Often feel stressed? Blame your “threatening brain”
You can re-control your fight or escape with two simple actions to “threat the brain”.
Habits are hard to change. However, once you understand how your brain works, it will be easier to overcome your default tendencies and break problematic habits to create a healthier and more sustainable lifestyle. The first step is to focus on your “threatening brain,” said psychologist Natalie Wong, who is the author of Above Threat and an associate researcher at the Said School of Business at the University of Oxford.
“Threatening the brain is a way of talking about the brains of our early reptiles,” she explained. “I want to give it another name, because when you start talking about the reptile brain, everyone thinks they know what it is. But the emotional brain is much more complicated.”
Wong said that our brain is regulated by three interconnected nervous systems:
“Threat the brain” is our fight or flight system, the purpose of which is to survive.
“Drive the brain” is our driving force to achieve, compete and accumulate resources.
“Safe brain” is a nourishing and reflective rest state that makes us feel calm and relaxed.
“Each of them has an evolutionary theory, but the’threat brain’ is still the easiest to activate,” Wong said. “This is the core of our existence. Now, almost everyone has experienced the resurrection of that side of their brain, and many of us are trapped in a toxic way of brain work, which is driven by our threatening brain-usually I didn’t realize it.”
The body is in early signs of a threatening brain-induced toxic drive state, such as stomach tremors, muscle tension, or rapid heartbeat. You may not realize that you are threatening to function in the brain, because the toxic drive of the brain has become normal. However, if you disconnect from the sequence, you may not notice it until you are in a later stage, such as in an outburst of anger.
“My mantra is, ‘this is not your fault, but it may be your problem,’” Wong said. “Almost all of our problems stem from overactive threats to the brain.”
Control threatens the brain
Wong said that at the beginning of a pandemic, when we are facing unknown dangers, threatening the brain will behave as it should, but over time, it will lead to confusion, uncertainty, overthinking and denial—defensive. The response is not particularly effective. But you can regain control through two actions.
First, pay attention to the way you speak to yourself. “It’s surprising that people don’t realize the narrative in their heads,” Wong said. “It’s just what they thought was going to happen, and they didn’t really stop to listen to it.”
Wong recommends writing down what actually happened in your mind when you were in a brain-threatening situation. “You will often find that what you say is increasing the threat,” she said. “We have learned from research that people who are overly self-critical can trigger threat-related areas in their emotional system. Talking to yourself can put you under threat without you even knowing it.”
Once you recognize the words that appear in your mind, you can solve them. Wong recommends talking to yourself like a friend, not a hateful enemy.
The second method is physical, because threatening the brain starts with physical experience.
“The breathing method seems a bit fashionable, but the entire work and research around breathing is so basic,” Wong said. “I’m not suggesting mindfulness or spiritual practice. Just pay attention to how your breathing is good and bad for you.”
A simple and rhythmic breathing method allows you to check yourself several times a day, which may be helpful. Adjusting your breathing over time will change your physiology, making you slower in response to threats.
“If you see someone having a panic attack, the first thing you will notice is their breathing pattern, which is fast and irregular,” Wong said. “Breathing re-attracts attention to the body and enters the parasympathetic nervous system. This is a movement from driving behavior to a safe brain state. This requires a little practice, but it allows you to better cope with the upcoming psychological and social pressure.”
Enter the “safe brain”
The safe brain is part of the emotional brain after reptiles threaten the brain. Wong said it developed as mammals began to realize that caring for their cubs greatly increased their chances of survival.
“The safe brain has evolved over millions of years; it is the part of us that is connected to the frontal cortex that allows us to soothe ourselves and rest,” Wong said. “It allows us to enter a state of deep reflection to manage our attention and attention. Part of the reason is that the safe emotions in the brain produce hormones and chemicals, which also allow us to connect with people.”
Most of us have worked with (sometimes) people who are not as good as they think-this is the definition of arrogance. There is no shortage of arrogant bosses in the world. This reality can be explained by three main research findings:
Humans generally tend to overestimate their own talents, and the bosses are (still) mainly humans (although we have heard that AI bosses are coming soon). Sometimes called the Wobergen Lake effect, most people overestimate their skills in various fields.
As observers, we can easily mistake confidence for competence, which explains why people who seem confident, overconfident, or even arrogant can be mistaken for particularly talented people and are therefore selected for leadership roles (in the public and private sectors). Organization).
The more confused people are about their own skills and talents, the easier it is for them to fool others into thinking that they are more capable than they actually are.
These findings explain why arrogant bosses are more common than realistic, humble bosses. However, management books and articles have been extolling the ideas of humble leaders.
Is this wishful thinking?
Do not. We want to work for people who feel unreasonable to ourselves, and don’t know their limitations, which is reasonable. When arrogant people are in power, they tend to alienate, alienate, and demean others. Their team lacks psychological security, their performance is affected, and their organization (or country) pays a high price. A lot of research shows that humility is rational and constructive.
However, we have all seen it over and over again: a charismatic, funny, and sometimes pathologically narcissistic person is promoted to a leadership role, only to be exposed as arrogant, self-deceptive, and empowered—to the detriment of others. Too many politicians embody this harmful pattern, but it is also common in the private sector.
Research further shows that arrogance increases the tendency to participate in corruption and anti-social behavior. What do Harvey Weinstein, Bernie Madoff and Jeffrey Epstein have in common? Grand delusions inhibit their self-control, restraint, and empathy, while perpetuating their own illusion of immunity to consequences, further contributing to their parasitic behavior. It’s as if we humans are born to fall into the traps of our own making.
There is a crucial difference between arrogance and self-confidence. You can have full confidence in your abilities. If your confidence is realistic (that is, in line with your actual abilities), we will not label it as “arrogant”. By the same token, this imbalance defines arrogance when there is a lack of talents, skills, or expertise, but no confidence. In short, talented people, people with deep professional knowledge, or training and practice, or people who are thoughtful about future challenges, can all be regarded as humble. In contrast, when people’s talents are not as good as they thought, they are seen as arrogant, overconfident, or self-deceiving. Compared with people who lack these qualities, humble people are more likely to deal with and help others deal with real challenges more effectively.
If you happen to work for an arrogant leader, how should you treat them (although arrogance is statistically more common in cisgender men) to minimize harm to you and others? Here are five suggestions:
Avoid challenging their ego. They will take defensive measures and may retaliate. This does not mean that you should cater to them or do your best to exaggerate their self-esteem: just try to be neutral or indifferent to arrogance.
Focus on how to help them. When trying to influence/convince them, focus on the benefits your argument brings to them (“If we do this, you will outperform other managers…”) instead of trying to come up with a logical or ethical Case (“This would be better,” or “This is the right approach.”)
Try to avoid being fooled by them. Don’t mistake their charm for substance or their confidence for ability. Be skeptical, so you don’t think they are as good as they say. This will save you a lot of pain and suffering. Instead, stay awake and clear-headed, and do your best to advance the work within the scope of your role.
If you feel comfortable, become a source of constructive feedback. You can help arrogant bosses understand their mistakes and help them correct their opinions/decisions, although this is not without risk. For example, you can make your boss aware of the potential risks or negative consequences of the proposed action-consequences, such as his/her own boss may be unhappy, customers may leave, or any other impact on your boss’s reputation or career prospects Potential loss. This will turn you into an ally, assuming the role of a messenger, rather than conveying your own views.
Go to work for others. Just know that a truly humble boss is not easy to find.
Finally, there is one more issue that needs attention. Arrogance is self-enclosed. Once promoted (or elected) to a leadership position, leaders (because they have no real fault of their own) have less and less exposure to unreliable data. As Bob Sutton of Stanford University said, bosses live in a paradise for fools. Bad news will not spread upwards, and people will not disagree with their bosses, so from where they sit, the situation looks optimistic. Often, this illusion is pierced by crises, failures, or scandals that seem to be sudden but are not. Warning signs are everywhere.
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So many factors affect retail sales and store performance from day-to-day. Sudden shift in product trends, a competitors successful sales strategy, the weather (if it is raining, or if it is too hot or too cold, customers do not venture outside to shop), and peer opinion can all affect the sales in each store in your chain.
There is now an imperative need to access rich and varied sources of external data. You need to gather data about your competitors sales and strategies, the sales strategies of online giants, data about the products offered, the promotional strategies used by local competitors and so on. You also need a way to collect and use customer generated data from various external sources.
However, these cannot be collected and processed by traditional database and analytical tools. This is where Big Data comes in.
Big Data provides the methodologies required to collect and organize disparate information from widely differing sources, and the tools to analyze them. These data processing and advanced data analytics tools provide broader and deeper insights into various factors. These help retailers make more precise decisions about the different aspects of their business, including product assortment planning.
However, most retailers haven’t been quick enough to take advantage of these sources. Around 92% of retailers, according to a recent survey, do not have a comprehensive understanding of their customer base.
Every business is now becoming more customer-centric and this is especially important in retail. One of the big advantages Big Data provides is its ability collect and organise customer related information from diverse sources. This customer generated data helps retailers stay alert and nimble. Now they can respond quickly to customer views and preferences.
They can make better decisions about assortments for various stores, tailoring the stock to local preferences and the strategies of competitors in the neighborhood. This will help them provide what the customer wants and eliminate products that are not in demand in that locality. So, they can free up space and make better use of it, stocking high demand stock keeping unit(SKUs).
Using data provided by the analytical tools, individual stores can design product placing and even Adjacencies. Adjacencies refer to product placement in relation to one another. With a deeper perception of customer preferences, stores can decide if one product will do better when placed next to another.
Analyzing customer buying patterns in a locality could also help determine the type of products to stock. For instance, if the majority of shoppers at a particular store are price-sensitive, that store could focus on making available good products that are available at economical prices. For the segment of their customers who prefer exclusivity and are not bothered about the price, the store can create small sections that display goods like gourmet foods, expensive cosmetics etc.
There are other ways to utilize information gathered through Big Data tools. It can also help the retailers design an inventory and sales strategy that ensures a uniform experience across multiple channels. In the end, if the customer is happy it translates into more sales for the stores, and Big Data technologies can make this happen.
三和一善 