YOUR BRAIN

AT WORK
Strategies for Overcoming
Distraction, Regaining Focus, and
Working Smarter All Day Long
DAVID ROCK

DAVID ROCK is founder and CEO of Results Coaching Systems, an international coaching organization. He
works with Fortune 500 companies to embed integrated coaching systems into their corporate cultures. Dr.
Rock is the author of Personal Best, Quiet Leadership and Coaching With the Brain in Mind. In addition to
founding the NueroLeadership Institute and Summit, Dr. Rock is a guest lecturer at universities in five
countries including Oxford University’s Business School.
The Web site for this book is at www.your-brain-at-work.com

ISBN 978-1-77544-691-0

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 Your Brain at Work - Page 1

MAIN IDEA
Despite all the advances in technology, the human brain still remains the greatest business asset anyone owns. The secret to
delivering better performance in any setting is to first understand how you think and then get better at directing the way you think in the
future. If you understand how your brain operates in more detail, you’re then equipped to improve your performance.
The five building blocks of brain mastery are:

1 2 3 4 5
If you learn how to T he key to When you realize When you learn to You will become
wor k wit h your mastering your the brain is built to see the world from better at facilitating
brain rather than brain is to use your minimize danger the brain’s change in others
against it, you’ll inbuilt “director” – and maximize perspective, you’ll when you s top
make better your ability t o reward, you’ll know be better prepared focusing on
decisions and notice and change how to stay cool to collaborate with problems and start
solve problems your thinking under pressure and influence being more
more effectively processes others solutions focused

“It may be that understanding the brain is one of the best ways of improving performance in any setting, especially for teams of people
working together. For thousands of years philosophers have said that to ‘know yourself’ was the key to a healthy and successful life.
Perhaps what is emerging from this new research about the brain is a new way of thinking about ‘self-awareness.’ Only in this case,
the ‘self’ is the functioning of your own brain. Your capacity to change yourself, change others, and even change the world, may boil
down to how well you know your brain, and your capacity to intervene in otherwise automatic processes.”
– David Rock

Building Block #1 – Work with your brain instead of against it . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pages 2 - 3

Today, more people than ever before are paid to think instead of performing routine physical tasks. That’s
fine but the human brain has biological limits on how long it can make decisions and solve new problems.
Paradoxically, the key to improving performance in this area is to understand those limits and work with
them rather than against them.

Building Block #2 – Learn how to drive your mind’s director. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 4

The brain has an inbuilt character – a director – who stands apart from your active thinking processes. This
director can take note of what’s happening and make decisions about how your brain will respond. To
increase your effectiveness, activate your director. The more active your director subsequently becomes,
the more control you’ll have over the way you think and act.

Building Block #3 – Stay cool under pressure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pages 5 - 6

Your brain is much more than a logic-processing machine. Every moment of your life, your brain is figuring
out whether the world around you is dangerous or helpful and sending you signals through your emotions.
Use your director to regulate your emotions and you’ll not only be able to stay cool under pressure but you’ll
also become far more effective in what is, after all, a chaotic world.

Building Block #4 – See the world from the brain’s perspective. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pages 6 - 7
Today, very few people work in isolation. To perform well, you’ve got to become adept at collaborating with
others. If you understand some of the basic social needs of the brain, you’ll be better able to avoid some of
the conflicts which frequently derail collaborative projects as a whole. The brain craves social connections
and needs to feel safe among friends so if you can achieve that, you’re well on your way to success in
working in with others.

Building Block #5 – Stop focusing on other people’s problems and come up with solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 8
Making any kind of change is hard and facilitating change in others is harder still. The brain is actually quite
skilled in being able to change to match evolving external factors but it can also be changed by a shift in
attention as well. If you can shift the other person’s attention from a threat state to focusing on a shared
goal you can increase their performance. Don’t give constructive feedback – focus on solutions.
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