NORTHERN PLANNER

Did you know your brain can process someone's facial expression in 33 milliseconds (and you don't even know you're doing it)?

Dead fast, but that velocity can also be a problem. 

If you pluck up the courage to say something of actual use in a meeting, the mind is frantically computing all the body language around you, fearing being judged, you can feel the confidence draining mid-sentence. 

It takes years to overcome this, but here's a tip to speed up the process. Imagine them all naked. Seriously, it was taught to me years ago and it works, you feel like the least vulnerable person in the room.  

For obvious reasons, this tactic works less well if you're nervous on a first date. I'll leave that there. 

Anyway. 

The brain has also evolved to hate change. If you have the impulse and don't match it with an action pronto, the brain sounds the alarm, slams on the brakes and slays the idea. 

The problem for most of us is not having ideas or wanting to change things, is not having them, it's acting on those sparks before the brain snuffs them out. 

In other words, the best ideas people are doers too. 

This becomes more important the more senior you get, you're more likely to get set in your ways, there's a reputation to protect, the ego gets bigger. 

That's right, the more experienced brain hates change the most because it has more to lose. 

The reason the action thing works so well is the brain loves to make you feel good about yourself. Anything you actually do, the brain does it's best to justify the action, to save you feeling bad, to save you unnecessary pain.

Its why people notice brands more once they're bought them.

It's why, when you finish a relationship, the times when you were happy end up on the editing floor if you're not careful, as the mind does it's best to make you feel better about being no longer together.

It's also why people stay in bad jobs or relationships too, the mind is quite to protect you from change and stay as you are. 

Actions really do speak louder than words.

So if you really want to ideas to become more than ideas, write them quickly down on Post-It notes, talk to someone you trust immediately, fire off an email. Any physical action.

In other worlds, don't just be a thinker, be a doer. Tell your mind you mean business, that you're prepared to do what is needed to get it done. 

When the mind is one your side, other people are easy, because it will fight like a honey badger to protect you once you've decided.

When you do, you commit.