Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of Wisdom Chat.

And my wonderful guest today is

Andrea Edmondson, who is the director of neurosmart learning.

Andrea does a lot of work around the neuroscience, working with businesses

and business leaders, but also at the same time,

she does some work with coaches, helping them understand some elements

of the neuroscience world so that they can better help their clients.

Andrea, it's wonderful to have you here again, just expand a little bit further.

What is this world of neuroscience?

Why is it important for both businesses, and in this case, coaches as well?

I suppose the first thing is that people

hear the word neuroscience, and they're kind of bit put off.

It sounds very difficult and grand,

but actually, it's actually fairly straightforward.

And I think key to the word neuroscience, it's not just about our brain.

It's also about the nervous system.

And the brain and nervous system are kind

of spoken about separately, but they're really totally intertwined.

And I think the reason that I've really followed this path,

looking deeper into the neuroscience, is that when I started doing this work,

there was so much more clarity for me in understanding at a really fundamental

level how our nervous systems are really the common denominator in our experience.

And when they're not working in balance, it shows up.

It shows up in how we think and how we feel and how we behave.

So we do a lot of work in our heads in the western world, but actually,

so much of what happens in our heads is driven by what happens in our body,

and that is really regulated and communicated via the nervous system.

That's great.

And while you were saying that, I was just thinking how this then is reflected.

For example, first of all,

how do we know there's something going on in the nervous system that might not

actually be helpful for us, and also how then that impacts what happens externally.

So we talked earlier about,

in the world of finance, it's around why do people make decisions

the way they do, and how those decisions vary depending on whether they're

in a pressurised situation or a relaxed situation.

So just help us understand that a little bit more about the nervous system.

And what are we seeing externally?

I suppose the key thing is

that the nervous system obviously has different branches.

One of the key branches is the autonomic nervous system.

And you can see this like your automatic pilot.

And this is the part of the part of you

that is always scanning the environment, looking for cues of safety and danger.

Its job is not to make you happy.

It's to keep you alive, to keep you safe.

So if you get cues from inside you or outside you that everything is good

and you feel safe, your body feels different,

it feels calmer, it feels more connected to other people.

And your brain works in a different way,

it can access different concepts, but if you're getting cues of danger

from outside of you, or from your stories, from your previous experiences,

or from the information inside your body, then you're going to feel not safe.

And that changes how your nervous system

works and that changes how your brain functions.

Two different ways of behaving,

depending on the, we would call it the state or

the physiological state of your nervous system.

So people will know this as being calm and collected, or fight and flight.

But actually, there's another pathway

in the nervous system, which is we would call collapse or shutdown.

So it's not a simple two pathway model.

The updated map of the nervous system is

a little more complex and definitely more interesting.

In the world of finance, I see actually two very distinct behaviours when it comes

to people being concerned about their finances.

So, for example, one is literally,

bury the head in the sand and just hope it will go away.

So I suppose that could be akin

to the system shutting down, but the other side would be all

of a sudden catastrophizing because they sense danger,

they're worried, they're afraid, and then what they do is they build

a picture in their own minds as to what this disaster might be,

even though the facts around them might say a very different thing.

So I suppose in both cases, I suppose it's.

The term I'd use is triggers.

But we're referring to the same thing out

with these prompts, external prompts that actually

generate a behaviour from us or a response internally from us.

That's quite interesting,

because we make this assumption because of the science that we've previously been

told about, is that it's the things outside us that trigger our behaviour.

But that's not what the modern neuroscience says.

The neuroscience says, actually, so much more of this kind of processing

and construction of our experience happens from inside us.

So it happens, first of all, we are getting these signals from our body.

So one way I'd imagine this is if you imagine your brain and your body,

your body is like, and you're a newspaper owner or a publisher, all right?

But your body is like your researchers,

they're going around, they're finding out all this information,

and they're sending them to the brain, and the brain is the publisher,

and the publisher is then checking with previous stories,

previous experiences, and it's checking in the context, what do my audience want?

What's happening on the outside world?

And together, this information is then packaged up.

The publisher makes meaning of it, doesn't need to be true,

makes meaning of it, and then sends the information back to the body.

And the body responds physiologically, it changes the way it responds.

So we've been told that it's our reaction to the outside world.

And although that plays a part, it's only a part.

And we're learning from a lot of the MRI scans of the brain and a lot

of the research that a lot more work, a lot more things happen in the brain

to predict what's going to happen, rather than.

And then one of the issues with people who gets very anxious or potentially more

depressed is that they don't have any correction.

So I think you just said a minute ago about people

who might be in that fight and flight, they're worried about this,

they're catastrophizing, they're doing all of this.

And then you said, but they're not cross checking with the actual facts,

so they're making predictions, but they're not able,

because of their physiological state, to then go, oh, I'm wrong, that's not right.

And they're not able to then change

that thinking because they are literally like deer in a headlight.

They're in that fight and flight.

So that explains it a little bit. It does.

That's very helpful.

And it reminds me of one of the things that we talk to people about to help

reduce the sort of stress and anxiety is the importance of having a plan.

And having a plan gives them a picture as

to where they're at now and where they want to be in whatever period of time.

But it also allows them at any point in time, to make adjustments accordingly.

But one of the things I always say is, just because you've got a plan doesn't

mean to say it's right, and it might seem right to you.

So you've got to understand, well, what's driving my thought process,

what's driving my beliefs, what's driving my behaviours?

Why do I think this way?

And is this way helpful for me?

Or is it actually impeding me?

Does it cause me stress and anxiety?

Am I putting a plan together that at the end of the day, I never seem to achieve?

And that's why we always talk about the importance of understanding self.

So when we talk about neuroscience and in some cases,

we talk about in the world of finance, behavioural finance,

I worked in the investment management world and I saw two distinct behaviours.

When the going was good, the markets were calm and buoyant.

People thought rationally

and they sat down, they looked all the facts and they put

the information together, sent it off to their clients.

But when all of a sudden the market seems

chaotic, then it was interesting to see very

different behaviours and rational thinking went out of the window.

It was a response and I thought,

I bet some of those responses are to do with previous beliefs and experiences.

Those stories that you talked about,

the fact that we tell ourselves and we cheque back in the archives

to see similar experiences and then we respond accordingly.

Or the bias that we might use, for example, like herding bias,

we see everybody else behaving in a particular way and think automatically.

Well, that's how we need to be.

I mean, are these some of the things

that you're seeing in Europe really interesting?

The way you describe the behaviours

that you saw when the markets were calm and predictable

and more regulated, the decision making was more rational,

more forward thinking, more, I suppose, long term.

Right?

And that's the same as how our nervous system works.

So if our internal environment is calm and regulated and predictable and it feels

safe, then that allows us to access mental

concepts and predict the world in that way.

But if our internal environment mimics or mirrors the external environment,

which is chaotic, volatile, uncertain, and we feel that uncertainty

and that volatility, and our nervous system doesn't feel safe,

then we will access concepts, stories, previous experiences that are focused

on keeping us alive, which are short term and reactionary, not long term.

And that plan,

it feels too far away because you're in the here and now and you're surviving.

The outside world mimics.

And for the inside world, which then impacts,

which concepts you pick and which predictions your brain makes

and how good your brain is then at going, noticing if you have an error.

Yeah, I suppose what we're doing here,

all that we're talking about is happening in like milliseconds.

Yeah. And it's happening.

This is the trickiest thing, is that

so much of our behaviour, I mean, cognitive neuroscientists predict,

or they estimate that, I think, 95% of our behaviour is subconscious.

It's been driven by that autonomic nervous system.

And we can't possibly think about how we

breathe, our heart rate, our digestion, we can't think about all of those things.

We will be exhausted, we get nothing done.

So the autonomic nervous system

and the predictive networks in the brain are about really conserving energy,

having these processes and things that make things easier and faster for us.

So, in the concept that you've just described, I suppose what we're seeing is

that when people aren't always able to recognise, because it's so fast,

that they are accessing a thought or a thinking pattern or an idea

or concept, which is automatic because of their state,

but they can't change it because they're in that state.

What we know from neuroplasticity is

the brain's ability to make new neural pathways.

Is that is optimised when we're in a calm

and regulated state, because we have the energy and

the mechanisms to be able to go, yeah, that is a story.

I can see where it comes from, but no, it's not serving me.

What is a new story?

What is a reframe?

How can I look at this differently?

All that mental reflective work is very hard to do, where you're in fight

and flight, when you feel like you're under threat.

Yeah.

And I think that is the reason we get this kind of downward spiral that you're

alluding to, is because we get this vicious circle.

I feel threatened.

Inside me, the outside world is

threatening, my story is threatening, and then we go down.

So when I'm working with business leaders

and we're all coaches, we're getting to recognise

what we have a tendency to do is to go straight to the mind.

So what we know from neuroscience is the body actually goes first.

So when we go straight to the mind,

and there's a great neuroscientist called Andrew Huberman,

and he says trying to change the mind with the mind is like trying to grab a fog.

So it's really about leaning into the body and going, ah, I feel my heart rate.

I may be even getting palpitations.

I've got muscle tension, my digestive system is feeling a little bit off.

Oh, I've got pain here.

I've got all these physiological,

all these physical signs that body is not feeling quite right.

And if your body, that state of high alertness and tension,

it's burning a phenomenal amount of energy.

You do not have enough energy to look

after your body and to then do that thinking.

So again, it's how do we turn down the energy burn in the body?

We settle the system so that it can regulate, so that you can then go, okay,

I'm turning off my alarm, I'm calmer in the moment.

Okay, now let's look at the situation in a different way.

Yeah, I think I'm just mindful of the fact

that in the workplace, there is a mixture of views between sort

of business leaders, business owners around the area of things like well being.

They want their employees to operate

at an optimum level, to be productive, to be engaged, to be loyal.

And I suppose what you're talking about, and I'm just mindful of something else as

well, when you're talking about safety and people don't feel safe.

I have had a number of clients where

they've not needed to worry about money yet.

They worry about money because of a belief

that they have, but they're not aware of this belief.

They're just outworking the behaviours as a result of the belief and it's just

adding to the picture that they've generated in their thinking.

But from an employer point of view, to be able to see what the effects

are on their employees in terms of lack of engagement, lack of productivity,

maybe a higher absenteeism, stress related illnesses,

or somebody feeling like I'm going to move on, I'm going to go somewhere else.

And the cost to an employer is phenomenal when this happens.

And I remember you sort of commented on a post by Adam Morris,

who talked about well being in the workplace and some of the aspects

of well being and why as an employer you'd be kind of shooting yourself in the foot

if you didn't consider this as being key to your business success.

If I may just add something onto that.

And you actually commented on an article from the Guardian about safety

and particularly children in the education system.

So really what we're talking here, safety can apply to anybody

and if you're not feeling safe, the impacts are phenomenal.

But if you're feeling safe, what can be achieved could also be phenomenal.

Is that kind of. Yeah.

No, I think you've pulled together those

comments I made in a very different context.

Really?

Well, and this is why I said at the beginning, our nervous system is

the common denominator in our human experience.

It's always automatically and instantly looking for cues of safety

or threat and it's happening, but that need to feel safe, not just be safe.

We talk about being safe,

but actually we live in a world where we are bombarded with cues of know.

I was in London a couple of months, well, maybe a month ago, and it's beautiful,

but I'm looking at the skyline, what am I seeing?

I'm seeing red flashing lights, I'm seeing warning signs.

I go and visit businesses and I'm seeing

warnings of health and safety, warnings I'm seeing on the back of the toilets.

I'm seeing warnings of mental health

things and breast cancer, and I'm seeing warnings.

I'm bombarded with cues of danger.

They're with intention, but my nervous system feels them as cues of danger.

And what we have to balance that is we need cues of safety.

And our most important source of cues of safety are other human beings.

Right.

Key principles of kind of the nervous system is that it evolved

with co regulation, this ability to regulate another person's

nervous system from the moment we are born to the moment we have died,

as a biological imperative, which is why COVID was really an assault

on the nervous system, because we were put into isolation.

Companies are still doing it.

They're doing a lot of more hybrid, but a lot of remote working.

And although lots of ways it's beneficial to the person,

they're not having to commute, et cetera, to have more flexibility.

If they have a great social network, that's fine.

But if they don't, then our nervous systems are out of balance.

So we want this balance, cues of safety, cues of danger.

It's not about having no cues of danger, it's about having this balance.

But I think what we're seeing in our world

is we have different cues inside us, outside us, and from other people,

and the balance has tipped and we've got more danger.

I'm just thinking then,

with regards to the work that you do with business leaders,

then what kind of things are you sort of coming across,

both in terms of the mindset of the leaders

around this area of neuroscience and well being and so on,

and what are some of the things that you think that leaders could be doing

and businesses could be doing to actually create these safety messages,

the encouragement that people are looking for, that I'm okay.

Yeah,

I'm fortunate in a lot of the business leaders I work with,

either through MBA programmes or through companies, that they're open minded,

they are curious about the neuroscience, they are curious about new ways of seeing.

What comes up is that they get those aha moments.

This makes sense.

This makes sense.

And it's super important we start

with leaders, because if they don't get it, it doesn't ripple.

And I think what comes out most is they get this sense of understanding

themselves, understanding their own reactions

in certain contexts or with certain people, and then being able to translate

that experience, to be able to see how other people experience things differently

from themselves because they have a different nervous system.

And then that allows them to go, okay, so what are we doing with our environment?

What are we doing with relationships?

And what are we doing to help individuals balance their body budgets?

So where are these three circles?

How can we tweak these three circles, this individual responsibility?

Because ultimately I nervous system is

my business, but we're also working on the environment outside of somebody.

But really importantly, is that co regulation?

It's the connexion, it's the community,

it's the trust, it's the collaboration, it's all of those things

which we need a healthy nervous system in order to really access creativity,

to be able to communicate well, to be able to see somebody else's point of view.

These are fundamental.

The reason the way I work,

the way I do is because I see these as really fundamental building blocks.

You can go in doing leadership training and you can go and do this and do that.

But if the leader is dysregulated,

then these tools aren't delivered in an authentic, responsive way.

They can just be done to the other person.

And we know as soon as you build trust in a relationship and you do things

with people, then whether it's change, whether it's growth, wherever it might be,

there's a lot more fuel, a lot more engagement and a much better trajectory.

That's really helpful what you've described there.

But I just want to just take a slight detour.

I'm an exam invigilator for a number of schools and I'm just mindful of these

cues you talk about cues of safety, cues of warnings.

And it's interesting,

the regulations stipulate how students are to behave in an exam environment, Riley.

So they need to know what the parameters are, but they're all cues of danger.

If you are caught doing this or if you

have this on your possession, these are the.

So

these students are coming into a situation, many of them,

to be quite honest, will be quite nervous, in some cases quite frightened.

I've seen students actually have a panic attack and have to have been taken to one

side and helped to calm down before they would come into the exam room.

So bearing that all in mind,

then coming into a situation where they've been given these cues of warnings, danger,

it then starts to feel less of a safe environment.

And there's an expectation of performance on these students,

I would imagine in my thinking that that can for some,

have the potential of undermining their ability to achieve in that environment.

What kind of things could we do, really?

We've still got to make sure they understand the parameters.

How could we really help them to be better

placed and able to perform in an environment like that?

I'm curious because what you've said about the workplace, but I do do some.

Work in schools once a month,

as part of my kind of ESG, I do work in schools and I think you raise

something that's coming up over and over again.

And I do a workshop for educational staff and it's all about the nervous system

again, looking at the self, that's the teacher, really importantly.

They are the kind of chief co regulator, looking at students and their own

different experiences, looking at the environment and the relationships.

So in an exam situation, some kids show up and they have really

flexible nervous system and they just take it in their stride.

Not a problem for them. Brilliant.

But we have some students

who either overtly struggle or who hide their struggle, because there are quite

a few who sharpen do it, but it comes at a phenomenal cost to them on the inside.

And I suppose there are three areas again, aren't there?

We can work on a.

We can empower the student to understand their nervous system and brain and to be

able to apply tools to regulate their nervous system and to be able to manage

their mental concepts so that their story is helpful and serves them.

So there's one area we can do that work with students.

We can do the work on the environment,

what is necessary and where can we change the messaging so that actually we're still

getting the end result, but we're saying it in a way that doesn't feel threatening.

And then we need to work on relationships because again,

I remember from my own exams at university, probably less so,

but school feeling you were in, it was quite like a prison environment, really.

Eye contact was avoided, the bodies were very straight and sterry.

I mean, what is it that we can do to train the exam invigilators or

the support staff so that they are giving these cues of safety?

But we've almost.

There's almost like we're supposed to be.

I mean, the Stanford prison experiment, have you seen that?

I haven't, no.

Instant experiment.

And basically they had a group of people,

I think they were students, and they allocated some of the groups

to be prisoners and the others to be prison guards.

When we're talking about cognitive bias,

they had beliefs and mental concepts about how those two groups of people behaved.

I think what we see is that we have been socially conditioned to think

that in an exam situation, if we are the adult invigilating,

we need to behave in a certain way, look a certain way.

And actually, in our modern world, where we've got a lot

of young students who are on social media, who are getting constant cues of danger

and not belonging, who are eating food that is not

nutritious, who are not sleeping enough, who are not moving enough.

Their body budgets are all compromised.

Their mental health and body budget are intimately linked.

I think.

Then how do we try and balance this equation?

And one way we can do it is by offering signals of safety from an adult.

But because we are trained to go,

no eye contact, nice and stiff, and say certain things,

we exacerbate the problem where we potentially could choose different

language and different body language, and we could give a cue of safety.

Yeah,

it's very helpful is what you've just described there, Andrea, because

I see situations where some students, it's a point in which they just disengage

or they just decide, I'm just going to fall asleep.

They're sat and yawning,

and you're thinking, there hasn't really been a physical

preparation for this event, let alone the academic sort of mental.

Like, everything okay? Everything.

So much of what we do in the moment is the preparation for that moment.

The preparation needs to be there,

but obviously there are other things that need to be there.

So schools have a responsibility,

the adults have a responsibility, the students have responsibility,

but as the adults, we hold the biggest responsibility to make these changes.

Yeah.

I'm using in the school setting as

an adult, but in a workplace setting, that adult is the leader.

Yeah.

And I just hope in many respects that anyone who is a leader

in the workplace, whether it's their own business, whether it's.

They're part of the senior executive team

or just lead a department or a team who may be listening to know,

really sort of take on board what you've described there, Andrea,

and I'd love to think that people would be responding and would want to speak to,

in this case, yourself, because I think if there's certainly

an acceptance from the responsible adult, shall we say,

whether it's in the workplace, whether it's in education,

wherever it may be that I want to learn and can I do this better?

Is there something I can do that will then

help the people I either lead or in some cases I'm examining,

or whatever it may be, that they would be willing to sort

of reach out and say, how can I do this better?

So that's one thing. The other thing is that word curiosity.

Has come up a lot in our conversation.

It's a word I use a lot.

And we notice,

if you just spend a moment now reflecting of when you feel curious,

you feel curious about the world and other people, when you feel safe?

Yeah.

If you feel danger, that curiosity is shut down.

And one of the sad things I see, especially in education,

is I see a lot of teachers and leadership teams who are exhausted.

And if they don't care or don't want

to make change, it's that they run out of energy.

Their energy levels are so low that that curiosity that you're describing

is almost inaccessible because they're firefighting.

And they're firefighting because the system is really stacked against them.

I mean, the budget cuts, the energy prices,

the mental health challenges of students, the retention of staff.

I mean, there's so many issues in school settings.

They are not very different from business settings.

The difference is the model that we're know.

I did a pilot study last term with a school up in North Yorkshire

looking at emotional base school avoidance, because

looking at that model that we could, the neurobiological model of understanding

why, not making assumptions, but really asking the students,

really looking at the environment, really looking at their relationships

and the data that's coming out is really positive.

Attendance is up, happier, more engaged students.

The parent feedback is brilliant.

So that's not what I want to do.

I want to empower schools to do things a little differently in the same.

I work with businesses.

I think the future generation needs protecting and needs empowering.

And I think whether that's in a business

setting and we're looking at future leaders or whether we're looking

in schools and looking at these future adults, I.

Think on that score, Andrea,

I think you'll have a lot of people listening to this, applauding you,

because I think there's a desire there from people on the,

say, the receiving end, for things to be different.

And I suppose when we look at the future,

we're just looking for signs of hope and that ability to be creative in our

thinking and really sort of stimulate

that curiosity to help us be able to move forward.

I hope as well, at the same time that any sort of teaching staff or

department heads or heads of school who are listening to this,

that they too would sort of seek you out, because I think what you're talking about

for me personally, makes absolute sense and I can see

its impact in all sorts of different settings now, just to help our listeners.

You've got some things coming up,

haven't you, that you'd really like to sort of people to know about.

Tell us a bit about them.

If you include the schools part,

there's three key ways that I try and I work with people.

So the first way is in collaboration with leaders.

I'll design like a day very interactive, really looking at this kind

of understanding the nervous system and how it impacts how we feel as leaders,

but also how we behave and giving them some real different insights that then

they can then take back and implement in different areas of their business.

That's one way I work with people.

I also do some one to one coaching as part of that I do as part of my kind

of community project, I do a workshop at a really low cost for schools once a month.

So I can do an inset day for your school

and we can have a conversation about how that might look.

But also what I'm just putting together now is that a lot of people coming to me,

coaches coming to me, business coaches, executive coaches, saying,

I'm really curious about this, how do I apply it to help my clients?

So I'm putting together just initially

just some kind of short neurosmart chats, I'll call them,

which will then lead into like a half day workshop or a longer,

maybe seven week workshop where we can go through some of the principles,

a bit more detail, look at some of the ways that you might

implement it, have conversations, so it becomes part of what you do without

having to kind of get a neuroscience degree.

It's all about the practical application

in the real world, which is where I specialise.

I have all the theory, I've done all the research, but so what?

Where does this work?

Where does it make a difference? What are the tools?

What are the strategies?

And that's what I want to impart to both leaders and educators and coaches.

And all this information is on my website.

But I really love chatting to people

because I think we find out more about each other.

So again, on my website you can book

a call, it's completely free just to kind of find out, build relationships.

And I love understanding where people are and where they want to go.

And hopefully in that conversation you

take away a few words of wisdom that just help you in your everyday life.

Yeah, just tell everybody your website address, if you wouldn't mind.

It's Neurosmart learning.

All one word, obviously brilliant.

And obviously find me on LinkedIn again.

But on LinkedIn I'm on Andrea Edmondson.

Those are the places that I tend to hang

out, LinkedIn, and I'm trying to get more of the stuff onto the website.

I'm trying to do a weekly blog,

so hopefully that will kind of resonate with some people.

This week's blog is about neuropathicity, how we can change the brain,

which is obviously crucial when we want to change our stories.

We have to first create new neural pathways.

So that's hopefully coming tomorrow.

Right. That's wonderful.

I really appreciate that.

Just to say, I think it was

certainly a post that you put out with regards to flooding,

and you got the picture of floodwaters, but actually you were talking about

our flooding, as in flooding ourselves in such a way where it would impede our

ability to operate, I suppose, in any given environment.

And to be honest, they're really helpful, the pieces that you put together.

So thank you so much for doing that.

I've only done a two or three,

but it's kind of trying to get myself into a routine of writing them because

definitely writing is harder than talking, but I know it's something I've got

to practise and that's, again, a neural pathway.

So I am building pathways, writing the books, all the newsletters,

but thank you for reading them and giving me feedback.

I appreciate that, Phil.

No, that's fine.

And to be honest,

you and me both on that score, because I think it's important that people

understand that this, that we've talked about is not just

fascinating, but it's key to, for example, that part of self awareness,

so that we can learn how to self regulate and understand

what's actually going on at any point in time and be able to step back

and put ourselves in a place where we can think more rationally in given situations.

I always say to people, whatever you do,

do not make an important decision in life when you're emotional.

So when your emotions are high

in whatever way, don't make those important decisions at that point in time.

But yeah, it's been great talking to you and I really appreciate that.

We love having conversations like this.

So thank you.

It's a pleasure and I wish you all the best.

And I hope that at some point in time we'll be able to have another chat.

Yes, no, I'd love that.

Thank you, Phil.

Okay, well, thank you very much.