This is not really unique to my coaching subjects. We had to re-frame the context of our discussion to include verbalizing a) What was really important to him and b) Where his mental assets were being expended?
I told him to think of the brain as a bank. Since humans do not have an inexhaustible source of energy, I asked him
“How do you spend your brain bank each day?” He liked the brain-bank concept and we expanded it as follows:
How much total brain bank do you have to spend?
I wanted him to give me a number for each day of the week, Monday through Saturday relative to 100 with a maximum of 500. This means 500/6 days equals an average of 83. This being a zero sum game, we can then
re-allocate from one day’s brain account to another but cannot exceed 500 total.
For example, he could give 80 for Monday, 100 on Tuesday 60 on Friday etc. He gave me the predictable push back of “how should I know?” That was revealing all by itself as we uncovered a need for self-awareness.
Still I insisted, he must assign a number to each day, and commit to sticking to it if our work together was to be successful. He could modify them as needed at our next session but needed to stick with it for the first week.
If you have spent all of your brain account at work on whatever day of the week and have zero left when you walk in the door at home, we can make some adjustments. Home was his top priority as he could feel things deteriorating. He didn’t want things to reach the point of no return because he was so focused on work.
How much brain bank was actually spent on what is important?
The following week was interesting. He felt certain that he got it all wrong, but the truth was he learned about the adjustments we needed to make. By figuring out his ‘mental cash flow’ we would be able to adjust his brain bank balances by making deductions from some days and deposits to others.
He discovered he could slow the expenditure of brain capital at work on certain days, and increase it on others. Through this process he was able to better balance his mental books while accounting for enough brain bank at home, so he was not brain dead. This was good news!
The point is to become aware of brain capital expenditures and obey your initial promptings to resist the tug to overspend. If you think this easy, here’s a challenge:
Go and entire day without watching TV. It seems simple enough, just divert your mind onto something else right? That may be easier said than done, yet it is ‘found money’ that is spendable on other things that really matter.
Aristotle Stagiritis once said, “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then is not an act but a habit.”
We can choose to instill good spending habits at the start and commit to making the needed adjustments
Here are some tips to help balance brain spending:
1) Identify the spending behavior you want to change– Name it out loud. Verbalize it to another person and
write it down. Without your commitment not much will change. For example, the other day at the grocery store,
I said to my wife Jane, “You see that chocolate ice cream right there, I am NOT going to eat that.”
2) Account balance awareness – For each activity that requires spending, (nothing is free), go slow enough to determine the ‘frugality’ of the next step about to be taken. Listen to the initial promptings of what NOT to do and move on. You have permission to say no when doing so is consistent with your overall plan for what is important.
3) Use your fidelity to discipline as an award – Even as I am writing this blog, I am tempted to turn on talk
radio (and didn’t.) If I really want to hear that, I can do it later. It is just not that important to me right now.
Delayed gratification makes the commitment to success stronger!
4) Fine yourself for each overdraft– The bank of the brain completely understands overdrafts, just don’t make a practice of them or the account might get closed! Use overdraft fees big enough to get your attention. This will make you want to rebalance the account.
5) Be kind to yourself – We aren’t banking on perfection here. We are making wise investments in our future success. Grow and refine the brain bank account to match your objectives to the point where it becomes second nature with regard to what is important spending…and what is not!
As described above, we all have a fiduciary responsibility to those around us to spend our brain banks wisely.
Good spending habits require some discipline. By following these principles, our brain account spending can become more strategically focused.
However past performance is not a guarantee of future success …Queue the legal disclaimer here!
