the famous Whitehall Studies of British civil servants. These long-term studies (more…)
From the moment I could talk,
I was told that I should listen.
–Cat Stevens Father and Son
I assume that you already know and do not need to be convinced that:
Your most profitable sales and easiest growth come from existing clients.1
Unhappy customers are 5-20 times more likely to tell others about their bad experience than satisfied customers are to spread good news.2
A simple, high-return method of learning from your happy and unhappy customers, of knowing your customers better while making them more loyal to you is to listen to them. Customers are people and people love being listened to.
If you listen closely enough, your customers will explain your business to you.
Mesmerizing and provocative meditation to modern music from “The Sakyong, Jamgön Mipham Rinpoche, one of Tibet’s highest and most respected incarnate lamas.”
Sakyong Jamgon Mipham Rinpoche, Jampal Trinley Dradul (born Osel Rangdrol Mukpo in 1962) is the head of the Shambhala Buddhist lineage and Shambhala International, a worldwide network of urban Buddhist meditation centers, retreat centers, monasteries, a university, and other enterprises.
I use Twitter to share brief messages, not more than two per day. You can have them delivered to your cell phone by text message (SMS) or view them when you visit your free Twitter web page. Create a Twitter account and “follow” TonyMayo.
Here are my recent tweets (messages):
If you have had a good time playing the game, you are a winner even if you lose. –Malcolm Forbes
Our dalliances and detours define us. There are no maps to guide our most important searches. –Dr. Gordon Livingston
The unexamined life is not worth living. –Socrates Apology 38a
This executive coach can lead your examination.
Remove unwelcome emotion–sadness, fear, regret–by relaxing into it. Resistance is futile.
The best time to worry is when you are winning. –Tony Mayo
All models are wrong, but some are useful. –Statistician George E. P. Box
Leadership is the ability to get others to do what they do not want to do and like it. –Harry Truman
Compiling research from psychologists and economists (including colleague Richard Thaler), Professor Hsee provides tips on how to make the people around you—employees, significant others, friends, relatives—happy.
Separate gains.
Combine losses.
Announce good news early.
Announce bad news late.
Unpredictable gains are better than stable gains.
Stable losses are better than unpredictable losses.
Choice is bad for good options,
good for bad options.
Wanted is better than needed.
Memorable is better than usable.
Here’s how the process works. The day before meeting, your coworker brings you a list of five or six key objectives, detailing her progress on each. During the review on the following day, you simply assess the data and discuss how performance compares with objectives. Depending on the employee, this can be a short thirty-minute process, or take as long as two hours. [If you do this weekly or every day, as you might on a tight deadline or vital project, the meeting might last ten minutes. –Tony]
When an employee comes into your office, she should always bring a pen and paper and be required to take detailed minutes of the meeting. Once the meeting is over, the employee should make a photocopy of the minutes for your file. [This is a bit dated! Have the employee email a summary. For high value employees, use a (more…)
…integrating thinking and feeling is a desirable mental state, but many people have a hard time reasoning clearly when they’re upset, or bringing emotion into conceptual activities like planning.
I assume that you already know and do not need to be convinced that:
Just Ask Leadership: Why Great Managers Always Ask the Right Questions
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