Benefiting at work from Brain Based Insights

If you capitalize on what makes the human brain tick, it shouldn't surprise you that these four lines lock out entrepreneurs that today’s workplaces need most. Do you catch yourself caught behind locked doors?



1. There’s not enough time.... Brain based response … You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein. To organize time for an entrepreneurial project is to draw daily from your logical mathematical intelligence. Successful entrepreneurs train their brains to stretch time ... and so can you.

2. I’m afraid nobody will support me.... Brain based response … They likely won’t … at least in the beginning. Instead,  count on chemicals for well-being that fuel your brain to help it work without support for a time. Red carpets rarely roll for those first steps anyway.... Look at State Government,  that insisted Linux was too big a risk. We can’t take risks with our technology, said Paul Campbell, former Director of the Illinois Department of Central management Services. State government needs trusted, tested technology that’s reliable and predictable. How do you overcome the gap?

3. Nobody’s done it before.... Brain based response … When I started brain based work about 30 years ago … people often said …”Show us a model…” So I created many models. Then when I facilitated leaders with my new book about brain based practices in Europe … expects replied …” This looks interesting - but now we need another book on related evaluations - before we can use more of brainpower in business. So I wrote a book on assessment. What would it take for you? Unlike  doubting Thomas… successful entrepreneurs tend to follow Colin Powell’s go with your gut rule. How so? Don’t act if you sense a 40% chance of making it…. Neither wait until you’re 100% sure. By then it’s nearly always too late.

4. I can’t afford it.... Brain based response … For two years I lived and worked among Inuit people in the High Arctic on Baffin, and there I learned about the human brain’s resilience for entrepreneurial projects.  We launched new projects or designs far more on talent and creativity than on monetary resources. How does it work? Focus on financial worries and you’ll soon see how stress literally shrinks the brain and shuts down innovation. Focus on fun and you'll likely create. Steve Wozniak, one of the greatest electronics’ entrepreneurs of our time, described how he rarely had money for computer parts and so he played with ideas on paper to design computers that needed fewer parts. How about you?

What's your brain based response to time, support, risk, and money challenges? Are you in … or locked out … when it comes to an exciting entrepreneurial design you have in mind?