Self-Mastery

The two left-hand quadrants in the generic emotional intelligence model are about the self: self-awareness and self-management.

These are the basis for self-mastery: awareness of our internal states, and management of those states. These domains of skill are what make someone an outstanding individual performer in any domain of performance – and in business an outstanding individual contributor, or lone star.

Competencies like managing emotions, focused drive to achieve goals, adaptability and initiative are based on emotional self-management.

Self-regulation of emotion and impulse relies greatly on the interaction between the prefrontal cortex – the brain’s executive center – and the emotional centers in the midbrain, particularly circuitry converging on the amygdala.

The key neural area for self-regulation is the prefrontal cortex, which is, in a sense, the brain’s “good boss,” guiding us when we are at our best. The dorsolateral zone of the prefrontal area is the seat of cognitive control, regulating attention, decision-making, voluntary action, reasoning, and flexibility in response.

The amygdala is a trigger point for emotional distress, anger, impulse, fear, and so on. When this circuitry takes over, it acts as the “bad boss,” leading us to take actions we might regret later.

The interaction between these two neural areas creates a neural highway that, when in balance, is the basis for self-mastery. For the most part, we cannot dictate what emotions we are going to feel, when we're going to feel them, nor how strongly we feel them. They come unbidden from the amygdala and other subcortical areas. Our choice point comes once we feel a certain way. What do we do then? How do we express it? If your prefrontal cortex has its inhibitory circuits going full blast, you'll be able to have a decision point that will make you more artful in guiding how you respond, and in turn how you drive other people’s emotions, for better or worse, in that situation. At the neural level, this is what “self-regulation” means.

The amygdala is the brain’s radar for threat. Our brain was designed as a tool for survival. In the brain’s blueprint the amygdala holds a privileged position. If the amygdala detects a threat, in an instant it can take over the rest of the brain – particularly the prefrontal cortex – and we have what’s called an amygdala hijack.

The hijack captures our attention, beaming it in on the threat at hand. If you’re at work when you have an amygdala hijack, you can't focus on what your job demands – you can only think about what’s troubling you. Our memory shuffles, too, so that we remember most readily what’s relevant to the threat – but can't remember other things so well. During a hijack, we can't learn, and we rely on over-learned habits, ways we’ve behaved time and time again. We can't innovate or be flexible during a hijack.

Neural imaging when someone is really upset shows that the right amygdala in particular is highly active, along with the right prefrontal cortex. The amygdala has captured this prefrontal area, driving it in terms of the imperatives of dealing with the perceived danger at hand. When this alarm system triggers, we get the classic fight-flight-or-freeze response, which from a brain point of view means that the amygdala has set off the HPA axis (the hypothalamic pituitary adrenal axis) and the body gets a flood of stress hormones, mainly cortisol and adrenaline.

There’s one big problem with all this: the amygdala often makes mistakes. The reason is that while the amygdala gets its data on what we see and hear in a single neuron from the eye and ear – that’s super-fast in brain time – it only receives a small fraction of the signals those senses receive. The vast majority goes to other parts of the brain that take longer to analyze these inputs – and get a more accurate reading. The amygdala, in contrast, gets a sloppy picture and has to react instantly. It often makes mistakes, particularly in modern life, where the “dangers” are symbolic, not physical threats. So we overreact in ways we often regret later.

Here are the five top amygdala triggers in the workplace¹¹:

1.Condescension and lack of respect.

2.Being treated unfairly.

3.Being unappreciated.

4.Feeling that you're not being listened to or heard.

5.Being held to unrealistic deadlines.

In an economic atmosphere with great uncertainty there’s lots of free-floating fear in the air. People fear for their jobs, for their family’s financial security, and all the other problems that a bad economy brings. And anxiety hijacks workers who have to do more with less. So in such a climate there are many people operating day-to-day in what amounts to a chronic, low-grade amygdala hijack.

How can we minimize hijacks? First of all, pay attention. If you don't notice that you're in the midst of an amygdala hijack and stay carried away by it, you haven't a chance of getting back to emotional equilibrium and left prefrontal dominance until you let the hijack run its course. Better to realize what’s going on and disengage. The steps to ending or short-circuiting a hijack start with monitoring what’s going on in your own mind and brain, and noticing, “I'm really over-reacting,” or “I'm really upset now,” or “I’m starting to get upset.” It’s much better if you can notice familiar feelings that a hijack is beginning – like butterflies in your stomach, or whatever signals that might reveal you're about to have an episode. It’s easier to short-circuit it the earlier you are in the cycle of the hijack. Best is to head it off at the bare beginning of a coming hijack.

What can you do if you are caught in the grip of an amygdala hijack? First, you have to realize you're in it at all. Hijacks can last for seconds or minutes or hours or days or weeks. For some people it may seem their “normal” – people who have gotten used to always being angry or always being fearful. This shades over into clinical conditions like anxiety disorders or depression, or post-traumatic stress disorder, which is an unfortunate disease of the amygdala induced by a traumatic experience where the amygdala shifts into a hair-trigger mode of instant, extreme hijack.

There are lots of ways to get out of a hijack if we first can realize we’re caught, and also have the intention to cool down. One is a cognitive approach: talk yourself out of the hijack. Reason with yourself, and challenge what you are telling yourself in the hijack –This guy isn't always an S.O.B. I can remember times when he was actually very thoughtful and even kind, and maybe I should give him another chance.

Or you can apply some empathy, and imagine yourself in that person’s position. This might work in those very common instances where the hijack trigger was something someone else did or said to us. You might have an empathic thought: Maybe he treated me that way because he is under such great pressure.

In addition to such cognitive interventions, there are also biological interventions. We can use a method like meditation or relaxation to calm down our body. But a relaxation or meditation technique works best during the hijack when you have practiced it regularly, at best daily. Unless these methods have become a strong habit of the mind, you can't just invoke them out of the blue. But a strong habit of calming the body with a well-practiced method can make a huge difference when you're hijacked and need it the most.