Seeking Coastal Utopia

The lizard brain. The primitive brain stem. The one system that is the oldest portion of your brain. It is the location where raw instincts reside and flow from. This is where fight-or-flight lives. You feel aggression — it comes from the lizard brain. When you feel fear, it comes from the lizard brain. The lizard brain is that tool your body is wired into that tells it to get the hell out of there and run away or fight to the end using a brick or a 2X4 to ensure you walk away. “get out of your mind” photo by Alex on  Unsplash Fast forward to modern-ish times. The popular thing to do lately is to get your DNA sequenced to figure out who (or what) you descend from. I’m going to save you $250 by telling you who your ancestors are. Ready? We all come from a long line of liars, cheaters, thieves, murderers and cowards. Many of our ancestors ran away or hid in the underbrush. Our lineage comes from those predecessors whose lizard brains decided for them to let them live t...

When our boss* comes to us to ask you to do something, do you ever say no? It is probably depending on which boss that it is, but most of us probably say “yes” and do the work.  We say "yes" even though we already have a plateful of work in front of us, and falling behind on the similar work. It is rare that a person says “no” to the boss and we need to figure out how that balance can be beneficial for both relationships. For those of you that say “no” outright, this is for you, too. “You are the best and I need you to get this done” by rawpixel on  Unsplash Most people realize that work is necessary. It provides us with the currency to purchase stuff. Important stuff like food, shelter, and clothing . It allows us to purchase things we want too, the toys like a medium format digital camera or a tranquility pod . We do not want to lose that opportunity to earn that paycheck. We do what we can to provide the right answer to keep us in good graces with th...

Check your ego at the door, please. It is time to wake up and realize you are NOT the smartest in the room, and you really should not be if you wish to be successful. If you are the smartest in the room, maybe it is time to change rooms. Remember in grade school when picking teams? You knew who the good kickers were. You knew those that could roll a perfect pitch. Everyone had the ringers recognized. Why should that be any different at work? Before everyone starts squawking about wanting to have inclusion, I am talking about surrounding yourself with experts. The smartest people available that will force you and the rest of your team to up their game. We talked about the Hawthorne effect in a previous post ; how does that affect you when you’re working at your job? The observer effect makes you change your behavior. You find yourself working harder and being busier (yet maybe more inefficient) because somebody is watching you. When you notice your change in behavior because of t...