#208 From Consciousness to Conscious Leadership - Lynda Shaw

04/13/22 • 89 min

Our guest today is a neuroscientist, business psychologist and recalibrating your brain expert. She has owned three businesses, she is an international professional speaker (in fact she is the current National President of the Professional Speaking Association UK&I) mentor to senior business people, founder of the Neuroscience Professional Development Programme and the Learning Lab, and is often in international newspapers and magazines and a regular guest on national radio.
I think what really stuck with me today is that for starters, when you start getting to the metaverse, we're not quite sure yet what would form in and outgroups, I personally think it is the way that we can represent ourselves within the metaverse. If we look at gaming, for instance, who has the best gear, who looks the spiciest, who has the most knowledge of the environment, each one of those creates its own little group. You also have things like formalised structures like gills , will those kinds of things happen in the metaverse as well, we have these VR worlds that we've been around for awhile, but the full immersion of it, now looking at at the metaverse, what will that mean for team engagement and for a biological need to be able to see people's facial expressions and how much of that would already happen.
I Mean, one of the things that zoom and other platforms are adding is the ability to change your face into an avatar that picks up on your lip movement and your eyebrows, but not full facial expression yet, but we're getting close. So how long would it be for somebody that is as overweight as me can look slim and svelte and buff on a metaverse and would I want to?
The other thing that I enjoyed today in the session with Linda was about leadership and the impact that leaders can have on returning to the office. We tend to think that things may go back the way it was, but what if it doesn't, what if hybrid is here to stay? When should people be in the office? I think Linda makes a very good point in that we need to find a day where everybody's together. And not cram it just full of meetings and activities for people to do, but get people to bond, find ways in which people can connect. Even if it's during a meeting, make sure that those interpersonal relationships are built , which gives us loyalty, which gives us connection with gives us binding to the company and organizational citizenship behavior. Instead of it just being a bunch of people that get together every so often and do stuff together. Well, I hope you enjoyed learning as much as I did today.
LinkedIn: http://uk.linkedin.com/in/lyndashaw
Website www.drlyndashaw.com

Previous Episode

#207 Under Pressure - Neurosurgeons and Leadership - Mark Mclaughlin

Today I am talking to Mark McLaughlin. Mark's a neurosurgeon, and at the same time, also a youth wrestling coach. Can imagine that? How do you explain what you do to the youth? And at the same time, inspire them to be their best selves, Give them self-confidence. And how do you learn from that again? And bring that back into a neuro-psychological surgical team in hospital, we've got to lead brain surgery in essence. I mean, we'll even use that as reference, “It's not as bad as brain surgery”. Now, Mark does that on a daily basis. So what can we learn from mark? And from the way that he leads and the way that he coaches and the way that he talks to west point about what leadership is.

He wrote a book about cognitive dominance. That sounds really dominating, or as he calls it almost like Darth Vader, but in this case, it is about how we act in a crisis. I think no more relevant than it is today. So I hope just like me, you look forward to this talk today with Mark McLaughlin.

When I reflect on what I just talked to mark about, one of the things that he said in one of his talks that actually came to mind. Casual and casualty. If we treat leadership casually, we don't use this as a learning process to become a little bit better every single day, then our people are the casualties and in a world dominated by violence at the moment and by war, why should we still accept leadership that causes casualties. Can we take ownership duty? Take that little bit of care with people's lives to make sure that we can actually make a difference, make it better and leave no casualties behind. Let's all not treat our people casually, our leadership casually and let's learn, grow and become the best leaders.

Next Episode

#209 Stability In A Crisis - Anastasiia Lutsenko

A hypothesis is not the same as a theory or hypothesis is something that we can actually say what the statistical validity of it is. So unlike a normal mathematical formula, which tells us every dot to keep in line with hypothesis, we say, what is the statistical chance of something being in a specific spot? I imagine that if you have a mind that is almost predictive in using information to try and figure out what are the chances of something happening or not happening, what would that mind mean for an entrepreneur.
What would that mean for leadership?
And today talking to Anastasia, the question is, what does that mean for a refugee fleeing the war in Ukraine? When you step into your car and you have to drive in a direction, which direction do you choose? What is the statistical probability of arriving safe. And how do you adjust on the road? What does that mean for entrepreneurship?
What does that mean for academia? And what does that mean if you get cancer? Anastasia takes us on her journey from academia to entrepreneuriship to cancer to fleeing the Ukraine and now adjusting to finding a new life, even if it's temporary, but to find a new life in a different country than what she's used to, and yet stay connected and figuring out the probabilities of what wouldn't be successful.
I hope you enjoy today's session with Anastasia because I think it can teach us a lot about having the right mindset to overcome massive adversity .
I think what I learned most today from my interaction with Anastasia is that when the proverbial shit hits the fan and you have to find a way forward looking at the possibilities, the options, looking at ways in which you can find some form of resolution to just put your one foot in front of the other helps you to find the direction that you need in the moment to keep going. I'm not sure if that is part of long-term resiliency, but definitely in the short term, because I think in long-term resiliency, We will also need to deal with those things that have happened to us and all of us deal with things differently.
It doesn't matter how heavy the situation is you come out of, for some people, the threshold is lower for traumatic experience. We see with PTSD, the same thing, I remember, my struggles with PTSD and what that taught me about my own consciousness and my own ability to deal with stresses and all the tools I learned along the way.
I definitely believe that when you ever come adversity, you learn a lot, not just about your reaction to your environment but about what you can and cannot do. And you learn tools to be better off the next time. I don't wish adversity on anyone, but I'm thankful for that which I've had, which has allowed me to become more resilient and stronger and taught me the tools that I can now help other people.
I wish this for Anastasia and for all the Ukrainians that currently fleeing the war and all refugees. Did you find the strength and you find the wisdom to learn the tools that you need for later in life? Because every adverse situation can be an opportunity for growth, no matter how bad.
As long as it doesn't break you, you will learn something.
And if you've gone through something like having nightmares, you're not sleeping, while you break out in cold sweats. You have unexplained reactions and triggers. When somebody say something you overreact, just think about it. You may have had a traumatic experience. You may have such deep seated trauma that you may need to seek help.
And I knew the help that I sought in my life has helped me to learn more about myself and to find new coping methods. So don't be afraid to reach out. There are always people that are willing to help or you need to do is ask.