Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning
Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning
Andrea Samadi
The Neuroscience of Personal Change with Stephen R. Covey‘s ”The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People”
27 minutes Posted Jun 20, 2020 at 12:57 pm.
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Today’s episode #68 started out with me wanting to take a look the most important concepts from Dr. Amen’s “Thrive by 25”[i] online course that dives deep into understanding brain basics that we should all understand for ourselves as well as to better understand others, since brain health strategies will lead to a better brain and life. But—while writing this episode, I was sitting in an empty lobby of what used to be a busy local resort, looking around at what was once the hustle and bustle of business people, hurrying off to their events, or families rushing off to the pool to spend time together and the fact that the world has literally STOPPED STILL really made me think. 
This place looked like a Ghost Town, almost like in a movie where the scene freezes. It made me freeze and think. Things around the world have changed like night and day over the past few months starting with the COVID-19 Pandemic, with the danger of infection and death, and the change continues as the world now faces racism, riots, and global economic upheaval.  I thought that this episode needs to go a bit deeper than I was planning at first, and really needs to address the Neuroscience of Change. Since we usually reject anything that we aren’t familiar with, I thought this episode could look at how to consider a change with our thinking or perspective, resulting in a change in behavior around some of the critical issues our world is facing, to see where we can take individual responsibility. If we can add the understanding of how our brain works optimally and how we can improve ourselves by really thinking about some of these issues our world is facing, we can become more empathetic towards others, and set the stage for the much needed change our world needs. If nothing is done at this time, we will look back and there will be no change, but if we can all do some self-reflection, and make our own personal and individual change, 20 years from now, we will know if our actions made a difference. 
While still thinking about the new direction of this episode, I read a social media post from my mentor, Greg Link[ii], who I’ve mentioned in past episodes. As co-founder of the Covey Leadership Center, Greg was the one who orchestrated the strategy that led Dr. Stephen R. Covey's book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change, (1989) to become one of the two best-selling business books of the 20th century according to CEO Magazine, selling over 20 million copies in 38 languages. He created the marketing momentum that helped propel Covey Leadership Center from a start-up company to a $110-plus million-dollar enterprise with offices in 40 countries. When he writes something, I always pay attention and what he has to say is always insightful and profound. This time, what he wrote was full of his own personal insight on what was happening in the world today, tied to the 7 Habits book, and he was talking about Habit #5. For such a popular business book, that sold so many copies, you would think I would know the habits off by heart. If you were to ask a room of 100 people “who knows about the 7 Habits Book?” most people should raise their hand, but few people (including myself) can actually name the habits.  
Did you know the habits were divided up into 3 segments? Habits 1-3 are focused on how we manage ourselves, habits 4-6, how we lead others, and habit 7 how we unleash our potential. The 8th Habit[iii] is a whole new book, published years later in 2004 and it focuses on “Finding your voice and inspiring others to find theirs.” There’s never been a time like this in our world, and more than ever right now, we need to think about how we are managing ourselves, how we lead others, and how we can unleash our potential, and find our voice, in a way that inspires others to do the same. If we can do these 4 things, I am sure that when we look back to this time period, 20 years later, there’ll be some change.
If it’s been aw