{"id":37155,"date":"2024-04-03T11:52:34","date_gmt":"2024-04-03T18:52:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=37155"},"modified":"2024-04-03T17:57:16","modified_gmt":"2024-04-04T00:57:16","slug":"quiet-on-the-set","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/quiet-on-the-set\/","title":{"rendered":"Quiet on the Set!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cMy mother was an actress and when I was a kid, I wanted to act, too. But she didn\u2019t want that for me. She said the lifestyle is so hard, it\u2019s either feast or famine. Today, I am a businessman who acts,\u201d Jess Akerman (not his real name<\/em>).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

When my former boss posted this quote on social media, my immediate thought was to pause and wonder which version of Jess I had really come to know over our two years of working together. His remark was a turnoff (and he later removed it), but I internally recognized my minor irritation, the threat response, and thought, \u201cAh, my limbic system is working.\u201d<\/p>\n

From Simon Walker\u2019s front stage and backstage analogy in Leading Out of Who You Are<\/em> to David Rock\u2019s Your Brain at Work,<\/em> acting has been a repeated theme in our readings lately. For Rock, the use of characters in a theater play helps describe the inner workings of the human brain, which can sometimes take us into places we never realize we are going until we get there. This is true about emotional responses. Our brains are wired with a bent toward the negative, which is why \u201cbad\u201d gets attention. Because our limbic systems are designed to spot threats, we feel a \u201cflight or fight\u201d reaction. However, having the ability to regulate these emotions is an important quality in leadership and is often the doorway to achieving critical thinking.<\/p>\n

Rock asserts that how we organize our daily routines can play a big role in either zapping our mental energy or filling our buckets. Schedule time blocks for different modes of thinking because \u201cSome mental processes take up a lot more energy than others,\u201d he said. \u00a0To solve problems, you must quiet your brain.<\/p>\n

Rock argues that people don\u2019t generally want to think because thinking is exhausting! From a biological perspective, he is right! Many of our mundane routines and tasks are performed without much thought through the prefrontal cortex part of our brains, which uses very little energy or glucose. However, more difficult tasks or problems that require deeper thinking and solutions go beyond the prefrontal cortex into different parts of the brain that use far more glucose.<\/p>\n

While our brain controls every function within the human body, \u201cWe do have the ability for conscious choice over how to engage it.\u201d [1]<\/a> Edwin Friedman talks about this as self-regulation in his book, A Failure of Nerve.<\/em> \u201cWhat makes the chronically anxious family\u2019s anxiety chronic is not its pain, but the way it deals with its pain,\u201d he said.[2]<\/a> People with stronger cognitive control have the ability to quiet their thinking. Meditation and prayer are excellent resources for this. Once a person reaches that place of true mental silence, they are afforded more insights.<\/p>\n

As Christians, Jesus modeled the importance of a dedicated prayer life. While he didn\u2019t battle with the demand of emails, he always had people around him vying for his attention, seeking his advice, or healing. Still, he prioritized prayer and frequently went off by himself to converse with the father. \u00a0His disciples picked up that prayer was important, so they asked, \u201cLord, teach us to pray\u201d (Luke 11: 1-4). They did not ask, \u201cTeach us to heal people\u201d or \u201cTeach us to raise people from the dead.\u201d[3]<\/a><\/p>\n

While David Rock covered far more topics than what is presented here, I conclude that building your day around prayer rather than squeezing it in as a secondary thought is a crucial component of leadership. Quieting the noise in your mind through prayer allows you to have neutral thinking, which is where you will find the solutions you are seeking.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Rock, David. Your Brain at Work: Strategies for Overcoming Distraction, Regaining Focus, and Working Smarter All Day Long<\/em>. Revised and Updated. New York, NY: Harper Business, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishing, 2020.<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Friedman, Edwin H., Margaret M. Treadwell, and Edward W. Beal. A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix<\/em>. 10th anniversary revised edition. New York: Church Publishing, 2017.<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Skoog, Ryan, Peter Greer, Cameron Doolittle, and Jill Heisey. Lead with Prayer: The Spiritual Habits of World-Changing Leaders<\/em>. First edition. Nashville: FaithWords, 2024.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cMy mother was an actress and when I was a kid, I wanted to act, too. But she didn\u2019t want that for me. She said the lifestyle is so hard, it\u2019s either feast or famine. Today, I am a businessman who acts,\u201d Jess Akerman (not his real name). When my former boss posted this quote […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":193,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3163],"class_list":["post-37155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dlpg03-rock","cohort-dlgp03"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/193"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37155"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37155\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37179,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37155\/revisions\/37179"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}