Seth Godin - Quieting the Lizard Brain
More food for thought from Seth Godin and some nice behavioral patterns to learn and devour.
This entertaining 18 minute lecture from 99% think tank uses a couple of stories and metaphors to pass along the following two important notions about success vs. failure:
- shipping vs. the fear of failing - as it turns out, the origin of fear is in the amygdala (a.k.a. the Lizard Brain) that we all have. As Seth boils it down - amygdala’s role is to make us “hungry, scared, selfish and horny”.
- trashing at the beginning vs. self-sabotaging - it’s not easy to overcome the initial resistance to do something so choose wisely what you do.
I did some research on amygdala and especially its features related to our behavior put forth by Seth in this lecture.
Fear of failing
Humans are born fearless. We “learn” fear through a process called fear conditioning. You know, don’t put your fingers in power supply or perform dangerous feats without sufficient skill and practice. In fact, Internet feeds on these things.
People with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) may be particularly fear conditioned, i.e. unable to act under the exposure of traumatic events that once caused great physical harm or threatened to do so (or that have been perceived as such).
Memory retention of experiences and learning events is improved with the presence of amygdalalar activity which is correlated with emotional arousal, i.e. situations when emotions are more strongly stimulated. In other words, emotionally-charged experiences are better memorized (i.e. end up in long-term memory and stay there longer) and fear is a strong emotional response to a threat (e.g. fear of failing once something you’re about to make public or, even more frequently, not be good enough which is an even worse excuse because it kills many projects that may have passed the “fear of failing” stage).
Being hungry, selfish or horny is not extremely important in this context, apart from the fact that being such makes us less selective in what we do since all those traits equate to being shortsighted when ventures that take time and wise course of action are in question.
Thrashing at the beginning
Why thrashing is so important?
We all know it first hand that overcoming the resistance/reluctance/uncertainty (fear comes under different names) is not easy. Once you overcome your Lizard Brain (a.k.a. fear of failure, you’ve passed the main hurdle. You can’t succeed in that all the time because it’s not easy and because your time on this world is limited [1], so your need to choose wisely what you will do (or even try doing) by thrashing everything else. Until you ship, that is.
So why is it important not to thrash at the beginning?
The point is it’s way cheaper to influence the outcome of what you do (i.e. you’re much more likely to be successful) by choosing what to do and especially what not to do [1] at the beginning than near the end of your undertaking. Making changes when you’re about to hit the stage is merely an excuse for letting the fear take the central stage.
Are you familiar with the feeling of wanting something else to do when they’re about to finish something? I’m sure you know this feeling and you’ve seen other people do it, in both business or private sphere of life. This tendency to self-sabotage yourself near the end of your venture is fear of failure or Lizard Brain taking the control of you all over again.
Concluding remarks
Having a metaphor so easy to remember as the Lizard Brain is always a good thing. Such metaphors make it easier to remind ourselves. This one will remind you what you’re up against in your daily life and what really is holding your back from pulling through and succeeding. If you really understood this message you shouldn’t be complaining and conditioning yourself away from success as you did before and you should be getting more things done on a daily basis.
What Seth is suggesting at the end of his lecture is what we’re doing (or trying to) at the place where I work which is encompassed with the one of the company values - Ship It!
You can stay tuned to Seth’s invaluable insights through his blog.
You can stay tuned to my pattern-seeking insights and commentary right here.
[1] Steve Jobs at Stanford commencement address: video (linked to Steve’s 3rd story about death) and transcript.
