Hack Your Brain to Become a Better Leader [Shannon Smith Part 1]
Tools and technology are evolving faster than ever today.
It's rapidly changing the way that we work and do our job.
It's also creating problems throughout companies and industries because most of today's leaders simply aren't equipped to lead their teams to this level of change management, which is why today we're joined with my special guest, Shannon Smith.
She's the founder and CEO of Synoptic Solutions, and she specializes in helping leaders leverage neuroscience to hack your brain and create long term positive changes for yourself and to expedite change management throughout your organization. Those are the two key areas that we're going to focus on today.
But before we get too far, Shannon, would you mind introducing yourself and sharing a little bit more about your background, what you do and who you help?
Shannon Smith: Sure. So my name is Shannon Smith. Thank you so much for having me on today.
My specialty is hacking your brain to create positive change in your life. And that is leveraging the power of neuroscience. And so that can mean just individual habits that you are trying to break or create or change. And it can also mean how you lead change with your team and in the workplace.
Doug Howard: Thank you for being here too, Shannon. I've been so excited for this interview. Anything related to optimizing yourself and creating efficiencies and, just understanding how the wiring of our brains works fascinates me. But my head goes in different directions. I don't have a background in neuroscience, so I guess. I'll start with just this big, broad question of, what does that mean, hacking your brain to create advantages? Could you give me some more specific examples of what you mean by that?
Leveraging Neuroscience to Lead Yourself and Other People
Shannon Smith: Sure. Maybe I'll just tell you a little story to get started. Another part of my background is, specializing in human change and behavior. And so I've been doing that for a very long time. Usually whenever you hear somebody say, I've been doing this for X number of years, it's really just more of an indication of how long they've been alive. But I guess it's a data point. So it's 20 years of this.
Back in the pandemic there was some extra time. And I'd always had this fascination with our brain, and so I started to consume peer reviewed scientific journal articles on neuroscience and neuroplasticity. And what I kept finding was that there were tons of these little tidbits of information that could be really useful to people if they weren't buried in the dusty journal articles. And if they weren't in this academic speak and if they weren't in just a vacuum.
So I started to just consume and consume more and when I was done, actually i'm never done I'm always looking at new articles, I put a program together And I thought well, let's do a proof of concept and see if this stuff actually works. And so I put several pilot participants, through this program and they all saw significant changes.
So some of them were eating healthier, going to the gym more, procrastinating less, reduction of alcohol intake. And one participant even said it reduced his anxiety by 90%. I think that's a big number. I don't actually really claim that, but he did say that.
So those are some examples from an individual level as to how neuroscience can help create sustainable change.
Doug Howard: A little bit of a joke here, a lame joke, but I think the thing that jumped out to me is you somehow got people to reduce alcohol intake and food intake and anxiety during COVID, which is, I think should, deserves a Nobel prize. I digress when it comes to leadership, and I'm talking about, I guess the individual here. I want to come back to change management and how to do this, throughout your organization, but just helping yourself as a leader., I get the healthy diet and stuff, but how can you use these principles to be a better leader?
Understanding Fear Responses and Change
Shannon Smith: I think just understanding how our brain works and responds to potential changes is a big step up. So a couple points here. When there is some kind of change announced, usually a fear response is what is triggered. And so that is your amygdala trying to do a good thing. We have evolved quite a bit. Many of us are not still in danger of being eaten by a saber toothed tiger, but the amygdala doesn't know that. So it's just really trying to look out for us and it still gives us these kind of alarms and signals, even though there's no saber toothed tiger. It's just that, a reorg has been announced.
And so really understanding how we as humans respond to that kind of change and stimulus will help us not only go through the change ourselves, because it seems like you had mentioned earlier, there's just a ton of change, perpetual change. It doesn't seem to be slowing down, especially with technology. And so understanding how we tick and our brains tick will only help us understand how to better lead our teams.
Doug Howard: If I'm hearing you correctly, it's about leading yourself to lead other people. How do I understand what I'm doing and how do I have that self control and self awareness so that I can, A, just control myself and be more intentional, but then B, have a little bit more empathy for what other people are going through, right?
Shannon Smith: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
Doug Howard: As I'm hearing you say that I guess I'm just wondering, I'm just fascinated, what's going on in my body when I have that fear response? So you said I'm not being chased by a saber tooth tiger, I would imagine that's having a big impact on me if that's how my brain feels. I haven't really been in too many life or death situations, but I know, car accident was scary one time that I was in and I know, I can't even remember that moment. If you can give me some more perspective for my own sake, what is going on in those moments?
Shannon Smith: So your amygdala activates, that's the fight, flight, or freeze response. And that can also, as we just touched on, create some unnecessary anxiety. In some situations that the amygdala is perceiving is potentially dangerous or a threat, the prefrontal cortex then processes that information to then take it on to the next step. I won't bore you with all the brain stuff, but it processes through your system, through the rest of your brain to then ascertain, is this a legit fear or not? And then that touches on a whole bunch of other sort of psychological disorders, but we will not talk about that today.
Now, the other component about the fear is stress. And so when we are stressed, or if we have been even perpetually stressed or worried, our hypothalamus sends signals to the adrenal glands to then produce hormones, such as the adrenaline and cortisol. I think we've probably most all heard of those. And then as those hormones enter your bloodstream, you might notice an increase in heart rate, breathing rate, your blood sugar is going to go crazy, you're going to start sweating. And so those are some of the physical symptoms that happen when there's stress and fear. And then, yeah, the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex will be evaluating that threat and figuring out what to do next.
Outward Behavior Changes Caused By Stress
Doug Howard: I'm an engineer, I think very logically and, about there's give and take to everything, in a system and, your brain is a system. So I'd imagine if your brain is refocusing all its attention on these like kind of survival things. I would imagine that means other things aren't getting the same attention it needs from your brain. And I would imagine that, you're lacking in some areas. You're not able to give your full attention to some areas. Could you tell me a little bit more about what are those outward impacts of this? A, am I right when I'm saying this, but then B, how does this affect you in that regard?
Shannon Smith: Doug, you are so right. You're spot on. There was a study with rats. Like all the studies have rats, but one in particular where they unfortunately chronically stressed out these poor rats and they wanted to see what happened with them whenever they were under these chronic stress conditions. And so what they found is after a certain point, the rats stopped seeking rewards and they just defaulted to rote decisions that they'd already made that were safe and easy and didn't require a lot of energy.
And when we talk about that with humans or at work, you're pushing this this passion project that you have and you're working on it and you're putting so many hours into it. And then all of a sudden, there's rumors or an announcement of some kind of reorg, and maybe you don't get all of the information. And all of a sudden, those hours and energy that you were putting into this passion project stop. Because you are just worried about survival. And you go to what is easiest for you just to get through the day. You go through the functions.
And if your team is chronically stressed at work, what are you going to get? You're not going to get innovation. You're not going to get cool things. You're going to get the bare minimum. And so I understand that, business is business. Things have to be cut, budget, yada yada, but there's a huge cost that I don't think many people, leaders, or companies are really addressing whenever they put their employees through so much change, through so much uncertainty, when they make these decisions.
Honestly, I've been in this kind of work for a long time. I've been involved in a lot of reorgs and M& As. And so many times the reorgs, maybe it'll help the way that business is done. There seems to be a perpetual, we want to be centralized. No, we want our own systems in our own departments. No, we want to be centralized. And it just goes back and forth and it just washes out anyway. But whenever you make all of those changes constantly, there's just this burden that I don't think has really been identified or quantified yet, which is that change fatigue. Like how much change fatigue burden or stress burden are you putting on your workforce, that are already pretty darn stressed with the situation of inflation and the economy and the Fed and houses and, whatever, price of milk. And then you're adding all this stuff on.
And I don't think anyone is really quantifying the true cost of that, to a company. It would be interesting to know at an individual level too. Companies are not factoring that kind of cost into their decisions when in the grand scheme of things, reorgs and switching people around to this leader or that leader, doesn't really matter to a hill of beans.
Doug Howard: No, it's okay, I could easily jump on that with you because I've seen that in my old life when I used to work for engineering companies and in my new life, as I'm consulting for engineering companies and working with a lot of people one on one as well who are in leadership positions. And I definitely see it a lot in engineering. Where some companies are really quick to jump on the newest tech fad or, tool or some new system. And it's not really been tested enough. It's not been, proven enough. So then they implement it. Then all of a sudden everyone's the worker bees are scrambling to figure out how to make this thing work and it really doesn't work yet.
On the other side, you get these companies that are so resistant to change that it piles up and then all of a sudden there's these massive overhaul changes like switching from 2D software to 3D software that should have happened 20 years ago and then it requires this massive change.
Hacking Your Brain Through Self Awareness - Practical Tips
Doug Howard: So I guess, let me just reframe this then, for the audience here. If I'm in this type of position where all this change is being put on me. And I'm noticing these fear response setting in, I'm noticing that I'm, sweating or I'm distracted or I'm doing the bare minimum because I'm just overwhelmed. What can I do to change that about myself? Once I recognize it, how can I fix it? How can I change my reaction? How can I calm myself? Or what is the course of action?
Shannon Smith: Awareness is always the first step to any kind of long term change. So good call on that, Doug. But let me shift before we answer that to the airlines.
Whenever you're getting on an airplane and you're like getting in your seat and you're looking around hoping nobody will sit in the middle seat 'cause you're still boarding, but they're going through, exit or here and here and the air mask. What do they tell you about the air mask if something goes sideways?
Doug Howard: I think put your own mask on before you help other people.
Shannon Smith: Yes. Sounds pretty cold, right?
Doug Howard: Do I get five points for that?
Shannon Smith: You get ten. Ten points.
Doug Howard: All right, excellent.
Shannon Smith: No, do not put it on your kid, don't put it on your grandma, put it on yourself first. And I thought that was just really cold for a while, but they're right. Because if you don't take care of yourself first, you're going to be a liability. And you're just another person that they have to save. So take care of yourself first, and then you can look out to others. You can look at that in terms of self care, however you want to interpret that, but mainly recognize and be aware that you are going through change too.
And you've got to process your own emotions or issues or concerns and fears before you can be an effective leader, especially in the change space. So put your own oxygen mask on first.
There are a couple steps you can take in order to do that, which are just to acknowledge your own amygdala. So the awareness. Acknowledge it. Take a step back, become an objective observer, if you can. That gives you a little space. It reduces the amount of emotions that usually take place. Once you've calmed down, then you can bring it back to the present. And then from there, just acknowledge what's coming up. Don't judge. It's not good or bad. And then just let it go.
So that's just like an internal exercise you can do. You might be able to run your team through that. If it makes sense with your team though, there's a few other steps that you should look at, and I'm happy to write this down so you can put it in a list or something.
So be empathetic and I think you're a leader already, so hopefully you already have a lot of empathy to offer. Like you just went through the change yourself cause y ou know exactly how it feels. So keep your empathy at the forefront. Very old tactic that people just do not do enough that is so effective is just actively listen because this will help to inform what you do for each person next. They will tell you what their real concerns and fears and issues are. You just have to be tuned in to listen to pick them up so that you can help address them going forward.
And then I think the other component here is just to be that authentic person. This sucks. Call it out. That's the elephant in the room. Don't just pretend it's not standing there waving its trunk at you. We don't know how it's gonna shake out, but you know what? I'll be here to support you the best I can along the way. Don't make false promises.
Using Visualizing to Calm the Mind and Create Motivation
Shannon Smith: And then, if there are good things that your team can expect that you know for certain, help them to visualize those.
There's a ton of studies behind visualization, depending on the scenario. Positive visualization can help to reduce worry. I was actually just citing a study on that. So visualization is a powerful tool. You can help guide and walk them through what positive things might happen as a result of this change, whenever you're ending the conversation or the chat. That's a really great spot to leave it on that positive note.
Doug Howard: Now you're saying visualization for your team, but I would imagine it's also impactful for yourself too, as I'm hearing you say this. If I'm freaking out about my company mandating some big process change that I think is going to have some nasty consequences. I'm just walking myself through everything you're saying here in my old life. I'm starting to visualize all the things that can go wrong and all the bad things. And then all of a sudden I probably am creating some type of negative. I'm probably feeding into this, response, is what I'm thinking. So I guess my first question is that right? I'm almost visualizing the bad way there, but then how do I switch that? How do I take advantage of that the opposite way? How do I do that to calm myself down?
Shannon Smith: Okay. A couple of things. Yeah, you can absolutely use visualization yourself. There's a couple of different types of visualization that can work given the circumstance. And I'll touch on that in a second, but what you described sounds like a Brain Lock.
And Brain Lock was first coined by Jeffrey Schwartz when talking about OCD. And I think it has applications with us too because we get in these endless rumination cycles where we're like, Oh my gosh, this is going to happen. And what if this happens? And oh my gosh, that's so terrible. And it's really hard to get out of that because many times you're just there. You don't know how you got here. And you're just like, in this little cycle you can't get out of.
Again, with that, awareness is the first step. Creating some space, trying to become that objective observer, and come back to it. Acknowledge it. It's a Brain Lock. You're not problem solving. You're not doing anything positive here. You're just wasting energy. You're getting negative. You're working yourself up. That amygdala is on hyperdrive. And so just acknowledge it. Don't judge it. It's not this. It's not that. It's not good. It's not bad. And then let it go and get on with your day and do something productive.
Now, visualization as it relates to motivation, you can, and this has worked for my pilot participants, visualization was a big tactic that we used in a whole host of ways. And so a couple different ways you can visualize.
One is what everybody thinks of, which is just the outcome. What's it going to look like on the other side?
If you're wanting to help get there, to help give a little oomph, you can think about the process that it's going to take in order to get there.
Another component that you can weave in is what I'm calling stickiness. So you're leveraging all of your senses, or at least as many as you possibly can because it connects with different parts of the brain, which just makes the connections that more strong. And so when you start to visualize something, how will it feel when you won't have to listen to Bob in finance complain about something. Or how great will it sound when there's no 7 a. m. emails or pings, dinging about something going wrong. That kind of way to tie all of that together.
Use Mental Contrasting to Influence Your Team
Shannon Smith: And then one last thing on visualization before, we shift gears. If you want to do something, but you're just not really feeling like it, or if your team member is just not really, they're not really jazzed about doing the new thing, the tactic is called mental contrasting. And you can Google this. There's a method called the Whoop Method. But essentially, you take them through what will happen if they don't do the thing. So if they don't get on board with the change. They don't go to the trainings. They're not going to know how to do it. They're not going to know what is the latest and greatest. They're not going to know enhancements or what functionality. They're going to get yelled at. They're going to get written up. I don't know. You can go through the whole system. And so taking them through that process of what it looks like if they don't get on board can be powerful too. If you've got someone who's dragging their feet.
Doug Howard: No, that all makes sense. And it's really illuminating the power of visualization I know I would do that with direct reports who were struggling with motivation, and I would figure out what they wanted and then I would show them what that looked like. Okay. You want to be in this role where you're managing projects. What skills do you think are required to be in that role? And what skills do you think, where you're with respect to where your skills are at today, where do you think they need to be? And just helping them tangibly see the gap between where they are and where they want to be and connecting that to their motivations.
I never really quantified it the way you're describing, but I'm seeing the connections there as you're explaining this. I think something I found really interesting, I don't know if you said it first on purpose or if that was just coincidence, but I found it interesting that you said empathy first. I guess I'm curious, was that on purpose? Is it, is that the first step in this?
Shannon Smith: I think the first step is usually the awareness and acknowledgement, but empathy is a close second. The, change is hard for us. We are. wired to perceive change as a threat. And so being empathetic just goes a long way. Being that authentic human being goes a long way. You're a human first, manager at least second, maybe husband, father, et cetera, et cetera, second, third, fourth manager down the line, but you're a human first. So just connect with someone, just connect with another human. You're both humans. Celebrate that fact and leave all the titles and the hierarchy and corporate Kool Aid behind.
Doug Howard: One last question about just hacking your brain. You said like you use this for helping people lose weight or quit drinking alcohol or something like that.
And, I feel like. If you could walk me through just a high level example of what are those steps to get someone to, I guess we could just say fix their diet, because if we hear what those steps are like at the top level, then, I think maybe we can connect the dots on how do I do that on a micro level for something else.
I'm struggling with binge watching TV or something like that. So I guess I'm, would you mind just sharing some how to's for people on that?
The Formula and Timeline for Making Positive Behavior Changes
Shannon Smith: So it was, a six week program that I put them through. Maybe just I'll share a little bit of a high level about it because it's first and foremost, any kind of change has to come from within. So there really has to be a desire to change. Otherwise, it just ain't going to happen. And you can apply that to anything.
So if there is that desire for change, what I did is I had a tactic or two depending per week and I asked them to visualize, to close their eyes and go through a series of mental exercises for a certain amount of minutes a day. 10 minutes a day, five minutes a day, twice a day, every single day.
And so they would do one exercise the same three or four days, and then they would graduate to the next and do the same thing. And so they did these every single day for six weeks.
Another couple components of this is it doesn't have to be a big change. These kinds of long term changes happen in a very small way. Every day in a consistent fashion. And I would just say if someone is wanting to make a change about their binge watching or what have you. First, know that you really want to change it because, doing it and saying it are definitely different things. And then if so, it's those little behavior changes every single day consistently.
And the last thing I'll add here is that someone said that it takes 21 days to change a habit and that is not true. Science has shown average is 66 days. So if you're not having any luck after 21 days, that's fine. So don't beat yourself up. Just keep going to 66 days.
And there's obviously some individual differences in there too. We're all unique human beings. It varies in terms of what sticks and what doesn't, but on average, it's 66 days. So give yourself some grace there.
Doug Howard: The engineer in me can't help, but take things literal. Does that mean if I do it for 66 days, I am good, I'm in the clear?
Shannon Smith: Maybe. Give it a go. Give it a go.
Doug Howard: I guess maybe more what I mean is you mean 66 straight days, can't break from it? Is that more or less what you mean with the neuroscience of it?
Shannon Smith: Yeah, like I'm sure one or two days would be fine. But the whole process that's happening behind is you are laying down new neural pathways. So you're laying down all of these new connections. The more that you do something or use something, the stronger the connections are. The more robust they're building. It's just like a muscle. So you can't just go to the gym every, I don't know, four or five days or whatever it is and expect to be able to bench, whatever your goal is, 300 pounds.
So it's gotta be consistent working out of the muscles. Consistent tying these new connections together. Reinforcing them. Making sure the communication is happening so that each time you go and do that new thing again, the connections come easier. They come quicker.
And that's actually something that I heard from my pilot participants, which maybe is where the 21 days thing came in. Because after about weeks three or four, they started to tell me that the changes felt more automatic and they started to incorporate additional behaviors in there to change habits. So I don't know, maybe that's where the 21 days came in, it's small gains. It's consistent because that's just how we are made. That's what works for our bodies and our brains.
Here's The First Step to Take!
Doug Howard: No, that's really great perspective. And I think maybe just one last question. If someone was trying to make this change, where should they start? What's the first place to start? What's your best advice to get someone off on the right track for making a change like this?
Shannon Smith: I would say just commit. Just commit. That's the hardest part. Maybe starting is also the hardest part. None of this stuff that I'm talking about is really, crazy or rocket science. But it is hard. It's hard to do. It's simple, but very difficult to execute.
Doug Howard: And I guess that's where it really boils down to is we, a lot of times we know what we need to do. We know we shouldn't eat the Twinkie. We know we should eat the piece of broccoli. We know we need to be more patient as a leader instead of, being irritable, just both worlds here. And it's just a matter of committing to it, like you're saying. With that consistency and getting that mental muscle memory in place so that you can actually feel the benefit of these things and it's not just a fluke incident. Am I interpreting that right now? I want to make sure I'm understanding this for my own sake.
Shannon Smith: Yeah, absolutely. It's a choice. So I'm gonna butcher this quote, but this is the gist of it Viktor Frankl. There is a space between each stimulus and response. There is a space for you to decide how you want to respond. Again, this is not verbatim. You can Google the quote. But in that space is also growth and evolution. So you have a choice each and every time you are presented with a stimulus, how you respond is up to you.
Doug Howard: That's very interesting and very thought provoking. That makes a lot of sense too. Everything is a choice. We've talked a lot about how to hack your brain to create efficiencies for yourself, to create advantages for yourself, to make positive changes for yourself.
I want to dive into how to use this to, basically improve change management for leaders and organization. But I think this is a good spot to pause on that, so we're going to turn that into a part two.
If you guys want to check that out, be sure to watch part two of this episode, Using Neuroscience to Create High-Performing Teams.
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