You can teach your brain to sort and focus on things that offer better dividends, and your hippocampus 
will step up to the plate to help out. It’s kind of a cool relationship we have with our heads and it’s also what helps us to remember one another’s face … ok…that’s whenever we do so… Take ants, in contract, … they snub each other all the time cause they don’t recognize other ants as individuals … One worker ant is just like any other to an ant… and they all exhibit the same, pre-wired behavior. Now that would take care of egotists or attention grabbers in your board rooms….
The key here is to improve your mental map, which is done through what we choose to do and emphasize in any day… Focus on what’s important to you and your brain develops cognitive maps to support your attention…
Cognitive maps – or the mental tools your brain provides to enable you to take in some stuff and let the rest slide so to speak – are situated within brain’s limbic structure, the hippocampus. Did you know a hippocampus is also a mythological sea-horse? … get the connection?
Say you damage your hippocampus… expect to get lost often so that even a change of address can leave you wandering the streets looking for “home.”
Successful leaders give keen attention to priority details… it’s a daily mental act, and the brain sets up a cognitive systems to match your efforts. Did you ever think that what you do at work influences the brain you lug there daily?
What would it take to help you focus mentally on what you need to know and do,
so that your cognitive map does the rest? A great start would be to list priority targets in the morning and then check each task off within the time frame you allocate for that completion. Somewhere between now and the day you die…you get to choose… just jot the completion date beside the “to-do-entry” and your brain will set up a cognitive map to help that work to the finish line…. How could your hippocampus offer you more with a move or two on your part?
Awesome, Ellen. I would never guess that I could tap into my hippocampus to help keep my memory really sharp. You have really inspired me to do a better job of keeping my daily targets instead of priding myself on knowing in my head what I need to do daily. Thanks.
Now my curiosity is really aroused. How does the medulla help me in my everyday life? Can people increase their effectiveness by tapping into that part of the brain?
Posted by: Robyn McMaster | April 24, 2006 3:53 AM | Permalink to Comment