Andrea Simon

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Despite the fact that you are often identified by what you do, we need to stop thinking that we are what we do. How else are we going to cope with changing times?

In these times of crises where you may find yourself out of a job, have a business that is no longer in great demand, or have built your reputation doing things no one has the money for right now—there are two changes challenging you at the same time. Your financial condition has become unexpectedly precarious—“how am I going to earn a living?” But even more challenging is the question of “who am I?” Someone recently said to me that he had lost his way as his business had changed. “I am what I did. Now who am I?”

I could tell you a story about a printer or a builder or a banker - - all are very similar in the challenges that they are facing— they were what they did. Now what?
So, how do you really stop and think about all of the talent you have and what you bring to a new and fast-changing economy in which the old ways of doing most everything are changing - - if they haven’t already.

Change, we are learning from the neuroscience research being done with functional MRI’s and PET scans, is literally pain. As David Rock and Jeffery Schwartz (The Neuroscience of Leadership; Why Neuroscience Matters to Executives Strategy + Business Summer 2006) have written on the research that is emerging on the brain, we are learning more about which parts of the brain are engaged when people do things like dealing with constant disruptive change.

Our working memory is high energy when it is learning something new or responding to the unfamiliar or unpredictable. The deeper parts of the brain like habits, comfort and continuity. Your brain likes you to wake up each day and follow a pretty regular pattern. It is more efficient and your active memory isn’t working so hard. In addition, you don’t have to feel so “consciously incompetent,” which is that first step in learning new things and probably what you feel like in the midst of all of the changes taking place in your industry today.

Because we understand more about how the brain deals with change, we can suggest some things that might help you along the journey.

Change your Story. First, you have to change your story. Stories are very important because they take the abstract facts and make them come alive. Your story is very much a picture of who you think you are. The brain really prefers a picture to a thousand words, so it is time you recapture the essence of who you are and write a new story. And you will find the process of rethinking your story to be a very cathartic one—you are doing something. It also starts you on your way to taking apart your talents and seeing them in new ways.

Focus on You. This could be a good time for you to slow down and focus on you. Think about all of the things you, not just the experience and expertise developed in your business. Concentration and repetition become critical parts of the change and the learning process. People can generally think about one thing at a time, and it isn’t personal. It is the brain.

Quiet Your Mind. And, you are going to need a quiet mind. That brain does better when it is quiet. So as you begin to rethink who you are and what you do, you need to have a quiet mind that is focused and concentrating on the new you, not the one that once was; a mind that is not filled with anger, anxiety and multi-tasking.

Change Your Routine. Finally, change your routine. You have to change your habits. Don’t be like a client of mine who said he was all in favor of change and changed virtually nothing in his daily life.

The brain really is most comfortable following a habitual pattern of daily life, a well-tooled set of predictive behaviors and beliefs that developed over many years. But those may not work anymore. But the brain is more plastic than you might have thought. You can create new habits and ways of thinking about what you do and how you do it. The brain is going to fight you—push it back and keep the repetition moving the new forward.

Why do it alone? You might need a hand—perhaps you might consider a coach or a trainer or a consultant to help you. An outsider is important in many ways. They often can see things that you have trouble recognizing. They can bring you new ideas, and particularly those from other industries or from other cultures. Ideas and where you find them are very important so don’t shy away from them. The more you have the more likely you will find the right ones.

Watch for that Epiphany. As those ideas fly around something is going to click. And when you have that “aha” moment, that epiphany, all the ideas will all start to come together with a complex set of new neural connections that help your brain stop resisting the changes.

What happened to those folks who were what they did? Let’s take the printer? Business was beginning to grow again, up 15% because he stopped being a printer and started to see, feel and think about customers and nonusers in new ways.

As he learned, you can as well. He isn’t and wasn’t what he did for a living. He is much more. You might actually like the new you, too.