Know Your Brain to Bolster Balance and Creativity
It was my absolute pleasure to connect with, Deirdre Morrison an applied neuroscience practitioner and coach whose practice is informed by over two decades of professional creative work, including photography, design and PR consultancy. She is the host of The Ambition Incubator Podcast, founder of The NeuroDevelopment Institute, and a faculty member of the Association of Professional Coaching.
What is one of your defining features, Deirdre?
Ideas are my drug of choice, and trust me: I’m a junkie. I can’t get enough of them. I stash interesting books on my favourite topics—as well as stuff I’m only just tapping into—all around the house, in the car, one in every bag, audiobooks on my phone, PDFs on my tablet, you name it! Suffice it to say, this is not a habit I’m trying to kick.
I focus on non-fiction entirely these days, having parted ways with fiction quite some time ago. I weave together concepts spanning applied neuroscience, anthropology, archaeology, linguistics, non-human cognition, design, psychology, and a host of other interesting topics. Everything I read has a purpose, even if I don’t quite know what it is when I pick up the book.
Take for instance my most recent read was a book about ornithology written by a philosopher. She asks great questions about our insistence on interpreting non-human behaviour through human lenses. It’s an example of a book being part of a jigsaw that I’m making, and I’ve only got glimpses of the full picture to date. But that’s the fun of it. Not having all the information means you’ve got to stay curious, ask questions, and don’t make judgements. Especially about a picture you can’t fully see.
This is actually a philosophy that I can transfer directly to my work. My applied neuroscience training is primarily what I use to help my clients understand their actions, reactions and interactions. Through sharing tools and techniques that are designed specifically to shift their level of awareness, they move their thinking to more creative and helpful states. It’s an incredible way to access more effective thinking and really tap into the potential that otherwise lies dormant.
Where do you think that curiosity comes from?
I grew up in rural County Limerick, Ireland. I was always surrounded by animals, and the bonds and friendships I formed with them from the time I was tiny have always been part of my thinking. Some of my earliest memories are of snuggling up with calves in a bed of straw, my first dog, Dino, and any number of goats, donkeys, and cows. I was the kind of child who conducted very solemn burial rites for any fallen birds, butterflies or bees.
So from a very early age, I was looking at ways of thinking. How did the cows think? How did they know how to behave with each other? Why weren’t we more concerned about their personalities, pleasures and pains? It puzzled me no end. They knew us. The goats knew stuff. The swallows knew stuff, but somehow, people just lumped them all together under the label ‘Animals’.
Of course, I was an avid reader then too. I used to get scolded for reading too much, in much the same way as parents these days scold kids for spending too much time gaming. One of my favourite books was Alice In Wonderland and Through The Looking Glass. So not much has changed. I’m still looking into the nature of reality and consciousness, which is what Alice is all about.
So, how does your inner Alice show herself now that you’re all grown up?
Aside from my applied neuroscience work with clients, which taps into my own creative background, both professional and academic, I host a weekly podcast. The Ambition Incubator Podcast is a mix of bite-sized brain science and interviews with entrepreneurs at various stages of their journey.
I’m also the founder of The NeuroDevelopment Institute, and along with some colleagues from the world of applied neuroscience, we are on a mission to create awareness and evoke change by finding ways to share information about the human brain and how we can understand it in the context of our day-to-day lives. One of the ways we’ll be doing this is by hosting events that anyone can join to find out more on a specific theme related to brain science. Our first one in September will be on creativity and insight.
I would die happy if I felt that I’d been able to move the needle a little bit in the direction of people leading lives that are less driven by fear and frustration because I’ve been able to help them understand their brains and how they affect every one of our actions, reactions and interactions.
“Know thyself,” as the saying goes. And for most of us, that means knowing more about our brains than we do now!
What are some of your daily practices to maintain your balance?
A lot of people comment on how calm and unflappable I am when things aren’t going as planned. I can 100% tell you that this is down to understanding more about my brain, and having specific applied neuroscience techniques in my back pocket. I mean, even trying to get through the quagmire that is most customer service call centres these days rarely annoys me. That used to really push my buttons!
These days, I like to look at my life as an ecosystem, rather than some kind of seesaw-type balance. Every part affects every other part. One of the things I love to do is road cycling. Not just for the exercise, I also follow bike racing and particularly enjoy the Tour de France. Not long ago, Team Sky dominated racing, and the phrase ‘marginal gains’ was used to describe some of the ways they picked up tiny improvements in all kinds of ways. We can be like that if we choose. Understanding your personal ecosystem; body, brain, business and beyond, is how we do that. Unfortunately, for many of us, we get into a loop of ‘marginal losses’ instead, and we barely even notice the slide, until we look up and realise how far off course we’ve blown, or how much our health or relationships have suffered.
If people would like to learn more about their brain and their personal ecosystem, where can they find you?
If you’d like to know more about what I do with applied neuroscience, then come on over to my website at neurocreative.studio. There’s a detailed tool there that you can try to see how charged your creative battery is too.
If you’re up for an interesting read and a great facilitated discussion, then check out neurodevelopmentinstitute.com/read.
And if you’d like to try a new podcast, that joins the dots between your brain and the things that matter, then head to ambitionincubator.com
You can reach me directly over on LinkedIn, so feel free to get in touch, with questions or ideas, or book recommendations!
