2008qtr4 – Not Just Talk! Newsletter

Table of Contents – 2008qtr4 – Not Just Talk! Newsletter

• Book Review: Welcome to Your Brain
• Ask the Coach: The BIG THREE Limiters
• It's Employee Performance Review Time Again
• Notable Quotables: Great Things I Didn't Say (First)
• GottaGettaBlog! Highlights
• What's News at GottaGettaCoach!?

Welcome to Your Brain - Book Review

Title: Welcome to Your Brain : Why You Lose Your Car Keys But Never Forget How to Drive and Other Puzzles of Everyday Behavior
Authors: Sandra Aamodt, Sam Wang
ISBN-13: 9781596912830
Published: March 2008

If you want to know a LOT about how your brain works, this book’s for you. Written in a light-hearted, yet heavily neuroscientific way, the authors easily shift from silly brain-facts, to detailed physiological descriptions, to fascinating insights and implications ... and back again.

Indeed, the book starts with a 20-question “How Well Do You Know Your Brain?” quiz, which includes such teasers as:

1. When are your last brain cells born?
   a) before birth
   b) at age six
   c) between the ages of 18 and 21
   d) in old age


2. Which of the following strategies is the best one for overcoming jet lag?
   a) taking melatonin the night after you arrive at your destination
   b) avoiding daylight for several days
   c) getting sunlight in the afternoon at your destination
   d) sleeping with the lights on


3. You are in a noisy room attempting to talk to your friend on your cell phone. To have a clearer conversation, you should:
   a) talk more loudly
   b) cover one ear and listen through the other
   c) cover your ear when you talk
   d) cover the mouthpiece when you listen


4. Which of the following is the hardest thing your brain does?
   a) doing long division
   b) looking at a photograph
   c) playing chess
   d) sleeping


5. What percentage of your brain do you use?
   a) 10%
   b) 5% when you are sleeping, 20% when you are awake
   c) 100%
   d) varies according to intelligence

The book, divided into six parts, then goes on to explain why things are so. “It’s a complicated subject,” say the authors in their introduction, “but we think it doesn't have to be intimidating. This book will give you the inside scoop on how your brain really works – and how you can help it work better.

• “In part 1, we pull back the curtain to show what is happening behind the scenes and explain how your brain helps you survive in the world.


• “In part 2, we take a tour of our senses, explaining how you see, hear, touch, smell, and taste.


• “In part 3, we show how your brain changes through life, from birth to old age.


• “In part 4, we examine your brain’s emotional systems, focusing on how they help you navigate life effectively.”


• “In part 5, we discuss your reasoning abilities, including decision making, intelligence, and gender differences in cognition.


• “In part 6, we examine altered states of your brain – consciousness, sleep, drugs and alcohol, and disease.”

And they do, in considerable detail! To give you a taste, here are a few excerpts, of note:

Is your brain like a computer?
“Today, people tend to talk about brains as if they were a sort of biological computer, with pink mushy ‘hardware’ and life-experience-generated ‘software’. But computers are designed by engineers to run like a factory, in which actions occur according to an overall plan and in logical order. The brain, on the other hand, works more like a busy Chinese restaurant: it’s crowded and chaotic, and people are running around to no apparent purpose, but somehow everything gets done in the end.” Additionally, “computers mostly process information sequentially, while the brain handles multiple channels of information in parallel.” So, no, you brain really isn't like a computer.

Myth: Blind people have better hearing
“When tested, blind people are no better at detecting faint sounds as sighted people. “ But, “blind people do have better memory, especially for language. They also are better than sighted people at language tasks, including understanding the meaning of sentences. In addition, blind people are better at localizing sounds. Blind people seem to improve these abilities by taking advantage of brain space that isn't being used for vision. In blind people, verbal memory tasks activate the primary visual cortex, which is involved only in vision in sighted people.” One of the language tasks that blind people do especially well: The ability to generate verbs.

Practical Tip: How can you protect your brain as you get older?
“The most effective approach to keeping your brain healthy with age turns out to be something you probably wouldn't expect: physical exercise. Regular exercise, of the type that elevates your heart rate, is the single most useful thing you can do to maintain your cognitive abilities in later life.”

Myth: Women are moodier than men
“What most people don’t realize is that men are moody, too. In fact, their moods vary as much from hour to hour as women’s moods. How do we know this? When psychologists give beepers to men and women and ask them to write down their mood whenever it goes off, men and women report similar variations. Curiously, both men and women tend to remember women’s mood swings better, so if people are asked later to remember how moody they or their partners were in the previous week, more mood swings are reported for women than men.”

The Dalai Lama, enlightenment, and brain surgery
In 2005, the Dalai Lama spoke at the annual meeting of the Society of Neuroscience. During the Q&A, one of the book’s authors (Wang) asked him if he’s in favor of neuroscience research could someday helping people achieve enlightenment through artificial means such as drugs or surgery. His answer: If such a treatment were available, it would have saved him time spent in meditation, freeing him to do more good works. He even pointed at his own head, saying that if bad thoughts could be stopped by removing a brain region, he wanted to “Cut it out! Cut it out!” He did say, though, that that’d only be acceptable if it left one’s critical faculties intact (thus ruling out frontal lobotomies, to the relief of conference attendees).

Item Last
And why do we lose our car keys but never forget how to drive?! In large part because while we tend to think of our memory as a ‘single phenomenon’, it actually has many parts, each using different regions of the brain. So, “a skill such as driving a car uses a number of brain regions but does not require the temporal lobe system,” which is where we learn, remember (and forget) new facts and events.

If your a "neuro-nut", you'll likely want to read this book from start to finish. But it works equally well for those who prefer to just pick a page - any page - and see what you find. Either way, you'll likely learn some interesting things about your brain ... and have some excellent new topics to talk about at your next backyard bar-b-q or networking event.

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Correct Answers: 1d, 2c, 3d, 4b, 5c. (So, how'd you do?!)

The BIG THREE Limiters - Ask the Coach

Question: What do you find is the biggest struggle for people like me, who are seeking to make their life better, but unsure on where to start?

Answer: The BIG THREE Limiters are:

1. One’s own negative self-talk
2. One’s family, friends, and colleagues who may mean well, but still manage to routinely undermine one’s confidence, emotional well-being, and ultimate desire for change
3. The self-limiting beliefs inherent in, and associated with, items (1) and (2)

Because of the BIG THREE, most people never even get to the ‘where to start’ question – it’s as if they’re “tasered” into giving up before they even get started. Very sad. Indeed, if you’re stuck and not sure why, chances are one or more (likely all three) of the BIG THREE are nipping at your heels.

Don’t believe me? Try this: Put a 3x5 index card (and a pen) in your pocket or purse and carry it around for a week. Every time you hear some negative self-talk, someone else talking you down, or some self-limiting belief that’s holding you back from thinking/feeling/doing something new/different/better, give yourself a little “x” mark. At the end of the week, tally things up and see for yourself how insidious the BIG THREE can be.

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excerpted from: http://rebelgirl.newsvine.com/_news/2008/09/19/1885905-interview-with-barry-zweibel-of-gotta-getta-coach-inc.

It's Employee Performance Review Time Again

It's getting to be that time of year, again. As we stare down Q4, four things are pretty much inevitable:

1. pitch-black mornings and evenings are a-comin'
2. frigid temperatures aren't far behind
3. all of those "by 12/31" projects will soon be due
4. it's getting to be employee performance review time again

Regrettably, I can't help you with the shortening days, or dropping temps. But please, make a note-to-self: Next year - and forevermore for that matter - stop with these last-day-of-the-year due dates, already! They don't work. You know they don't work. And they just drive people crazy - including yourself, which segues somewhat nicely to item #4: employee performance reviews.

If you've subscribed to Not Just Talk! for any length of time (or GottaGettaBlog! for that matter) you're probably familiar with my Special Report entitled,

Employee Performance Discussions: 10 Important Things a Boss MUST Know How to Say.

Still, I ask you:

• Wouldn't it be nice if there was an easy way to know what to say to handle your employee performance problems swiftly, professionally, and effectively?
• Wouldn't it be nice if there were some particular phrases or scripts you could use to really bring home the points you're trying to make to your direct reports?
• Wouldn't it be nice if there was a way to handle performance issues without your boss or HR representative having to get involved?

Yes it would, and my Employee Performance Discussions downloadable e-book can surely help.

But don't take my word for it:

• "I knew I was supposed to know how to handle employee performance problems - and I thought I did. But whatever I tried didn't work. Until, I read Employee Performance Discussions. It really gave me the confidence I needed to say what I wanted to say." - Mary Stenniger, training director
• "It used to drive me nuts that I'd work my tail off and still get gigged by my boss for not getting more out of my employees. Employee Performance Discussions walked me through how to have the conversations I knew I needed to have with them. And you know what? They worked!" - Joe Meyers, director of operations
• "What amazed me was how quickly my Problem Employee responded once I used the right language to communicate my dissatisfaction and the improvements I needed to see. Employee Performance Discussions helped me save this guy's job!" - Mike Cooper, chief financial officer

So if you've got some 'tricky' performance discussions ahead, best-o-luck. And if you want something more than luck on your side, download a copy of Employee Performance Discussions: 10 Important Things a Boss MUST Know How to Say at http://www.employee-discussions.com/ today.

Notable Quotables: Great Things I Didn't Say (First)

• Malcolm S. Forbes: "Diamonds are nothing more than chunks of coal that stuck to their jobs."


• Woodrow T. Wilson: "I not only use all the brains I have but all I can borrow."


• Emo Phillips: "I used to think my brain was my most important organ. But then I though: Wait a minute, who's telling me that?"


• E.B. White: "Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but the thing dies in the process and the innards are discouraging to any but the pure scientific mind."


• George Carlin: "Frisbeetarianism is the belief that when you die, your soul goes up on the roof and gets stuck.”


• Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: "What kind of god would it be who only pushed the world from the outside?"

GottaGettaBLOG! Highlights from 2008qtr3

I've been using GottaGettaBLOG! as a vehicle to capture news, notes, and musings about coaching, mentoring, and getting more from YOUR Untapped Potential – along with whatever other I happen to find amusing and/or thought-provoking – since June of 2003.


Some highlighted blog postings from last quarter are listed below – just follow the links:

from July 2008

• Validate your Assumptions when Talking with your Boss
• Deciphering Priorities
• Measuring Executive Presence
• Air Cover: Getting Support from the Big Boss
• Locus of Control: Self-Management across the Continuum

from August 2008

• no posts in August

from September 2008

• Laughing Reduces Stress
• Upping the Ante on Sideline Leadership
• What Makes Great Leaders Great?
• Successful Change ... or Not!

As always, your on-line comments at GottaGettaBLOG! and its 2003-2007 archives are both welcomed and encouraged. If you don’t already receive monthly digests of GottaGettaBLOG!, you can update your subscription here. Thanks.

GottaGettaCoach! News from 2008qtr3

• Barry Zweibel was interviewed for an article in Crain's Chicago Business about the things someone can do post-layoff.
• Barry Zweibel was interviewed for a series of articles on newsvine.com about coaching and working with clients.
• Barry Zweibel (finally) joined LinkedIn.
• GottaGettaCoach! celebrates its eighth anniversary!