Mhmm Brain Food.

Wishing everyone the happiest of snowy Sunday’s. Today is a very special day, because it’s the first real blanket of snow up in frozen Syracuse. But, whether you’re curled up like me with a good book, or in any variety of climates, it's time to think about food--not your next meal, or your last, but some serious food for thought. This week, I’ve been reading Simon Sinek’s book, Leaders Eat Last: Why Some Teams Pull Together and Others Don’t. This was a novel recommendation from my dear friend, Sydney, who challenged me to read a little deeper this week.

Simon Sinek is an inspirational speaker and author. In this book, you can really tell that he’s done the groundwork. This analysis is not a light read. It’s a factual and psychological breakdown of why our culture has been organized in this way and how you can best survive in it. As Sinek describes it, leadership is all about trust and our relationship with one another, which is deeply rooted in our biology. Our evolution over time grasps how we interact in the workplace. [Boom, book summarized. You can click away now. Kidding…keep reading, the best is yet to come].

Most of what Sinek describes are the influences of our biology on our interactions. To his categorization, leaders have two main traits that make them successful. First, the single greatest asset to completing any job: Empathy. For me, this part was highly affirming. As an individual leader attempting to navigate college, I’ve always been highly empathetic, but also very sensitive to people that are not as forgiving. People who fail to listen, amplify or support always seem to rub me the wrong way. But Sinek articulated this problem in full: Good leaders have a willingness to listen. Through this organization, the friction between bad leaders and organizational failures can often just be chalked up to a top down unwillingness to hear, or a bottom up unwillingness to care empathetically.

This negative interaction regarding organizational leadership has everything to do with trust. This is the magic function that is built by great internal public relations programs. Organizations with cultural values of belonging and trust build relationships. These are safe spaces which can be constructed. One of the best ways to build these spaces is to build a reflexive support system--just as much as leaders are responsible for their team member’s successes, so are the members in supporting and taking care of their leaders. Both must recognize that each have a different role to play in the organization, which also means that different stresses can affect them.

Sinek breaks away from the pack when he begins his discussion of leadership: Brain Drugs. Endorphins and dopamine are the physical responses for climaxing hard work. Our habits release our dopamine hits. These chemicals are the habits that reward our cooperation. When we feel ‘pride’ or confidence or approval, we’re not actually seeking the affirmation of our peers, but just hits of serotonin. On the other hand, when we feel selfish or anxious, our fear centers kick in. Sinek describes that the selfish anxiety and fear of others getting ahead of us are controlled by cortisol. These cortisol levels continue to break down our levels of empathy, generosity and trust by inhibiting oxytocin from functioning--all to say that our ability to feel at home in our work is highly dependent on how our environments force our minds to respond, and that has everything to do with our culture.

The second half of the books looks more intently at scrutinizing the leadership of an organization. Our leaders set the tone for our culture. Bad leaders micromanage, but good leaders trust. I think most of us know the feeling--a boss that lets you goof off a little and express your personality because they trust that your work will get done is an entirely different boss than someone who criticizes your natural lightness because they wouldn't express those feelings themselves. Sinek describes a lot of the challenges in leadership to be much more about an individual’s ability to grow up. Sinek says that good leaders “transition from needing approval of our parents to approval of our peers”. This degree of openness also requires a change in character, as leaders need to focus more on their integrity, honesty and accountability. Building each of these emotions within ourselves helps us to alter our biological responses to mistakes and disagreements. Instead of physically throwing down when we don’t see eye to eye, or needing to make fun of someone when we are told that we are mistaken, we gain a level of resiliency. This is the key to being an adult leader, and it means so much more than being effective in the workplace. This type of leadership from within is essential to our building of relationships, trust and friendships.

Building on the completeness of oneself, Sinek detailed several key strategies that I’ve been forcing myself to implement. In complete candor, this has not been a cake walk. It’s not physically hard, but just difficult to catch the bad habits before they’ve reinforced themselves through unconscious action.

For 21 years of life, my brain has been comfortable in its mute control of my feelings and emotions. I’ve passively just let my brain drugs addict me. And now, they don’t want to let me change. That’s got to stop. Just like a withdrawal period, it is not going to be easy, but you can do it with me. It’s going to hurt, but soon you’ll go from forcing yourself to make changes, to noticing the changes happening, to never considering your bad habits again.

Sinek describes multitasking as the biggest form of self-interrupting. We have developed addictions to our habits--checking our phone, eating snacks, or watching tv. Our routines are the functions of our personalities that limit our ability to think deeply. Collectively, we feed off eachother’s laziness and unwillingness to experience those twinges of brain discomfort. When we look at those people who go running at five o’clock in the morning, or are super great at reading and getting work done, half of the reason we feel this way is because we’re just unwilling to interrupt the brain pathways that keep us lowly regulated with microdoses of fear and pain that we’ve just learned to accept.

We’re not stuck in these ruts however. For the past week I’ve forced myself to enter the stages of awareness. Don’t go on your phone. Read a book. Start something. It’s not a lot, but baby steps matter. And we’re not alone in this. Our biology is somewhat here to help us. Oxytocin helps us connect. That’s why trying to make changes with other people is so much easier than making it by ourselves. However, opening ourselves up to become dependent on another person means that sometimes we relinquish some of our discipline onto them.

Have you ever had a workout partner that soon starts to skimp on the workouts? Did you notice that as soon as they stopped going, you became more and more inclined to join them in their comfort zones? This is because as community people we are self-motivating. You need to choose a partner with an equal level of commitment to your common goals for themselves, or you need to commit to doing it alone and not letting the noise distract you as other people fall victim to their habits.

In the end, each of these feelings that we experience on different levels are human. Purpose? Human. Leadership? A commitment to human feelings. Empathy? Human but suppressed.

If you learn nothing else from this review, remember this: You are your biology. You cannot escape that. However, you can transcend your innate habits by becoming aware of them and in control of your brain drugs and how they release them. Every neural pathway can be trained in your discipline, and habits. Nothing is impossible, you just need to make it possible for yourself.