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When the going gets tough…

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Things are tough. No two ways about it.

Personally, people are taking strain. There is fear and uncertainty. Our amygdala’s have commandeered our brains and our behaviour. Uncertainty abounds and people are somewhat panicked.

There is a phenomenon known as the amygdala hijack, coined by Daniel Goleman in 1996 (Emotional Intelligence: Why it can matter more than IQ). To understand this, you need to know that the amygdala in our brain (in the temporal lobe) is responsible for giving meaning to emotions, and attaching associations and responses to those emotions. Conditions such as anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, and phobias are suspected of being linked to abnormal functioning of the amygdala.

We all know that in the face of a threat, humans tend to flee, fight or freeze. This response is due to the amygdala which activates the fight-or-flight response by sending out signals to release stress hormones that prepare your body to fight or run away. This response is triggered by emotions like fear, anxiety, aggression, and anger.

The thing that stops us from attacking or running, in most instances, is the cerebral cortex (frontal lobe). This part of our brain is our more ‘adult’ brain, and enables us to think, reason and make decisions. The cerebral cortex allows us to process and think about our emotions. We can then manage our emotions and decide on a logical response. Unlike the automatic response of the amygdala, the response to fear from your cerebral cortex is consciously controlled by you.

Enter Corona Virus…

Fight. Flight. Freeze.

Panic. Mayhem. Depression. Dissension.

Our Amygdala’s have got us putting on our tinfoil hats, donning our face masks, deodorising with sanitiser, and seeing danger everywhere. What’s up with this?

Humans have an intrinsic need to know why. That’s what.

Think about it… you hear a loud clanging at night, your senses are heightened… your heart races… and your assumption is that there is a threat lurking. Some of you want to jump out of bed and go get it, others bury under the covers and hope it goes away. But then your trusty rational brain kicks in, and you remember the precariously balanced baking tin on the dry rack, and that the window was open… and your brain comes to the realisation that it was just the wind that knocked it over into the sink. Body systems return to normal…   deep sigh of relief. Crisis over.

But Coronavirus is the unknown. It is a new threat that we don’t know enough about yet, although that knowledge is growing daily, but our rational brain is battling to figure this one out, and to find an intentional causality, and as such we seem to be relying on our amygdala to direct us. Emotions are high. People are sensitive. And desperate for answers.

Enter… Corona Theories.  

Why are they so prolific at the moment? What is making people so vulnerable to even the craziest of them?

Our brains have a built-in need to search for patterns, solutions and answers, but sometimes those brains we rely so heavily on, will find patterns where there are actually none. Add to that the fear we feel when we’re not in control of a situation and other psychological principles like confirmation bias, and we have the perfect recipe for our brains to investigate bizarre explanations.

Quite honestly, I don’t really care what explanation you ascribe to. This is not what this is about. Whether you believe it’s a god-sent virus to counter overpopulation, or you think it’s the doings of some eccentric individual or syndicate, or a mysteriously high power radio frequency developed by sinister Dr Evil sitting above the clouds, or even if you believe it is some alien virus brought to us by Barney the dinosaur, flying Santa’s unicorn-driven sleigh over the earth, sprinkling these nasty, spiky balls of contagion… I honestly don’t want to know and do NOT want to spark a debate about who is right. That is for our own brains to figure out.

What I do care about is our mental health.

What I care about is that we understand how our brains are functioning at the moment, and why we are scouring the media, following the loudest tweeters, and listening to any and all theorists.

It is because our brains are desperate for an explanation.
So that we can then understand it.
So that we can then find solutions.
So that we can finally feel in control again.
So that we can get rid of this feeling of being under threat permanently.

It’s the same part of our brain that initially panicked that the loud clanging sound in the night was a hooded psychopath, coming to rid you of both your kidneys and your right big toe to sell on the black market for some off the wall cure for impotence.

We need to acknowledge our amygdala. But also recognise what it is doing to our cortisol levels, our stress, and our brains.  

I also care that we understand that this virus will leave us eventually, or at least become less threatening. And what we will be left with are the people. Our people. And those relationships need to be protected now, because those are what are going to keep us sane, support us, and sustain us through these times.

So regardless of your views… take a deep breath. Recognise how your brain is functioning at the moment, and try give it space for your frontal cortex to step in and try calmly figure things out for you. Stay human and protect your relationships. Those matter more than anything else. They did pre-Corona, they do now, and they will post-Corona.

And for Pete’s sake do not let your overactive amygdalas hijack more than you want. Stress exacerbates anger, aggression, fear and the fight-or-flight response, which can result in us reacting illogically, and irrationally to situations.  Actions we will probably regret later on.

Love thy neighbour people, even if it is from a 2m distance, and even if they have opposing views to you. This is your brain’s coping mechanism, but don’t let that impulsive amygdala muck everything up for you.

 

Stay safe…stay sane

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Do you bet on the Horse or the Jockey?

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For investors, this is the age-old question. Do you bet on the successful person with the history of accomplishments, or do you put money on the underlying business?

There is a lot of research on whether investors should invest in the jockey or the horse, with most of the findings favouring the horse, but good investors know it’s not an either/or scenario.

Brilliant leadership cannot make a mediocre horse win, no matter how successful they have historically been, and a good horse can be crippled by poor leadership.

THE GC INDEX® –  A BUSINESS DECISION TOOL

The GC Index® is a radical re-think of how organisations identify and nurture key talent, identifying how people at all levels in organisations make their best impact.

It is not just another HR assessment tool, the GC Index® is a BUSINESS DECISION TOOL.

We can help you CHANGE THE GAME.
 
The GC Index® has the potential to help supercharge the success of your business by providing a framework and language to maximise and understand the contribution of everyone.

• Discover how individuals can make an impact and how to take advantage of their strengths.
• Gain insight to enable companies to perform at their best, through ultimate leadership, innovation, and collaboration.
• Identify which individuals can engage others with clear direction to bring focus to action.
• Harness the individuals who have the potential to generate transformational ideas.
• Pinpoint the people who can focus on getting the best from individuals in support of collective objectives.
• Find the leaders who can make strategic plans take shape and deliver tangible outcomes.
• Lean on the people who focus on continual improvement and the pursuit of excellence.

The GC Index® measures and describes five different ways in which people are inclined to make an impact and contribution. It enables companies to create an ultimate business where everyone can contribute and make a positive impact.

ENSURE YOU PUT THE STRONGEST HORSE AND JOCKEY COMBINATION POSSIBLE TOGETHER.

CONTACT US FOR MORE INFORMATION

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THE GC INDEX® & YOUNG PEOPLE INDEX®

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WHY YOUR EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTION NEEDS IT

Education is dynamic, and what matters most in education institutions at the moment, is game changing potential. Innovation leads to more innovation – and the current rate of change is exponential.

Education needs to not only keep up with this unprecedented, whirlwind pace of change, but transform with it. While we may not know exactly what future generations will be doing career-wise, we do know for sure that they will not live and work the way we do today. Governments, education institutions and parents all need to ask, “How can we prepare current and future generations to thrive in this rapidly transforming world?”

Education is a big challenge now. If we do not change the way we teach, or what we teach, thirty years from now the current youth will be in hot water because we will have a generation of young adults who have been taught knowledge based competencies and not future skills. Children who started school this year, will be retiring (assuming retirement age is still 65) in 2079.

Do you know what 2079 is going to look like?

We have NO idea what the world will look like then, and yet we are educating them this year… for their future. The main challenges education is faced with are:

• Preparing for the unknown.
• Delivering effective learning and teaching.
• Discovering the best way to support students.
• The challenges of a possibly ongoing socially distanced campuses.
• Sustaining the business of education.

It is without doubt that education is at the very centre of preparing present and future generations to succeed. We cannot stress enough how vital it is that we have an education system that develops human potential, and not one that tries to simply gear humans up to go against machines.

“An education system designed for an industrial economy that is now being automated requires transformation, from a system based on facts and procedures to one that actively applies that knowledge to collaborative problem-solving.” (Graham Brown-Martin)

People are not going to retire from the labour force. Machines will take over some jobs, but the human component will still be very much needed. With an unknown future ahead of us, the most valuable skills we can teach are about what we have the potential to accomplish, rather than simply reciting a set of facts and procedures. The anxiety around machines and improving technology is mostly to do with potential job loss, but people will still have to live, and they will still have to work, so we have to train them to do things differently. Think differently.

The secret to future job creation…

There are three key areas where humans will not be replaced by machines:

• creative endeavours – scientific discovery, creative writing, music, innovation, and entrepreneurship. Machines cannot do that like people can.
• social interaction – machines just do not have the kind of emotional intelligence that humans have. Even Siri has her limitations. When you tell Siri you are sad the response is, “I’m sorry to hear that. Sometimes taking a quiet moment can help. You can try listening to your favourite music or doing some stretches.” That is about as warm and fuzzy as machines get.
• physical dexterity and mobility – man has walked and run and swim for years. The evolution of movement has given people exceptional agility and physical dexterity. Machines do not have that.

Evolving the curriculum implies making changes to an existing system… but perhaps what we need to do is design new learning experiences that fuse with the necessary future skills.  Education needs to focus on skills that will empowers learners to be prepared for whatever the future holds. Creative thinking, design thinking, logical decision-making, innovation – these are what will be necessary to solve real world challenges. These will be the key to thriving in this century, and to survival going forward, but what are the uniquely human components that we need to develop?

We believe it is based on imagination and obsession.

My mother-in-law believes babies are born geniuses but get less ‘genius’ every day. I would like to take that a step further by throwing the cat among the pupils and saying, what if it is the education system that robs us of our genius?

gen•ius jēn′yəs
n. Extraordinary intellectual and creative power
n. A person of extraordinary talent and intellect.  
_{(The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition)}

If genius is intellect and talent, then education, the way it has existed for the past 200 years, disconnects a lot of people from their natural talents (although I do acknowledge that it is changing in some education facilities). Everyone has a talent; that natural preference that energises them and gives deep satisfaction. It is the thing they do that they get lost in because time evaporates. The education system does not always allow for those talents to develop. Often talents need to be uncovered and discovered, but the only way we can bring those into their full being is if they are given the correct circumstances and environment to thrive.

People often don’t use their talents. Most people will tell you they don’t have anything they are really good at. Some do not even know what their talents are, what truly energises them. They go from day to day, tolerating the hours, waiting for the weekend. Lethargic in the ‘it-is-what-it-is’ complacency.

Complacency inadvertently impedes transformation.

People accept things are the way they are because that is how they have always been. Education has been how it is for ages, and so there is an acceptance, even an expectation, for how it is. But, for people to thrive we need to create an environment that will nurture that genius.

We need to tailor the educational environment to enable people to harness their talents. We need to tailor the curriculum so that people learn how to learn and love to learn. We need to teach people how to creatively come up with their own solutions with the support of education institutions.

Collaboration is one of the buzz words of the time, but imagine education using the remarkable resources that exist, combined with the harnessed talent of the teachers, when the teachers and the learners are speaking the same language. This would revolutionise education and teaching.

Humans cannot survive without relying on the diversity of our talents.

The crux of the challenge then, is to reconstruct our definition of intelligence. We need to relook at what the goal of education is – currently I believe academic achievement is the goal. We were led to believe – thanks to Industrialisation – that academic achievement leads to tertiary education, which leads to a degree and the guarantee of a solid job, which leads to success, which equates to happiness. Or so we were told.

The reality is that degrees are becoming worth less and less. Young adults with degrees are leaving universities and cannot find jobs. Now, the jobs previously guaranteed with degrees, require Masters levels, or PhDs. Degrees, on the academic food chain, are pretty close to the bottom. So, what now?

We need to radically reform our view of intelligence.

Creativity in education is as important as literacy and mathematical ability, and it should carry the same status.

My biggest fear for the youth in this day and age of instant gratification and passive entertainment, is not that there will not be jobs, but rather, that they won’t be able to create jobs. Children are naturally creative. It is part of that genius they are born with. They learn through their senses and through experimentation. They are not scared to be wrong which means that if they do not know, they will still try. They will take a chance. If you are not prepared to try things, to take chances, or to be wrong, you will never come up with anything original.

What happens? Why do they stop taking chances?

I believe we school the creativity out of them. The education system is not a ‘safe to fail’ environment. In fact, in school, we make them afraid of being wrong – mistakes and those dreaded red pen X’s are anxiety causing dreaded smears on our self-esteem. “You are wrong,” is the worst thing you can hear. We make them afraid to fail, to test, to try. We make them fail to be creative.

We educate the creativity out of them.

If we want to prepare them for their futures, we need to not educate the creativity our of them. We need to celebrate the gift of human imagination. We need to nurture human talent and intelligence. We need to realise that intelligence is diverse, it is interactive, and it is distinct. For years psychologists have been talking about different types of intelligence. We have IQ and EQ, and Gardener mentions nine types of intelligence in his theories. So why then, is the education system largely focused on academic achievement as a measure of intelligence, and not on all types of intelligence.

People thought Einstein had a learning disability because he was very slow to learn to talk. When he wrote the entrance exam for a polytechnic school in Zurich, he failed. He passed maths, but failed botany, zoology, and the languages section. He did eventually graduate, but only just.

Do you think he was a genius?

We need an education system that acknowledges talent and energy for the creative capacity it has. The performance of learners can be considerably improved by understanding the contributions each makes and has the potential to make.

We need a different measure and a different language – the language of insights and energies. An inclusive approach to education that gives educators and learners insights into themselves and each other. The goal of education institutions should be to educate their whole beings so that they can face this unpredictable future with confidence, passion, and energy, knowing full well the impact they can make going forward. 

This is why you need The GC Index® and The Young People Index®.

The GC Index® / Young People Index® is a revolutionary online assessment tool being used worldwide in schools to transform young people’s lives and enable educators to identify and nurture the key talents of young people, the leaders and workforce of the future.

Institutions are using it to understand the key learning insights and outcomes of the index profiles of their students, and the teachers.

It is vital that each and every young person is aware of their own individual strengths and skills, so they can not only see the value they add in the classroom or in society, but are also able to make more informed choices about their future. 

If your education institution is ready to acknowledge what is needed to create leaders for the future, let us offer your decision maker ONE FREE ASSESSMENT and feedback session.

LET US HELP YOUR INSTITUTION AND LEARNERS HAVE THE EDGE
AND CHANGE THE GAME.

Using the tool we will help learners focus on their Future Impact, because knowing who they are and how they can make an impact and contribution in their lives is one of the most valuable ways we can prepare our future leaders for the world they are heading into.

Get in touch – consciousconnections@nataleeholmes.com