[Music] okay so again this is really just introductory material and what it really speaks to is this is that the brain really likes to make these firing patterns to make these connections so anybody get any thought on why it is that we say that the brain is a connection making machine it really loves to make these mental Maps any thoughts on why from anybody what is the benefit to us of the fact that the brain is doing this all the time the human brain what's its um survival benefit to us yeah so yeah it does what what it allows us uh to learn um but perhaps more importantly it allows us to um keep this part of the brain which is where we do all of our creative work our analysis our problem solving the idea is to keep this area of the brain as clear as possible to receive new information um and and this is really the basis of learning it's the basis of creativity having a quiet mind where things are packed away into deeper parts of the brain particularly around the basil ganglia in the very very deep areas of the brain where where all of our habits and patterns become resonant and the Brain really likes to create these patterns um it also um once the patterns have been formed it's virtually effortless even even a complicated task can become virtually effortless um so that we can free our mind up to attend to new data new information that requires processing so they're created very very easily we do have a few that are sort of hardwired at Birth um but not as many as we think um we have an innate fear of snakes for example we have an innate fear of falling um but it's probably not any longer held to be true that personality trays are hardwired um they're easily you do see Tendencies of course in very very young people including young babies but it turns out there's quite a lot of um evidence that early environment will very very quickly overwrite um um predispositions that seen early on in life um the existing wiring once it is created it's quite durable it's not easy to get rid of an existing tray that is there it will potentially always be available to your mind um old ways of doing thing old doing things old ways of thinking about things old ways of generating emotions tend to be very very durable um and we still be available to your mind under certain conditions particularly stressful conditions um The more stress that we are under the more likely it is that we will revert back to an older pattern of behavior um even though we may have learned and to some extent embodied a new pattern of behavior right it's quite difficult to deconstruct um old wiring but the good news is that we can overwrite that old wiring with new wiring so that we build new neural highways which are wider if you wish is one metaphor of looking at it you know whenever we have an embodied unconscious skill um you can say that it's like a neural Highway of neurons connecting together effortlessly um in the way that I described before um when we learn new skills for a while it can be really uncomfortable because we've got to continue uh to notice that we might be going down the old highway and asking Moment by moment oh where does this highway take me and do I want to go there is it leading me off the edge of a cliff and then we need to notice the exit sign coming um and then we need to drive off the highway down a road that might be a little bit unclear and indistinct for a while um and we need to be going through that process again and again and again until the new highway has become wide enough through continuous use as I mentioned earlier on you could say that every time you use that Highway it gets wider um and then eventually it becomes wider than the old pathway so the Mind sees it more easily okay and and we're then able to travel down it um now it is worth noting that when it comes to these mental maps that are created or or sometimes called neural associations or firing patterns there are many many different ways of describing these things um that it is easier to extend an existing map than it is to create a completely new one so what does that mean for coaching what does that mean for coaching and the fact that existing mental maps and neural associations can be extended into new territory that is perhaps associated in some way with things that we know but it's very very difficult to create a completely new one it creates stress um it is um hard and what does that mean for advice giving in coaching when we think about it that way um it it means that when we just tell give people advice we're using that we're actually giving advice from the perspective of our own mental maps and what we're really doing in the mind of the client is we're kind of trying to create a completely new mental map that may not connect with anything that that they already have that has to be processed through um the prefrontal cortex area of the brain which is the analytical part of the brain um and that is actually quite difficult that part of the brain turns out to be quite inefficient um as opposed to the emotional part of the brain which is where insights occur through the extension of existing mental Maps so in Insight tends to occur when Maps connect together or when they are extended into an area where we have what we call a concern or something that we care about okay and we talk about that um a little bit later on all right and this is a the nature of the aha moment um is where there may be two um independent metal Maps um dealing with maybe two slightly different areas of knowledge and somehow those maps are connecting together and a fairly significant emotional charge occurs and new knowledge and experience is then created and it's the process of insight I'm hoping to be able to get to talk about that a little bit later on okay so a lot of work by um people you probably heard of Richard bis he's quite a a famous psychologist and scientist um and uh I can't remember the guy's first name Jack but there was a wonderful um set of research and literature review that was published in 2018 um where um they worked out that coaching is created durable uh creating a number of of durable changes in brain uh morphology and function um so that um we you know as coaches we are really helping a clients who change the structure and function of their brain uh so that the way that they want to show up in their lives is supported