Episode 1189: Hacking Your Brain Intrinsic Versus Extrinsic Rewards

[00:00:00] Scott Maderer: Thanks for joining me on episode 1,189 of the inspired stewardship podcast. I'm

[00:00:07] Zach Windahl: Zach Windahl. I challenge you to invest in yourself, invest in others, develop your influence and impact the world by using your time, your talent and your treasures to live out your calling. Having the ability to really live your calling into the world is key.

[00:00:23] And one way to be inspired to do that is to listen to this, the inspired stewardship podcast by my friend, Scott Maderer.

[00:00:30] Scott Maderer: But it turns out that we can look at these two natural systems, how our resistance to change and how our resistance to these sorts of things and our fear of social ostracism of being kicked out of the. If we put 'em together, it's one of the reasons that sometimes having some external accountability can be helpful.

[00:00:57] Welcome, and thank you for joining us on the inspired [00:01:00] stewardship podcast. If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent and your treasures for your true calling. In the inspired stewardship podcast, you will learn to invest in yourself, invest in others and develop your influence so that you can impact the world.

[00:01:23] In today's episode about developing your influence through stewarding your talent. I talk with you about how our brain naturally resists change. I talk about how the link between intrinsic and extrinsic pressure can be used to hack that connection for success. And I share how this can make things like coaching so beneficial.

[00:01:46] You've heard me talk about developing your talent and one of the best ways to do that is through books. But if you're like most people today, it's hard to find the time to read. And that's why today's podcast is brought to you by [00:02:00] audible. Go to inspired stewardship.com/audible to sign up and you can get a 30 day free trial.

[00:02:08] There's over 180,000 titles to choose from. And you can pick one and listen your way to developing your talents via. That's inspired stewardship.com/audible to get your free trial and listen to great books the same way you're listening to this podcast. one of those things that happens to all of us is there's times that we want to make a change.

[00:02:32] We really know that it's important to make a change in our life. It may be something about our diet. It may be something about our time, our money, our relationships, whatever it is we want to make a change. We wanna do something different, but our brain has a natural resistance to that change. I call it inert.

[00:02:54] Inertia, we all know the laws of physics or most of us do. And [00:03:00] the law of inertia. Most of us remember the first part, which is an object in motion, continues in motion until acted upon by an outside force. But the other part, which is an object at rest continues at rest. Until acted upon by an outside force is equally important and change our body, our systems, what we're doing as a certain level of inertia to it.

[00:03:26] Whenever we want to start exhibiting a new habit, that old habit has a drag, a resistance to that change, and it takes force. It takes energy being put into the system to make that change. Equally as well. Here's what's interesting. Our brain is also remarkably good at getting used to new conditions. So if something does change, maybe you get a pay raise.

[00:03:54] Suddenly you're making more money. Initially. There's some excitement, some joy, some feeling of, [00:04:00] yeah. , but then very quickly that stabilizes and you go back to the kind of normal baseline emotional state that also causes us to resist changes because it doesn't stick. It doesn't last. The excitement that we feel in the moment doesn't keep going.

[00:04:18] And so that makes it even easier to fall back to the baseline state. intrinsically in the wiring in our brain. There's this tendency to go back to the baseline. There's this tendency to normalize anything good or bad over time. Anything becomes normal and changing. It requires energy. It requires an input, but it turns out there's also.

[00:04:48] Extrinsic pressure. That's wired into our brain. See our brain also fears ostracism or our brain fears being kicked out of the tribe or being made fun of, or [00:05:00] somehow being singled out. See, if you think about it, that's one of the reasons that people are often afraid of public speaking. It's why many of us have that dream of somehow showing up in a foolish situation know, showing up for the final exam with no pants on and that kind of thing.

[00:05:17] These are exhibits of how our brain throws up and says to us if you do that, if you take that risk, if you step out in that way, you're risking social pressure. You're risking the tribe looking at you and saying, Hey, you don't fit in. You didn't do a good job. You're that embarrassment, that fear that we feel is all about looking at how others look at us.

[00:05:45] And we have this fear that's built deep inside of the wiring of our brain, that others, somehow their judgment, their view, their opinion of us. Is so important, but it [00:06:00] turns out that we can look at these two natural systems, how our resistance to change and how our resistance to these sorts of things and our fear of social ostracism of being kicked out of the tribe.

[00:06:16] If we put 'em together, it's one of the reasons that sometimes having some external accountability can be helpful. See, one of my clients. The other day admitted that they'd frantically gone in and done a bunch of work on their numbers a couple of days before they met with us, because suddenly they looked down and they realized that the meeting that I had with them and their spouse was coming up and they hadn't really done their regular things that they were called to do.

[00:06:47] And they now needed to catch up on it so that we could have a meaningful. Discussion. They didn't wanna waste my time. They didn't wanna waste their spouse's time. They wanted to have a good meeting and that [00:07:00] fear and of that embarrassment of showing up and saying, huh, I'm not ready. I didn't do anything.

[00:07:06] I've been lazy this month. Motivated them to actually do the activity that they actually wanted and needed to do, but it was so easy to put it off at first. That falling back to that natural state. They've had a kind of a busy couple of months. And so they'd gotten outta the routine and the habit of the regular meeting.

[00:07:29] We actually had a, what I call a reset meeting, where we talked about that idea, the fact that they had fallen back into some old habits and they weren't getting the results that they wanted anymore. And why was that? Because their brain fell back to that natural. And it was the external pressure that other natural system of the brain that.

[00:07:50] motivated them to do something. This is one of the great benefits of coaching. That accountability is a big [00:08:00] deal when it comes to making change. Even though in coaching, we try to have a judgment free zone. This isn't about looking at someone and saying, oh, I'm never gonna kick a client out because they failed to do.

[00:08:14] I might challenge them. I might push them. I might hold them accountable because it's their goal and they're the ones that want to do it. And if it goes on long enough, I might even say obviously this isn't working, I'm either not the right coach or you really don't want this goal. Something else needs to change.

[00:08:29] We need to do something else so that you can make progress. But the truth is that judgment free zone still has an intrinsic feeling of accountability, a feeling of trying to avoid embarrassment, a feeling of trying to do the thing that you wanted to do realize this was the client's goal. This wasn't my goal.

[00:08:50] This wasn't something that I, I told them they needed to do. This was something that they had decided they needed to. And all I did was help hold them [00:09:00] accountable to that action and that natural connection between the intrinsic inner wiring that kind of brought them back to the status quo and that extrinsic challenge feeling that somehow from outside, I would be judged.

[00:09:16] I would be embarrassed. I would be ostracized works together to help them make progress on the goal that they want. It's one of the ways that we can hack our brain systems. See most of the time, there's a way of connecting the way our brain naturally works with getting the results that we really want, but we have to pay attention to it.

[00:09:40] Instead often we just go through life and get the results that we've been getting without even understanding the why behind. and that's part and parcel of why I say people come for help with their time. They come for help with their money. But the real truth is the only thing I ever work on as a coach is [00:10:00] talent.

[00:10:00] Because at the end of the day, the way you handle your time, the way you handle your money, the way you handle anything in life is all about how you handle yourself, how you handle yourself and your relationships with. With others, your relationships with spirituality in the larger universe, it's about how you connect and how you understand yourself.

[00:10:22] That's really the key to success. Thanks for listening. I.

[00:10:29] Thanks so much for listening to the inspired stewardship podcast as a subscriber and listener, we challenge you to not just sit back and passively listen, but act on what you've heard and find a way to live your calling. If you like this episode on the stewardship of talent, you can go over to inspired stewardship.com/talent and sign up for our five week series on the stewardship of talent.[00:11:00]

[00:11:00] Or if you're in the us, you can text 4, 4, 2, 2 talent tips. That's talent tips to 4 4, 2, 2, 2, and get those tips until next time. Invest your. Your talent and your treasures develop your influence and impact the world.