Audiobook - Nonfiction
Description
Vocal Characteristics
Language
EnglishVoice Age
Young Adult (18-35)Transcript
Note: Transcripts are generated using speech recognition software and may contain errors.
What Could Go Right by Justin Bean. From a psychological standpoint, when we envision positive outcomes instead of negative ones, we experience a fundamental change in our mental state. We shift from being governed by the amygdala within the limbic system of the brain which is often called the lizard brain. This is the area of the brain that governs emotions and memory regulation. It is responsible for the fight or flight reaction that gets activated in stressful situations and it reminds you to fear situations where you've experienced danger or difficulty in the past in a fearful or dangerous situation, your brain actually redirects resources to the amygdala and away from the frontal cortex, which manages higher reasoning. This reaction is known as amygdala hijacking, continued exposure to high levels of the stress hormone cortisol can even shrink the size of your brain, worsen visual perception and damage memory. If you're thinking about your mortality because of climate change, social collapse, environmental degradation, all good reasons to be anxious and you cynically decide, there's nothing that can be done about them. You enter a mental state that actually makes you less able to think long term, communicate with nuance or be creative. Your brain limits the amount of energy available for creativity because it's worried about survival by default, you will choose actions based on caution, fear and self preservation actions that can be extreme. You either run as fast as you can hit as hard as you can or hide as quietly as you can. There is little room to listen to another perspective or meaningfully consider it. We can also appease in our social interactions, trying to calm down, threatening people or animals so we can survive the encounter unscathed. But with this one way approach, there's no way to peacefully instigate a mutually fair exchange either essentially cynicism limits your psychological resources, perspective and potential. When you take a positive approach that builds on visioning from a place of safety and positive outlook, envisioning the abundant outcomes you want, you'll engage more of your brain and more of its creative parts. This is what Katie Patrick, author of How to Save the world, calls the positive constructive imagination. It catalyze is a feedback loop of dopamine rewards every step of the way as you get excited about a vision, attract people to your cause and begin building that future. Simply asking what could go right, gives you access to more options and frees you from fear so you can generate more desirable visions, products, movements and possibilities while being better able to consider a wider variety of options and perspectives. This happens because you feel safe, it opens the door to feeling inspired and engaged. You'll do more energizing work, be better at it, feel happier doing it, accomplish more of it and have more meaning in your life