Written by: Sara Hegy, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
Dear overworked ambitious leader who is hungry for development, In this enthralling journey through the corridors of your own mind, we continue our exploration of the astounding science behind decision-making. Our aim? To empower you, the driven and ambitious leader, with the knowledge that unveils the immense potential residing within your brain.
What makes this series unique is how we examine leadership. As we've been uncovering in this series, leadership isn't just about job titles and managerial roles. It's about how you navigate your life daily, how you mold each thought, action, and emotion into a strategic masterpiece that shapes your world.
You see, leadership isn't as we have been taught, confined to the boardroom or the forefront of a team; it's the continuous process that unfolds in every decision you take, from the moment you rise to greet the day until you lay down to rest, including all the moments that you interact with others around you and with your environment.
Previously, In part 1, we talked about the simplest process of the brain: sensing information > processing > output. In part 2, we examined our brain’s elements that help us sense information, then in parts 3 and 4, we discovered the main players in the decision-making. We gave 2 practical situations in an individual and collective context regarding how the brain incorporates beliefs in the decision-making process, we shed light on the trio of mental frames in our brain and we learned about the brain’s strategy of prioritization. We opened our mental space to engage with a new hypothesis: what if our brain is the perfect processor and the collapse that leads to bad decisions lies in the experiences that are being processed? That's what we are about to delve into.
I left off with a question last time: If swimming around coral reefs is dangerous, would the answer to address that is to stop swimming altogether? Would the answer be to stop immigration?
I see you just thought, what a ridiculous question! Of course, not!
While the former is easy to answer, when it comes to topics of growing in a company, developing our marriage, or even creating new policies to address societal challenges, the ’’yes’’ easily fades out!
Why?
That’s what we are about to unfold so, Welcome to another thrilling expedition into the world of leadership and cognitive prowess. As ambitious leaders hungry for personal and professional growth, you're about to embark on a journey that unveils the science and art of forward- proactive thinking. But don't worry; we won't bore you with tedious scientific jargon. Instead, we'll ignite your curiosity and equip you with actionable nuggets that will transform your leadership style.
The reactive thinking quicksand: A blast from the past
Picture your mind as a treasure trove of recorded events and responses that turned into memories, experiences, and lessons learned. This treasure trove, a blast from the past, serves to make your life easier. When you see similar challenges like the ones you experienced in your past, your brain opens the treasure trove, scans for similarity, and gives you the answer which is usually to do the same as you did before or exactly the opposite as you did before if you didn’t get what you desired in the previous experiences.
Our brain is represented as a treasure trove of experiences that we open when employing reactive decision-making for fast decisions and responses. It works well when we see the red lights and stop crossing the street. It doesn’t work so well when we keep getting angry at ourselves for not having this life-changing conversation.
Let’s not complicate this by diving into complex challenges straight away. Instead, let’s discover how reactive thinking is everywhere and how we use it daily.
1. You were preparing your favorite egg recipe in the morning, and you tasted it and you thought it was too bland, so you quickly reached out to the salt, poured some in the pan, and re-tasted it again then, it tasted better. That’s reactive thinking. You have an internal desired experience of how salty is your food (an expectation), and you made a very quick decision on how much to add to reach the desired taste based on your past experience.
2. You are actively dating on Tinder. You matched with somebody and you both agreed to meet. 15 minutes into your transport, you realize that you forgot your phone but you decide to continue your journey to be on time. You arrived at the meeting spot, waited for your date for 15 minutes and they didn’t show up. You started feeling angry and soon you got disappointed and frustrated about the wait. 20 minutes passed and you decided to go home. You immediately reached out to your phone to block your Tinder date then, you saw 3 messages from them trying to reach out to you to tell you that something urgent came up and they’ll be an hour late, and if you’re still available then. What happened here is you have an internal desired expectation of your date showing up. An event happens and your brain opens its treasure trove, scans for similarity, and then it processes a decision on how to deal with the situation based on your past experience.
3. You are presenting in front of the company’s CEO who killed your previous ideas before. You practiced 10 times before you showed up in front of the mirror. You stepped confidently into the meeting then, the CEO started interrupting your presentation and you calmly responded to their feedback and continued. It was only 15 more minutes before they interrupted you again and then you snapped saying: ‘’can’t you just wait until I finish my point?’’ then, everyone got silent in the room and you quickly retracted saying that you didn’t mean it like that but you had their question answered 3 slides later. What happened here is you have an internal desired expectation of presenting at your best in front of the whole team. And when the interruption happened, your brain opened its treasure trove, scanned for similarity then gave you the decision to snap as an output. Originally, you didn’t listen because you practiced to stay calm. But on repetition of the stimulus called interruption, your brain’s decision to snap takes over.
4. You created a lot of wealth through investing in the stock market until the pandemic hit and your portfolio suffered tremendous losses. At one point during the events of the pandemic, you saw the numbers declining yet and you should have sold your stocks but you kept hoping it would turn out. This decision that you took to keep going had you lose 80% of what you ever made since you started investing. What happened here is you have an internal desired expectation of your performance in interpreting the market trends. The Pandemic hits and your brain opens its treasure trove, and scans for similarities in your previous investment experiences then it processes the sensory input it receives and makes the best decision to keep going despite the numbers you saw.
All the above and more are examples of reactive decision-making where the brain pulls through its stored archives of experiences to dictate the output. It's similar to the experience of living in a mental time machine, where past experiences dictate your responses.
The power of reactive decision making
Reactive decision-making is great and it’s a fundamental part of your existence in everyday life. Without reactive decision-making, you will not avoid crossing the streets when the lights turn red and the cars are passing by, you’ll still be trying to put your hands through the fire on the stove when you see the bright blue spark of the fire lighting upon pressing the stove’s knob. Also, you’d still be thinking about which muscle to bend every time you’re standing up to walk.
Reactive decision-making saved our ancestors from becoming a predator's snack and that’s the reason why you’re alive today.
If you want to revisit the decision-making centers in the brain and how they process the information, please refer to Chapter 3 in this series: The Science of Decision Making.
But here’s the problem, reactive decision-making is limited in its ability to help you expand into new horizons. It hinders your ability to explore new possibilities in your challenges and this becomes particularly difficult if you get stuck in that treasure trove. Let’s clarify.
Creating the agreeable and disagreeable personas: The power of reactive decision-making in shaping our personalities
Most of us had a parent, or a school teacher who got angry with us when we were young. Do you remember who it was in your life? Do you remember how did you deal with that anger? Did you also become angry yourself? Or did you become an experienced people-pleaser?
Wherever you ended up on the spectrum of agreeable versus disagreeable (in other words people pleaser versus angry), it is all because you employed the reactive decision-making strategy in who you decided to be.
What will give you the most clarity and depth of understanding is to return to the origins of the word ‘’react’’ and examine what we mean when we speak of reactive decision-making. React is to act in response to an agent or influence, to act reciprocally upon each other, as two things, to act in a reverse direction or manner, especially to return to a prior condition, to act in opposition, as against some force, to respond to a stimulus in a particular manner and to undergo a chemical reaction.
So as an example, when you received sensory information regarding the anger experience that you’ve seen in your childhood, your brain made one of two decisions: ‘’I should be like that, angry people get what they want’’ OR ‘’I should never be like that, angry people are disgusting bullies and monsters’’.
This decision depended on your emotional receptivity back then, if for whatever reason you felt weak in that situation and your brain thought it was in danger to step up and speak up your mind, it’d have told you to avoid angry people at any cost. Alternatively if for whatever reason you felt empowered in that situation and your brain thought it was safe for you to scream and shout, it would have told you to be angry to demonstrate power over the people around you.
As the situations pass you by, your brain learns to open its treasure trove, looking for the same way to think, act, and speak over and over again. And as Tony Robbins says: "Repetition is the mother of skill."
Congratulations! You became skillful at being angry or being a people pleaser.
Another form of reaction is to act in a reverse direction or manner, especially so as to return to a prior condition.
Where are my readers who never ever listen to advice? This is for you!
Do you recall when your parent, school teacher, or authority figure in your life told you that you were wrong? You should study or else you’ll be a failure, you shouldn’t be so stubborn, you’re exhausting and naughty, your sibling is better than you, they are more disciplined than you, or some communication and actions that you experienced in your earlier life along those lines.
Do you remember the decision that your brain made back then? Did you maybe hear a voice inside your head that said, ‘’I will show you’’ and before you knew it, you started being rebellious, doing what you see as right, going against the crowd, feeling different from everyone around you, and doing everything in your power to be different than those annoying people who made you wrong?
As the situations pass you by, your brain learns to open its treasure trove, looking for the same way to think, act, and speak over and over again.
Congratulations again! You became skillful at being resistant to advice or expert opinion. It could even be that you’re not resistant to all advice but maybe, you’re resistant to certain ways of speaking and communication even if you know that others mean well or you know that this advice entails actions that will drive you faster towards your desired outcome.
Before we move any further it’s important to get that we’re not in the business of judging you, your past, or your actions. We’re delving into the world of our brain’s strategies to create our lives and progress in what matters to us.
I hope by now it’s clear to you: information/stimuli => sensory perception => brain-processed => decision making => action (See Figure 2).
A diagram of the steps that happen from sensing information to taking action.
The first mode we delved into was: reactive decision-making, which takes reference points from the past experiences and repeats them over and over again (advantage: fast, essential for learning), (disadvantage: limiting in outcome because you’re always looking back at the same situations and inferring your thoughts, communication and actions from them until they become a habit and they dilute in the background of your brain, so they become like craving out a tattoo, an ingrained part of you)
Active decision making: Navigating forward
Did you ever think perhaps as an adult you wanted to be less angry because your life’s journey started showing you that angry people don’t always win like you originally thought, or that angry partners are not great quality partners in times of distress and uncertainty, or that angry parents fail to show their kids the love they truly and authentically have for them? Or maybe it’s good to listen to some expert advice sometimes, or that being too stubborn gets in the way of many opportunities? Or maybe in times of the pandemic, you should have taken different decisions that would have put you on better paths of opportunity.
Luckily, your brain has a way of tracing novel ways into the future and it has an alternative strategy of decision-making that when employed, taps you into new realms of success, achievement, and fulfillment.
This way is called: ‘’active decision-making’’. Instead of dwelling on the past, it directs your focus toward the future. This thinking mode empowers you with new ways of thinking, speaking, and acting that takes you into unexplored mines of relationships, partnerships, opportunities, and achievements.
Act is to do something; exert energy or force; be employed or operative, to reach, make, or issue a decision on some matter. Active decision-making as the name implies draws new reference points into the future that are irrelevant to any past experiences. (advantage: limitless possibilities, new outcomes, essential for growth), (disadvantage: slow in learning, requires constant effort in the beginning, takes time initially for the growth to kick in).
Your brain embarks on a journey to explore active thoughts, communication and actions and if they’re systemized then, it becomes easy for your brain to integrate them as your new habits and hence you recreate a new norm for yourself to use as a reference for the next reactive decision making rounds.
If that’s so, then why does your brain fail to actively think most of the time?
The active mode of decision-making requires interruption of ‘’the ordinary’’, think of it like the process of growing muscle in the gym, it requires consistent effort and momentum yet because our basal brain centers learned to conserve energy to live longer, it becomes more resistant to interrupt until you give it a very good reason why!!
Coaching tool: Which movie are you stuck in?
One can argue that I have a big vision that I’m constantly failing to achieve and I tried reading many books, going to many seminars, and listening to YouTube videos, but it just doesn’t get better.
I hear you- and I say: consider that we relate to our past experiences in our brains like being in a movie. Try recalling what you did on the 1st of January 2000, whatever you did on that day feels now like you have watched a movie called ‘’What happened to me on 1st of January 2000’’. If nothing strikingly memorable happened, then it was a boring movie and you live a new day creating a new movie. Like any movie, it has a series of events happening, actors speaking and in the drama playing out, experiences are created.
But what if: something happened in a movie that you related to and you felt hyped by, you continue to remember the movie and how it made you feel right?
Right!
And so do you continue to remember the experiences that happened to you in the past that left you with a certain strong feeling, it could be good or bad, humiliating or empowering, satisfying or frustrating. And if you were left with very bad feelings, your mind will be stuck there. So, every day you create new movies but your mind is constantly unable to get over this past experience that left you with that feeling.
The movie tool: Distinguishing the drama, the trauma, and the event to uncover reactive decision-making
To demonstrate what we’re saying here: let’s talk about my client Emma and through her eyes let’s demonstrate what we just explained above. Emma's life story is dominated by a single, unforgettable movie: "The Divorce of My Parents." This movie happened when she was ten, the day her parents announced their separation. That scene, with its tension and heartache, became a permanent fixture in her mind.
As Emma grew older, she tried to create new, happier movies in her life—graduation, first job, travels, and acceptance into a prestigious university for postgraduate studies. Yet, the shadow of her parents' divorce loomed over every new experience. Her relationships were seen through the lens of that separation, making her fearful and hesitant to trust.
Her friends noticed how her past was affecting her present. They saw her struggles with commitment and trust as reruns of that old, painful movie. Despite her efforts to move on, the movie of her parents' divorce continued to play a central role in her life, influencing every new chapter of her relationship attempts with men.
Similarly, Emma's career was significantly shaped by her parents' divorce as well. She excelled in her job, particularly in roles that involved mediation and conflict resolution, skills she developed while navigating her parents' split. However, Emma's fear of instability, a residue from her parents' troubled marriage, affected her professional choices. She hesitated to commit to long-term projects or leadership roles, fearing they might end in failure, much like her parents' marriage.
Additionally, Emma's communication style was heavily influenced by her childhood experiences. She was too nice, and overly cautious in her interactions, always trying to avoid conflict or anything that might lead to a breakdown in relationships. This sometimes led to her avoiding tough but necessary conversations, a drawback in situations that required directness and assertiveness. The above apprehensions limited her career advancement despite her potential.
So, when Emma is looking to expand her abilities, her stuck brain limits her results because it still wouldn’t let go of this movie that she lived through 15 years ago.
A visual representation of how our brain keeps seeing certain movies where it gets stuck and can’t move beyond, even though the events happened and are long gone.
When Emma came to me, she was looking to succeed in her life and she decided that nothing was going to stop her. Through the coaching program, Emma became aware that for the longest time, she had an ongoing perceived reality in her life that is called ‘’men are scary and dangerous’’, ‘’people are mean and selfish and they’ll leave me’’, ‘’I’m on my own’’. In other words, Emma was living a drama, a meaning or a perceived reality in her brain about men, people, and herself and this drama is what’s giving her her thoughts, communication, and actions.
Through expanding her awareness into new horizons and training her mind on active decision- making, Emma paid attention and for the first time initiated contact with her dad, who was constantly trying to reach out to make it up to her as he left the family. Emma started challenging her brain that she wasn’t on her own. She was exceptionally skilled in creating effective collaborations and partnerships in her career and with her friends. Emma also deeply reconnected with her mum as she got that her mum was only being unconsciously tough with her because she wanted her to avoid the same mistakes she made as a younger woman.
Emma learned that she can foster a new drama, meaning, or perceived reality in her brain that’s called ‘’I’m safe, powerful, and skilled with people’’. With that new drama, Emma knocked on her boss’s door and apologized to him for avoiding him since she started the job and she told him that she hadn’t intentionally developed her relationship with him despite her knowledge that she’s skilled in collaboration and that a strong relationship between her and him will be a win- win for both of them. She explained to him how her brain got stuck into thinking that he resembled her dad and that’s why she found it exceptionally difficult to foster a powerful relationship with him. Since that conversation, Emma has been chosen to present at 5 of the top conferences in her field and her confidence to speak about her work has 10xed.
If you have a movie like Emma’s that you are aware your brain is stuck in. Imagine how much progress will be made in your life if you’re able to let go of this movie and expand your awareness to see all the great opportunities that are available to you when you live in new dramas, take new actions, and reach better results.
If you’re open to go through a similar journey to Emma’s, then below are a set of myths to destroy. You must wipe away those myths to enter the realm of new opportunities. Coaching is definitely an experience that can help you do that by enabling you to master your strategies, decision making, and refining your dramas.
Myths to destroy and major takeaways
Myth 1: Reactive thinking is a devil, it’s not.
Myth 2: I’m unlucky! No, you’re not! Your breakdowns and what you refer to as weaknesses of your character or where you feel stuck are the reference points that your brain looks at often when it opens its treasure trove
Myth 3: My brain can’t change its thinking, it’s too fixed on the past or it’s too late! No, your brain is highly adaptable.
Myth 4: Drama is past and bad, thus, I shouldn’t be dramatic! No, by virtue of being a human, you live in drama all the time. The question is, is it powerful drama? Or disempowering one?
Myth 5: It’s their fault that my life is like that! No, your life is a consequence of the reactions that you took as a result of the event you experienced. Reframe the dramas, the reactions will change.
Myth 6: Listening and speaking are everyday processes that have nothing to do with leadership, satisfaction or career development. No, listening and speaking are the products of your thinking and they are the major determinants of your progress and performance.
Myth 7: Our brain is a bad processor when it comes to bad experiences. No, it’s the perfect processor, as long as the senses see and cautiously sense the environment, your brain will process ‘’cautious’’, so change what you see and what you see changes.
Remember when Emma explained to her boss how her brain got stuck into thinking that he resembles her dad and that’s why she found it exceptionally difficult to foster a powerful relationship with him?
Why did her brain do that? And how could she have stopped it? That’s what we’ll figure out together in our next chapter, so stay tuned.
For you to exercise the Movie Tool, you need to identify 3 components: 1. The event that happened or the memory that you have of it. 2. The experience that you have including body sensations, feelings when you remember the event which is called here the trauma (what you need to let go of in your journey). 3. The things you told yourself about yourself and others then and how similar these things are still playing in your life and this is the drama that you need to reframe to get new results in your life.
If you're eager to dive deeper and explore how our leadership services can accelerate your path to success, book your coaching call with us today here, and if you're interested in joining our growing Facebook community for leadership development, join here.
Sara Hegy, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Sara Hegy is an award-winning scientist and a leadership coach who is dedicated to helping other leaders achieve their full potential while being fulfilled. She grew up in an environment where producing results is a measure of self-worth. Hence, she always struggled to apply self-development teachings until coaching helped her gain clarity on her struggles and gave her tools to overcome them. Through harnessing the power of her mind and taking effective action, she graduated with honors, won a scientific prize, and her findings raised a$2.7 million research grant. She's the founder of her coaching business that globally serves. Her mission: Passionate leaders who create massively and live a life that they love.
