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Key insights
- The reticular activating system (RAS) is a network of neurons in the brainstem that acts as an attention filter. We tell the brain what to pay attention to and what to focus on by focusing our attention on it.
- For example, when you focus on avoiding failure, your brain brings out signs of failure and blinds you to opportunities. When we choose what we look for, we tell our RAS which specific parts are worth nurturing in our consciousness.
- The solution is not in optimism or affirmations; It gives your RAS a different goal – the goal you choose. The key is to prepare your RAS so that the things you want can pass through the filter.
“I don’t want to give up now.” This thought preoccupied me in the early years of my business.
Here I had given up my successful medical career and directorship to follow the why of my life – making a big impact, changing the world – and the visible results were taking longer to come than I expected.
I was trained as a doctor. I knew nothing about marketing, sales, or building a personal brand. In the beginning, I hired consultants to do all the things I didn’t know how to do. That seemed like the smart thing to do—I stayed within my zone of genius and outsourced the rest—but the results still didn’t come.
Next, I hired strategists and consultants to show me what I wasn’t seeing. Honestly, most of the work took me further off course. There is a saying in medicine: “If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” Everyone believed that their specific methodology was ideal for each company – but that wasn’t the case.
Every time I hit a roadblock or had a drop in sales, I wondered if that was the case. Would I have to practice medicine again? Did I have to give up my dream? And if I did that, would I lose everything I’ve built so far?
What I didn’t realize at the time was that the answer was much simpler than I could have ever imagined. My brain was doing exactly what it was supposed to do – I was just giving it erroneous instructions.
The attention keeper
The reticular activating system (RAS) is a network of neurons in the brainstem that acts as an attention filter. While our environment bombards us with a billion bits of data every second, our consciousness can only process 10. The RAS acts as the ultimate gatekeeper, deciding which 0.00000001% of reality makes the breakthrough.
How does it decide? Think of it like a Google search. We tell the brain what to pay attention to and what to focus on by focusing our attention on it.
Similar to a search engine, the brain doesn’t think in negatives. So if you search for “how to avoid foreclosure,” the keyword used in that search is “foreclosure.” When you think, “I don’t want to give up,” the brain looks for signs that you have given up. It filters out all the information that contributes to giving up and doesn’t show you all the information that could lead to success. The new sales opportunities, the pivot and the untapped market stand unnoticed in the room.
When we choose what we look for, we don’t change what exists in the world – we simply tell our RAS what specific parts are worth nurturing in our consciousness – and we create the world we want to see.
The target fixation trap
In car racing, drivers are taught to look at the track and not at the wall. If you look at the wall, you are much more likely to hit the wall. The mind’s fixation on what it wants to avoid unconsciously causes your hands to steer in that direction.
In what is known as target fixation, the brain focuses with increasing precision on the actual or perceived threat, increasing the likelihood that you will want to avoid it.
This brain reaction is not limited to racing drivers. In business, when you think, “I don’t want to miss payroll, I don’t want to lose that employee or that contract,” you shift your attention and focus on the wall. They increase the chances of it occurring.
The precision advantage
Many people mistakenly believe that the solution is a stronger mindset, but the answer does not lie in optimism, affirmations, or positive thinking. The key is to give your RAS a different goal – the goal you choose. When you give your RAS a clear goal of what you want, you are focusing on precision rather than positivity.
Game theory reveals the framework. You go from playing not to lose to playing to win. The business owner struggling to retain an unhappy customer isn’t playing for a loss – the one focused on closing five new contracts with ideal customers is playing for a win.
The difference is not semantic. When you’re playing not to lose, your RAS is fixated on the threat – the unhappy customer, the missed number, the soured contract. When you play to win, your RAS looks for opportunities – the ideal customer who is already looking for exactly what you offer, the ideal employee, the untapped market that has been in the room all along.
Your positioning hasn’t changed, the job market hasn’t changed, the economy hasn’t changed – but your reality has changed dramatically.
Rewrite the search query
The RAS reset is not a rethink; This is a new version of the search query. “How do I avoid bankruptcy?” becomes “What are potential new revenue streams?” “How do I avoid toxic attitudes?” becomes “How do I create a healthy corporate culture?” “I don’t have enough time” becomes “How can I better prioritize revenue-generating activities?”
It’s not just about asking a better question – although that always helps. The key is to prepare your RAS so that the things you want can pass through the filter. This is easy when you are relaxed and more difficult when you are under pressure.
First, imagine exactly what you want. The mind may try to trick you by describing what you want based on what you don’t want – this is a trap. The key is to visualize it. It’s impossible to imagine the absence of financial stressors, but it’s easy to imagine financial freedom and ease. It’s impossible to imagine a toxic employee not existing, but it’s easy to imagine cooperative employees in a healthy company culture.
Once you’ve made the image as clear as possible, write it down, take a photo, say it out loud – the more tangible the better. Review this image, your written words, or say it out loud before bed and when you wake up – at times of day when your cortisol and cognitive load are lower, reducing the noise competing for your RAS’s attention.
This is not a one-time reset. As soon as the pressure increases, the RAS automatically returns to the threat. What differentiates leaders is not reformulation, but consistency.
When you rewrite your RAS instructions, it’s not the world that changes, but your reality.
The wall doesn’t move. The track doesn’t change. What changes is where your eyes are – and your hands will always follow.
Key insights
- The reticular activating system (RAS) is a network of neurons in the brainstem that acts as an attention filter. We tell the brain what to pay attention to and what to focus on by focusing our attention on it.
- For example, when you focus on avoiding failure, your brain brings out signs of failure and blinds you to opportunities. When we choose what we look for, we tell our RAS which specific parts are worth nurturing in our consciousness.
- The solution is not in optimism or affirmations; It gives your RAS a different goal – the goal you choose. The key is to prepare your RAS so that the things you want can pass through the filter.
“I don’t want to give up now.” This thought preoccupied me in the early years of my business.
Here I had given up my successful medical career and directorship to follow the why of my life – making a big impact, changing the world – and the visible results were taking longer to come than I expected.
I was trained as a doctor. I knew nothing about marketing, sales, or building a personal brand. In the beginning, I hired consultants to do all the things I didn’t know how to do. That seemed like the smart thing to do—I stayed within my zone of genius and outsourced the rest—but the results still didn’t come.