The Invisible Side of Success: designing failure-proof decision making.

TUNE IN TO LEARN: 
Can you rewire your brain for success? 
 
Join me, Angela Shurina, your Brain's Coach, as we uncover the science behind brain automatic programs and how they shape our behavior for success or failure.   
 
From the insights of Shane Parrish's "Clear Thinking: Turning Ordinary Moments into Extraordinary Results," we dive into strategies used by highly successful individuals to design systems that make the best choices effortless. By examining the habits and mindsets that drive success, we uncover methods to reprogram our automatic responses and implement more effective behaviors, even under pressure. 
 
Discover the game-changing concept of "kill criteria" introduced by Annie Duke, which helps prevent emotional decision-making and premature quitting.   
 
Learn how to establish pre-defined rules for when to abandon a strategy and how planning ahead can help you tackle challenging situations, such as making healthier choices during business dinners or avoiding unhealthy habits during stressful times. 
 
With practical tips on creating safeguards, rehearsing responses, and forming commitment plans, this episode equips you with the tools to break detrimental patterns and achieve consistently better decisions. 
 
Plus, don't miss the opportunity for a complimentary coaching session to identify and overcome your recurring challenges.  
 
Email me at angela@brainbreakthroughcoach.com to start bulletproofing your systems for success today!  
 

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:00

Hey guys, and welcome back to another episode of your Brain's Coach podcast. My name is Angela Shurina, I'm your host, I'm your Brain's Coach, and it is our job to discover, learn, share, practice all the amazing brain-body tools available to us all from the web, from scientific research, from all the smart people who do this amazing work of figuring out how the human body and brain work better and how we could use this science to improve our lives and create the life experience that we absolutely love living right. That's what we are all about here learning, growing and creating our personal brain's user manual. You know we have this most sophisticated machine in the entire universe but unfortunately, unlike our devices, which we also do not learn really how to use and often are not really sure how to use them properly. But anyhow, our brain doesn't come with a user manual, and so we still don't really understand how exactly it works and why we do certain things in a specific order, or well, we have a pretty good understanding of some processes, but definitely not all of the processes, and we all are trying to figure out in order to understand how do we use this brain brain better, so we have easier time shaping our life's path and ending up, if not exactly, but pretty damn close to where we want to be.

Speaker 1 1:54

Today we are continuing our conversation on the triggers of our brain. What makes our brain run? Certain automatic programs, and then what do we do to start running different programs, to design, to develop, to almost code different programs so we get better results in life? You know, they say about 90% of our life our brain runs on autopilot. So basically, you get a trigger, you get a cue, you get something happening and it acts as an activation switch for a specific program in your brain to get going. And then you experience certain emotions, you have certain thoughts, you take certain actions and very often again, unless you put work and training into that, you don't even notice. You do that Like, why do you ever wonder? Like have these questions? Why my smart brain keeps making me do these dumb things? Like, do you ever have this question? I definitely doubted my smarts on quite a few occasions. I'm like Angela, why? Why did you do that again? Remember that silent well, not silent, but remember that aha moment that I shared yesterday from a coaching call with my client who said that you know, after this vacation I want to come back, and I want to because I'm going to do additional self-reflection have a clear vision of myself, what it means for me to be my happiest, best self, and what kind of habits does this best self have and how can I ensure that I do those habits? How can I put in place systems or what we call with this client, guardrails and safeguards to make sure that the intentions, the habits, the actions that I wanna take, specifically new actions that I don't yet possess as my habits? How do I make sure that I make them happen? So I want to put design things in advance, think of different solutions to help me do my best when I'm at my worst. To help me do my best when I'm at my worst.

Speaker 1 4:27

You know, if you are not obsessed with thinking of successful people, especially people who achieved a lot, like they didn't have much at all, they start in the simplest, poorest, often disadvantageous circumstances and then, throughout their life journey obviously it takes often a few decades they progress immensely, like you could not predict this person would go this far, and they did. They're 1% of the 1%. What does it happen? And the most important thing that differentiates this person from the rest of people is the way they trained themselves to think, make decisions and then act on those decisions. And so if you're not obsessed with understanding like, how did it work for all of these people who made it, what are the common things? You probably don't know that people who succeed beyond average, beyond what's expected, they think of failure, of how they can fail the most often, and then they think about what kind of systems they can put in place. So they start making different choices, making different decisions and, most importantly, taking different actions, consistently rewiring, reprogramming their default responses, which got them only that far. So they keep growing, developing, succeeding and going higher and higher and higher. Successful people in finance and business and relationships and health are obsessed with building systems that make the best choice they want to make a almost non-negotiable, absolute, concrete and guaranteed.

Speaker 1 6:35

So what am I talking about here? And let me first share the quote that I'm reading and sharing all the time these days from this book that I'm probably going to be giving the most as a gift Clear Thinking, turning Ordinary Moments into Extraordinary Results, by Shane Parrish. And, as the book suggests, it's all about thinking better thinking, making better decisions consistently Improving your judgment, it turns out I'm'm quoting is less about accumulating tools to enhance your rationality and more about implement implementing safeguards that make the desired path the path of least resistance. It's about designing systems, when you are at your best, that work for you when you are at your worst. What it's all about, and how I use, how my clients use, how you can use that in real life to stop running automatic programs, automatic responses that you got in your childhood and you adolescent, in your young adulthood, and all the things that just don't work for you for now. But you keep running those programs because that's what your brain does. 90% of what you do is automatic response. Automatic program that saves you a lot of resources, but when it's not working and you want to change it, that's when it becomes problematic. So this is how you rewire your automatic responses and make sure that you do a different thing, that you run a different program, that you create a new program and then stop, start using it consistently and effectively. So enter safeguards you also can call them guardrails. They are all about creating systems before you need them. So when you're in a situation of challenge, when you're tired, overwhelmed and feeling like you don't have any energy to even think, let alone doing better things, how do you make sure that you do your best. Still, you create better systems. So here are a few examples that will help you to think through your life, business relationship, situations.

Speaker 1 8:59

My personal example rewiring emotional eating. At some point, my stress management was eating chocolate, cookies and all kinds of sweets, and at some point I realized that didn't really work because it didn't really solve the problem, the real problem addressing difficult emotions and things that were causing them. And so I decided this is not working, I need to change it. And so I decided this is not working, I need to change it. And so I created a new routine that I would do when I felt that I needed to eat that cookie or that chocolate. It was really simple Taking a five deep breath, eating a banana and going for a short walk. Sometimes I would just get myself out of the house because I knew that if I didn't change my environment and if I stayed stationary in one place, then I'd probably do the old behavior. So I needed to radically change my surroundings and, ideally, my state. So movement by itself is a very powerful state changer. It changes immediately how you feel and what's running through your head. So go for a walk and then I would breathe and then I would have a banana to also give my body some nourishment to manage the situation physically better as well. And then after a while, that created a great response or habit in my life where, when I would experience difficult emotion, I would first change my state, I would walk, I would breathe, I would take care of my physical body and then I would think through the problem, like what caused this and what can I do to address this problem, not to just make myself feel bad. So that's my experience with rewiring emotional eating, and it's been ages since I had any sweet for the need of calming myself down or managing stress. Yeah, sometimes, like maybe a couple of times per year, I can have a piece of cake, but that's all added sugar I ever have, if ever, because I don't really need it. If I feel like eating sweets, I can eat a banana, and I love bananas, by the way. Thoughtful responses.

Speaker 1 11:19

A lot of my clients work on their communication strategy. They want to speak well, speak better, appear more, appear smarter and also to learn better, a mix of those goals that we work through with learning, with training different behaviors to kind of trigger the running of different program. You see, in order for you to start implementing new program, first you need to train, you need to walk yourself through in your mind, through visualization, this new program, like when somebody at work who's your superior asks you a question, what are you going to do to not just blast out a response that first that comes to your mind, but actually take some time thinking and maybe also learn more and discover more to have a chance to give a better answer. So the program or the recipe that we train with my clients is pause and breathe. So when somebody asks you a question and you would like to give a better response, pause and breathe. You may touch your chin, like we do when we think, and you can even say let me think about that and you take a breath and you breathe. You literally take your normal breath and voila, more often, research shows, than not, in like 90% and more cases, you would give a different answer, a better one, a one that you're proud of.

Speaker 1 12:57

Another one is ask questions. Somebody asks you a question and you want to appear more thoughtful and just a more composed human with clear thinking. Ask more questions, ask for clarity Like what do you mean here and does this mean that or do you mean something different? Does it refer? Are you referring to this or something different? Ask more questions. By the way, when you ask more questions, you appear smarter and people love talking. People love expressing their opinions, so they would love you as a conversationalist much better than someone who just blasts out I know it all responses as soon as people finish talking. Right, so pause and breathe or ask more questions, and we practice it in advance. So when you're in an actual situation, you already have a different playbook Smart spending.

Speaker 1 13:56

That's another one that by now probably saved me fortune. So I have this rule If I'm thinking about a non-ordinary purchase that might be something from clothing to software to I don't know a book that I like. I love reading books. The problem with that was I buy too many books and don't read as many, so I'm like why am I wasting this money? And then there is you know another book and I want to read it too, and you know after a while that all accumulates plus the other stuff that I could be buying Anyhow. So I created this rule. Any non-ordinary, non-usual purchases, purchases except for, like groceries etc. Happens on Saturday. Some people also set themselves a limit, like if the purchase is more, then I only can make this decision once a week or once a month, whatever that might be right. So, creating this rule before you are prompted by your automatic responses to take an action that you usually take so smart spending again going to save you fortune and going to eliminate a lot of regrets that nobody likes your health journey.

Speaker 1 15:09

Also, my personal example when I was working on quitting sugar and I would often have this reoccurring craving of a cookie or chocolate, I would tell myself you can have it, but only tomorrow morning. And anyone can last till tomorrow morning Like it's not, like you're going to die or something, or the cookie's going to run away. And you know what happened. Not even a single time I wanted that cookie in the morning. By the way, did you know that? Your willpower, your cravings, they work worse at night because you accumulate fatigue, your brain doesn't have that much energy and your prefrontal cortex doesn't work that well, so all decision-making power goes out of the window at night. That's why most people binge at night and have cravings and all these stupid things that people do most often happen at night. Just know how your brain works. So I did create this rule, you can have it tomorrow morning and I never did my abs look sharper and I also eat a lot more fruit and vegetables next morning, which also contributes to my health and long-term goals.

Speaker 1 16:21

Business progress I use what I learned from Annie Duke. She's an author, she's a world-class poker player, a researcher, so she has quite a few books on decision-making and just thinking better in the environment of uncertainty which our life is. So I use her kill criteria tool in business. So I used to try and quit a lot of business strategies too early. It's not that they didn't work, they just needed time to work and also a learning curve, right. And so I wouldn't have successes because I would just quit early. I'm like, oh, this doesn't work, let me try something else. Oh, this doesn't work, let me try something else. And this pattern did not work for me. So I needed to set up some rules specifically. Again, kill criteria resonated with me. So I created this rule. I could only quit or kill the strategy or the project when certain things happen, or when I use it for, let's say, two weeks or a month, and or I learn a certain thing. That also helped me to ask better questions and learn better. But then now my quitting actually is run by my logical thinking. That I do in advance, at my best time, not driven by emotions or feeling like it right. So key criteria If you want to become better at quitting quitting on time or not quitting too early create the skill criteria in advance. That's what the best decision makers do. They don't rely on emotions that override your logical thinking. They create rules in advance or health habits. Same principle With my clients Looking at the week ahead.

Speaker 1 18:12

We always talk about what I call danger zones, like what are the challenging situations you can think of right now, looking at your schedule that we need to have a playbook for before the heat of the moment. So if you have a couple of business dinners, what are you going to choose? What are some choices usually available that are aligned with your long-term goals? How many drinks are you going to have? Are we drinking that much? Are we not drinking? And what are you going to say when offered different options from desserts to drinks or to have one more? What are your options that you commit to? What are you going to say? Playbook? I also call them mental rehearsals. Let's say it again and again and again when offered this, I'm going to do this. When offered this, I'm going to say this.

Speaker 1 19:01

And these are all along the lines of creating those safeguards or guardrails or systems, those safeguards or guardrails or systems which will help you to not do your worst when you are, when the situation is worse in the heat of the moment, on Netflix and pizza a familiar situation for a lot of people Friday night. You are stressed from work, you have no energy, you're overwhelmed, you feel like you deserve all the pizza in the world and you just want to chill and watch Netflix. But you know it's not aligned with your long-term goals and on Monday or Sunday, you understand that. Well, this thing didn't work. So what is your plan to make it different? Are you expecting that superhero, you, to show up and just magically make a different decision this time, even though 100 times before you made exactly the same choice? Are you really expecting to become different in five days? Never happens. Never happens to the smartest people on earth.

Speaker 1 19:57

So what you do is you make a better plan. How can you bulletproof your Friday night? Maybe right after work, you decide to go for a workout with a buddy, or go for a walk or, I don't know, catch, play some tennis or do something actively, like playing board games. It doesn't even have to be physical, it just has to be different and you have to be committed with someone else's idea to do something else. So your Friday night is now not the same thing on repeat, and then you have the commitment and you might even tell your friends please make sure I show up because I'm working on changing this particular pattern or habit.

Speaker 1 20:39

This is a plan. When you have no plan, it's a plan to fail. There is this famous saying by Muhammad Ali everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth. Believe it or not, folks, you can have a plan for when punched in the mouth, and that's when you know how to get back up and get going. So what's your plan for when punched in the mouth and when life happens? Let me know, share it. Email link me to Angela at brainbreakthroughcoachcom. Angela at brainbreakthroughcoachcom. You can also email me and ask me to do a fun session. Let's look at all of the difficult repeating patterns that you just can't overcome and let's brainstorm your safeguard strategy so you actually start taking different actions, versus playing on repeat the same scenario over and over and over and over again, hoping that this time it's going to be different. Never worked for the smartest people on earth.

Speaker 1 21:52

Thank you, guys for tuning in. Thank you for listening. So I hope your brain got some coaching you expected and from now on, you're going to start thinking in bulletproofing bulletproofing, safeguarding and guardrailing your systems. To do different, to do better when things are worse. Email me again to do this danger zone assessment and prevention together for a free, absolutely complimentary, my gift to you coaching session having the best strategies at your disposal to help you think through things, difficult things better to act better, to create the life experience that's gonna astound yourself. Talk to you soon, have an awesome beginning of the week. Think better, install better systems. Email me to getbettertogether, angela, at brainbreakthroughcoachingcom. Don't forget to share this podcast with at least one person, maybe your best friend, who needs just this to stop running in circles and start running forward. So please do share and till next time. Well, what's my wish to you? Till next time, start thinking in systems. Talk to you soon and enjoy the rest of your week.