If you knew you only had one hour left to live, who would you call and what would you tell them?

That was the question Dr. Robert Cooper left us with after his lecture last Wednesday night. Dr. Cooper, a neuroscientist and PhD, is the founder and CEO of an advisory firm called Cooper Strategic LLC. With clients like Apple, Virgin, FedEx, Nike, Audi, and dozens of other impressive names, he and his team teach and implement methodologies for hitting higher-than expected targets in less time. What’s more is that they help leaders and entrepreneurs achieve what everyone else thinks they can’t.

Essentially, they help people get more done in less time, leaving room for more important things in your life.

After years of research studying the brain, as well as studying the habits and practices of some of the most effective leaders in the world, Dr. Cooper has discovered how the brain is wired, and as a result, has come up with a focused set of strategies for effective leadership.

The basic premise?

Your brain is not your friend. No siree. Not even a little bit. The brain you have now is almost identical to the one you had 2000 years ago (well, not you specifically. Obviously.). Life has changed a little bit in 2000 years, so it’s safe to say that if it’s wired for those times, it’s probably not doing you much good.

According to Dr. Cooper, your brain is lazy. “It doesn’t care what [you] want. [It] cares what [it] wants. [It is] hard wired to block innovation and undermine efficiency. [It] craves distraction, forgets what’s important and remembers what isn’t. [It] moves away from almost every chance for growth and change and fiercely defends routine and habit.”

Yes, your brain.

But wait, you say. I’m smart! I’m a successful entrepreneur! Surely my brain must be different.

Unfortunately, hard science trumps your wishful thinking. And according to Dr. Cooper, no matter how smart you are, you can’t be more effective than your brain permits you to be. So the key to your success – and what every effective leader has learned to do – is to learn how to master your brain.

Great leaders understand the basic flaws in the brain, and they rise above them. They understand that it’s all about energy and focus, not time. They make things that everyone else thinks are impossible look easy. They know it’s about resourcefulness and not resources, ingenuity and not effort. They are redefining what’s possible. All the time.

So what does knowing who you would call and what you would tell them if you knew you were going to die in an hour have to do with effective leadership?

Well – everything.

According to Dr. Cooper’s grandfather, who called his grandson on the eve of his death and asked him that very question, the exceptional life depends not on working harder and longer, but on getting away from habits that lock you down. These habits hold you back from your greatest contribution to yourself and the world:

The ability to create the greatest significance in the least amount of time.

If you can do that, you have time to spend with your family, your friends, time to enjoy your vacations, time to change the world through the good work that you are doing, all the while being an effective and inspiring leader in every area of your life. You have time to do it all, if only you can learn how to master the habits that allow you to do so.

Dr. Cooper spent 60 minutes explaining how possible this is, and not just for top performers: for everyone. Within each of us lies the chance to lead. I would need hundreds of pages to sum up his lecture, so I won’t try. But I will give you some of the basic takeaways you can put into action today in your noble quest to become the effective leader you know you can be:

1. Awareness: Since we are hardwired to default to drifting, repetition, routine, and old habits, we have to become aware of the moments when this is happening. We have to catch ourselves with our hands in the forbidden cookie jar. And then, we have to consciously choose to change that behavior. Every time we do something one way, the neurons fire and facilitate in a particular pathway, making it easier to fire that pathway the next time. Great leaders create better pathways by choosing better behaviors non stop throughout the day. If they didn’t, they would default to what’s comfortable, and they would stay where they are. So be aware, and then, create a better habit.

2. You have to make visible what you want to remember. The brain is hardwired to forget. Specifically, it’s designed to forget what matters most – 99% of it, to be exact. It’s not only out of sight, out of mind. It’s also out of sight, out of action. You are more likely to remember the jerk who cut you off on the highway this morning than you are to remember the compliment your coworker gave you yesterday.

So how do you fix that? Keep a journal outlining moments when you have been at your best. Whether it’s a memory of a compliment from your mentor or a feeling of happiness you had on your last vacation. Whatever it is, keep a list that you keep adding to. Look at it often to trigger and prime your brain to remember what matters most. And more specifically, look at this list before heading into your next meeting or important interaction. That way, you will feel more confident and also, you will be more open to new ideas.

3. Focus and Energy is Always at its Peak: When it comes to effective leaders, their focus and energy is at a 9 or 10 on a scale of 1 -10. All the time. Dr. Cooper has something he calls the “Check in” exercise:

Energy        Focus

1                        1
2                       2
3                       3
4                       4
5                       5
6                       6
7                       7
8                       8
9                       9
10                    10

Multiple times a day, ask yourself where you are in Energy, and where you are in Focus. You want to be at a 9 or 10 all the time. And the mere act of drawing your attention to it will almost certainly increase both of them. And since your energy and focus are what you need to stand a chance against the distractions the brain so desperately wants to succumb to, you must keep your energy and focus way up.

But how? By enacting what Dr. Cooper calls Strategic Pauses.

Here are some examples:

     Take a sip of ice water – it will instantly ramp up your metabolism and will burn off extra body fat. Plus – it   will give you more energy: a 30% increase in energy for about an hour and a half!

     Breathe. Posture up. Move. Shift your mind. Change your gaze – Do one of these things every half an hour.

     Get brighter light –  a few seconds of increased brightness can increase energy by 30% for 1 hour.

     Every 2 hours, have a bite (not a plate) of a healthy snack. Then move around after eating: maybe for for a short walk or take a bathroom break.

4. Don’t let your bad habits run you: Habits eat good intentions for breakfast. It’s not enough to want to be better. You have to create habits that will make you better. And since life is just a mess of habits, they run our lives, so we have to control them. So create better habits – ones that move you forward in the direction of your goals.

5. Remember the brain inside your heart: Didn’t realize there is a brain inside your heart? Well, there is. In fact, according to Dr. Cooper, you have 3 brains: one inside your head, one inside your heart, and one inside your gut. And according to research, the brains inside your heart and gut are 1 million times faster than the one inside your head. It’s called Emotional Intelligence, or EQ. It’s constantly alert, trying to give you cues about certain risks, opportunities, and all around better ways of doing things. Think about a time when you may have said, “I just got the feeling he wasn’t listening,” or “I just had a bad feeling about this.” You probably weren’t wrong. That was your heart or your gut talking, and you were right to listen. The brain in your head doesn’t want you to, so you have to train yourself to master your EQ.

6. The Habit of Winning: Every time you approach a new situation, big or small, you have to aim. Think of a game of billiards, or even a hockey game. You don’t just shoot willy nilly. You aim at the target before taking your shot. Know what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. But also, know where you’re going. Consistently pilot test better ways. Keep what works and throw away the rest. Ask yourself: Where can the smallest change make the biggest difference? This will create a habit of winning.

7. Manage negativity constructively with split second decisions: Exceptional performers live in the same world we do, with the same number of hours and the same challenges, and yet they are hardly ever get derailed. They stay curious, don’t get defensive, don’t lash out, don’t get angry, don’t stay stuck. They do something with the craziness of the day. Namely, they constantly make small –  imperceptible to anyone but themselves – split second decisions before responding or reacting to anything or anyone.

As an example (and something you can try): Don’t ever answer the phone again without taking a breath and clearing your mind. Be there. Consciously let your brain clear. Bring your energy and focus in. This is a split second decision, and it makes all the difference. And when faced with particularly challenging information or actions, effective leaders refrain from complaining, making a split second decision to see it from a better way, and to move forward in this manner. Besides, complaining about something won’t help. Research shows that it actually dumbs the brain down! So be careful not to let that become a habit you cannot master.

8. Ask yourself who you want to be compared to: Sometimes, when you’re arguing with someone, you might find yourself saying, “well everyone else was doing it this way!” Or something along those lines. In times like those, remember to ask yourself who you would like to be measured against. By nature, we compare ourselves to the best of what’s common, rather than to the best of what’s possible. Don’t be that way. Give the world the best you have and the best will come back to you. Be the most curious person you know, always wanting to learn and grow, yet trusting what you already know.

9. Manage distractions with an Island of Focus: Research proves that when we get distracted (ahem, that text, that e-mail, etc.) it takes us 13 minutes to get back to what we were doing before and to become engaged in it again. I’m sure you can imagine at least a dozen times you’ve been distracted on any given day. That adds up to a lot of minutes you could have spent doing other things. According to Dr. Cooper, multitasking reduces effectiveness by 40-90%! It also increases stress, and can drop your IQ by up to 10%!

Star performers have a single pointed focus. They don’t multitask – they single task. They only take on one priority focus at a time. But they take this a step further: they carve out a window of time throughout their day where they block out distractions and only focus on pivotal priorities, one by one. They call it their “island of focus.” Identify the time during the day where you are at your strongest in terms of energy, focus and productivity. This could only be 30 minutes, or it could be more. Whatever it is, do your most important work during that time – protect it – and do not allow for any distractions.

10. Be an effective listener: Great leaders are also great listeners. They understand that depth of and attention to attentiveness can go a great distance. According to research, Dr. Cooper says that with every interaction, we – or rather, our nervous systems (or other brains) – decide within 3 seconds if we like and trust the person speaking to us. 3 seconds. So if you are on a phone call and someone can hear the typing in the background (guilty), or we keep someone waiting for a meeting (Sorry! Just have to send one more e-mail), we lose trust immediately. In order to win trust, you must fully engage. The amount you can accomplish for any relationship in 30 seconds of undivided attention is more than you would get from spending an hour with someone while drifting in and out of presence. Being a good listener makes you stand out from the crowd, adding value. It inspires those around you to want to work with you.

There was so much more that Dr. Cooper shared last week, and I encourage you to check out his website for further information.

In the meantime, see if you can adopt some – and preferably – all of these habits, and experience the change that will surely come along as a result.

I leave you with a powerful set of rules from Dr. Cooper’s late grandfather, words that he was certain were the key to effective leadership and a happy life:

Build more, run less
Care more, carry less
Grow more, react less
Win more, work less
Live more, regret less

With love and support,

Lauren
xxx