Beyond the Page Podcast ~ Mastering Mind Mechanics: Applied Neuroscience in Coaching, Leadership, and Personal Growth

Unlock the secrets of your mind with coaching expert Paul McGinniss, whose expertise in applied neuroscience is changing the game in how we approach self-improvement.

Paul built a successful 20-year career in corporate America, holding roles across individual contributor, management, and leadership levels. In 2006, he launched a consulting practice specializing in coaching, training, and communications. For over 17 years, he has applied his expertise in neuroscience to formally coach individuals, business owners, and leaders.

Prepare to be empowered as we delve into how the brain's hardwired instincts to seek reward and avoid threat are pivotal not just in coaching, but also in leadership and parenting. Paul's fascinating insights promise to revolutionize your thinking and interactions, challenging long-held beliefs and opening the door to a new era of personal growth and learning.

Our exploration doesn't stop at the surface; we're busting neuromyths and fostering a spirit of curiosity. Say goodbye to the outdated notions of left-brain/right-brain dominance and learning styles, and say hello to a more nuanced understanding of our brain's capacities. By embracing neuroscientific research, we equip you with strategies to tackle the complexities of stress, enhance productivity, and unlock a deeper understanding of your cognitive processes. Join us for a journey into the mind that will leave you questioning, learning, and most importantly, growing.

Watch the full interview by clicking here

Find the full article here: https://bit.ly/BTP-23PM

Learn more about Paul here

Grab your free issue of choice Magazine here - https://choice-online.com/

In this episode, I talk with Paul  McGinniss about his article published in our blog.

Transcript

Garry Schleifer: 0:07

Welcome to the choice Magazine podcast, Beyond the Page. choice, the magazine of professional coaching, is your go-to source for expert insights and in-depth features from the world of professional coaching. I'm your host, Garry Schleifer, and, as you can tell, I'm thrilled to have you join us today. I'm always thrilled. In each episode we go, guess what, beyond the page of articles and blogs published in choice Magazine and dive deeper into some of the most recent and relevant topics impacting the world of professional coaching, exploring the content, interviewing the talented minds behind the articles and uncovering the stories that make an impact. choice is more than a magazine. For over 21 years, we've built a community of like-minded people who create, use and share coaching tools, tips and techniques to add value to their business and, of course what we all want, to make a difference in the world and starting with our clients.

Garry Schleifer: 1:04

In today's episode, I'm speaking with Paul McGinnis, who is the author of an article that we want to showcase, entitled "Coaching and the Brain ~ What we think is true is sometimes not, and this article was submitted in light of our upcoming issue Neuroscience and Coaching separating myths from reality. A little bit about Paul. He's navigated a successful 20 year career in corporate America, serving in multiple individual, contributor, management and leadership roles. He launched a consulting practice in 06 that focused in coaching, training and communications. He's been formally coaching individuals, business owners and leaders for 17 plus years using an applied neuroscience approach. Hint, hint, that's why he's here. He's presented at numerous conferences and coach, mentored or taught coaching skills to thousands of senior leaders and managers at numerous well-known global brands. He lives on Long Island with his wife and son. His mission is to create a body of work that benefits others during and beyond his lifetime. Paul, thank you so much for joining me today.

Paul McGinnis: 2:16

Oh, it is my absolute pleasure to be here, Garry. Thanks for the invitation.

Garry Schleifer: 2:21

I love to start out with this, but I think it's in your bio. Why did you decide to write this article?

Paul McGinnis: 2:29

Well, a couple of reasons. I was invited to. I am incredibly passionate about coaching and the brain, our human brain. I think of it as the one great equalizer. We all have one, right?

Paul McGinnis: 2:45

Now, although I might not at times. I first was introduced to neuroscience in 2006, which is quite a while ago at this point. Not as many people were talking about it as are now, and I have found it to be really, you know, the word is maybe overused, but game changing for me. I mean really transformative. I found once I started to understand how the brain operates and how it functions and what is somewhat predictable and what is mostly unpredictable, I found I started to have better results as a coach, as a leader, as a colleague, as a parent, a friend.

Paul McGinnis: 3:27

And yet, you know, I am still human and my brain does still get the best of me at times, despite what I know. So I'm just very passionate about both of these fields. And Garry, it goes beyond just coaching. I do think when we start to understand what's going on inside of our head and how to work with it, I really do think it empowers us in many different ways in and out of work, and so the more I think people know about this, I think the better we will all be. So I'm very excited to share some of this and spread the word even further, you might say.

Garry Schleifer: 4:00

Yeah, exactly. Well, and to your point earlier, it wasn't as much of a conversation as it is now. I'm very appreciative that it is, especially in light of the research and the results that have been discovered about the brain. I mean to your point about writing an article about the myths and realities of coaching, right. But I want to go back because I'm curious. You said it really helped you inform your coaching and your life. How give me like an example of something from neuroscience.

Paul McGinnis: 4:34

Yeah. So some of this is linked to, and much of what I practice is based on what I would call very foundational research, which is kind of long-term, kind of backed by other research studies. There's a lot about the brain that's tricky, it's hard to really know, improve, so to speak. This is much of this is theories. A lot of it is observed. There's even been some recent hubbub around just the efficacy of FMRIs, which was really game-changing in the field of neuroscience. So I looked at things that have been pretty well researched and backed additional research, but also that is backed by my own experience as a human. And so when I look at the research and I think about how I live and what impacts me and things dovetail nicely, I go okay,

Paul McGinnis: 5:32

So one of the main things I focus on as a person, as a coach, is the nature of threat and reward in the brain and how, Evian Gordon called it our brain's primary organizing principle, which is the brain's desire to minimize threat and maximize reward, and my sense of us as humans is the threat response is quite a bit stronger. I think the research shows that as well. It comes on, faster it lasts longer. It carries a bigger punch. I've often used the example of if we come up to a four-way intersection and somebody lets us go first, it's like, oh, that was nice, it's a bit of a reward. It doesn't last all day. We might not mention it at work, but if we're driving along and somebody cuts us off, oh man, is that gonna boil?

Garry Schleifer: 6:21

Or doesn't take their turn? Exactly, cuts you off. We tell everybody.

Paul McGinnis: 6:27

Right? Yeah, it's amazing. What some of that research shows is that the brain is scanning the environment roughly five times a second. Again, some of this stuff's pretty hard to quantify depending on the research you look at and that means 300 times a minute there's the potential to be distracted because our brain is looking for things that might be threatening to keep us safe. So back to your question.

Paul McGinnis: 6:50

What I, since learning about that primary organizing principle, strength of threat, later on, the types of social threats or social needs we have that can be then kind of rewarded or threatened, I'm always, not managing, but I'm always paying attention to the space between me and someone else. Am I creating a safe space for them to enter into or am I creating a threat that pushes them away from me? Especially in change management, many leaders will say, oh, we've gotta convince them and, I heard on a call today, we gotta get them or this will get them. And I'm like you know don't wanna be gotten by something, right?

Paul McGinnis: 7:33

No kidding, who wants to be gotten. Exactly? And so I can't get somebody to do something. I can create a space for them to wanna do something and tap into some of that inner motivation. So everything I do, I hope, I am paying attention to that space between us and am I managing myself in relation to you in a way that meets your social needs, that creates safety we talk a lot lately about psychological safety and in a way that you feel safe enough to move toward me and then we can actually connect and do whatever it is, whether it's the work or the relationship or the in or out of work. So that's been incredibly fundamentally life-changing for me.

Paul McGinnis: 8:19

And again, as a coach, as a father. It's probably most challenging as a father and spouse, a husband. Those personal things can be the most emotional things and it's a bit more challenging to manage myself in that setting. And I'd say that's probably the biggest thing I'm aware of is even I think some of the research I had seen a while back was about even nonsense words and sounds can trigger threat or reward. So it's sort of made up stuff can trigger the varying well, certainly intentional things are gonna create some strong threat. So I work hard at showing up in a way that minimizes threat. It's funny, Garry, it's not even as much about maximizing reward, because this is just how I work with this.

Paul McGinnis: 9:08

And, just to be clear to the audience, I'm not a neuroscientist, I'm not a researcher. I'm a practitioner, I'm a leader, a coach, and I have worked with this stuff now for again almost going on over 17 years, and it's tricky, you know. I mean as much as the brain is predictable around threat and some of our needs, you don't know how strong needs are, social needs are for any one person so I try to kind of meet them all, if you will. And it's the individuality of each of us that makes being a leader or being a manager or being in relation to others so tricky and so hard. I'm still annoyed that it's called soft skills. I think they're the hardest.

Garry Schleifer: 9:54

Good point, I think so too. You know you bring up. So you know, thank you so much for that example, because I really get that. It really resonates to that sort of understanding. And you know, it's kind of like you have like neuroscience and research and all this and then life over here and it's like, oh, a little bit of understanding about what impact I can make, which is what we're trying to do in coaching. Something else came up for me when you're mentioning that in your coaching engagements, what, if anything, do you say to the client about neuroscience, or do you?

Paul McGinnis: 10:31

Yeah, that's a great question, right, coach? The first thing I do is I share with them that this is something that informs, not just my coaching, but how I live and how I operate. And if they're interested in that, I'm happy to bring some of that into the conversation when it makes sense and again, if they want. I'm constantly checking to make sure I'm not turning a session into a lecture you know. of course, that's what I am, why I'm saying like if exactly so, while I'm kind of practicing what I preach and even all those programs I mentioned in the bio, we were facilitating in a very coach like way.

Paul McGinnis: 11:10

It was all very question driven to help people have insights about the learning in a way they could make their own connections and leave with that. And so I show up as a coach, being mindful of that person, being mindful of the space I create, being mindful of threat and how easy it is to trigger, which is also tricky in coaching, as you know, because heart, and especially at the leadership level, the executive level, is many times leaders and executives, people aren't telling them what they need to hear. They're telling them what they think they want to hear and as a coach, we might be the only person in their work and sometimes life that is willing to play back to them something we're noticing that might not be serving them. Now, It's their call. always.

Paul McGinnis: 11:55

I often say I'm a mirror. One of the ways I show up as a coach, we could show up as coaches I think, is as a mirror reflection. I call myself, sometimes the lookout on their ship. They're the captain, but I have a different vantage point. I'm noticing things maybe they're a little too close to it to see. So I will share with them this perspective and this understanding and application. It's not just theoretical and research in a way that's dry. It's actually application of what I understand in the way I show up and then if I see these things that play in the dynamics that we talk about in a session, I might bring it up. You know, there was one time where I talked with a client about a feedback conversation they had and they were sort of confused at how it had gone so poorly and for me I could just see so clearly that the amount of threat and, by the way, just the word feedback is a trigger.

Garry Schleifer: 12:52

Yeah. Whoever would?

Paul McGinnis: 12:54

Hey, Garry, I'd love to give you some feedback. You go oh no. Yeah, oh great.

Garry Schleifer: 13:00

Yeah, I woke up today hoping I would get some feedback. Yeah, please.

Paul McGinnis: 13:05

So just that work of me during. Anyway, he said he was kind of surprised when I said hey, you know, and we had talked previously about some of these social needs and when we looked at the feedback through the lens of the social needs, you could see how it was creating this kind of a multiplied threat where several of these needs were being threatened and triggered. You might have thought that person was being put in a bit of a triggered state and when we get triggered we tend to go into that fight flight mode people will talk about. Some other apps and those are, you know, some of the dominant ones. There's freeze and flock and a couple of others. S o that's one of the ways I'll bring in. I'll do it myself and if I see there's a connection to it, that they can do something with them.

Paul McGinnis: 13:53

I think that the important part is, again, this is not just theoretical. This is about how do we apply? I call it an applied neuroscience approach because we're taking the research and our understanding of the brain, coupling it, as I mentioned, with my life experience, and I always say to people challenge me like if this is not what you experienced as a human, call me on it, like check me on it. We are all different in that way. In a way, we experienced the world, the way we're wired, our pasts, and yet we have this very common human brain around, how it functions and how it processes our world and how it how it drives certain things. So I think those are the two big ways that I am that neuroscience shows up in the way I coach.

Garry Schleifer: 14:36

Yeah, no very much so thank you very much for that. First of all, I had a coaching session where I had something similar where i t was about the recipient of news of change and how it affected them, and I think that the work that I've been doing as a publisher around neuroscience has helped me be a better coach in that circumstance. So thank you for that comparison that you gave around the same thing, or remind me that coaching session today. One of the things I do want to ask your help with is understanding. So you had some great myths in there, and one of them that really resonates for me and I still struggle with is I work better under pressure, and you gave a great example, and can you elaborate on how you would handle that in a coaching session?

Paul McGinnis: 15:38

Yeah, so I guess I would ask a couple of questions around what does that mean for them? What would it be like if the deadline was there but the pressure wasn't? Meaning, you know, deadlines in and of themselves create pressure. I used to joke around that in school if we weren't given a deadline for a paper, we probably never do it, you know.

Garry Schleifer: 16:07

I know you wrote that in your article and I'm like it's not about, it's not just school. There's no deadline.

Paul McGinnis: 16:10

Exactly, and so that deadline creates pressure. Pressure can be good, you know, even stress. There's distress and there's use stress. There's positive and negative stress, you can call them, and so I would work with them in a way that would allow the client to kind of examine that belief number one, maybe challenge that belief a little bit. I have found again that, yeah, pressure does get us to perform. There's the inverted performance curve that's been around for a very long time. Again, there's some research supporting it, some that might be challenging it a bit. That's the nature, I think, of the field is we're always learning and helping a client see what do they really mean by is it their best work or did they get it done? And what's the difference between that? Because, yeah, we get things done under pressure, and there is a difference too in terms of our wiring right. Athletes and first responders train and train, and train and train to overcome some of our fundamental ways of being.

Paul McGinnis: 17:10

For instance, most of us don't run into a burning building, we run out. Well, fire personnel, they're not any different than us in terms of that innate fear or survival instinct. However, they train in those environments over and over and over and over again to create a stronger ability to go in there and still function when they're under that extreme pressure. You can call it our stress, because we're not normalizing it, I don't think, but we're getting used to that in a way that we can overcome that threat response and lead athletes same things. They train and train, and, train, and train so that when the play happens they don't have to think about what they're doing, they're just able to call upon that hard wiring.

Paul McGinnis: 17:53

So most of us don't have that kind of training, you might say. And so we hit a deadline and the pressure to get something done under great pressure, you might end up going a little bit more habitual, a little bit more automatic, a little bit more hard work and doing things that we've always done, that have gotten us through. That might not be our best. So anyway, again, your question was how would I coach around that? I think it's about questioning into the nature of their understanding, that belief where it came up. What's the difference between good, better and best? How does that show up? What would it have looked like if you had more time or less pressure? What might have been missing?

Garry Schleifer: 18:36

Yeah, what would you do differently next time? I can't help but be reminded of a colleague of mine, Janet Harvey, who uses the mantra early is easy, and I've shared that with my clients. When they come up to some things and man the difference it makes. There's like to your point about going against nature or your natural intuition, like firefighters running into a building when they're faced with something like early is easy, that it's like. First thing that seems to click is. Oh, I have a choice in the matter, and I think a lot of people feel that they don't have a choice, but they're the ones that you know. We're given the task, hopefully with enough time to do it. There's so many aspects of that, but thank you very much for that. That's a great example and great ideas for us as coaches.

Paul McGinnis: 19:31

Yeah, good, yeah, oh sorry. There was one thing that just sparked for me. There, Garry is at the leadership level. What I'm seeing is overwhelm. There's just more and more and more and more coming at people, and this is probably true in our lives too. We're bombarded with more content, more technologies, more advancements, more information, and leaders that I work with I think are really struggling with the whole. I love the term work-life balance, as if one is more important or like it could be balanced. Yeah, exactly, and especially post-COVID and with the ever-increasing advances of technology and the blurring of all those lines. So I have found, looking at that idea of what is critical, what is enough and what, I don't know if I put it in the article, but I wrote recently on LinkedIn about the difference between what does it mean? What is demanding your time versus what deserves your time.

Garry Schleifer: 20:36

Oh, well done.

Paul McGinnis: 20:38

Yeah, it doesn't mean that deserves your time and being more to your point and the art of the magazine choice, you know, using your choice and going back to some purpose and principles and values that create that kind of north star for you about what to say yes to, what to say maybe, to what to say no to. And again, as humans, we don't want to, we don't like saying no generally, I don't think because that's an exclusive thing. When we say no to things, it's sort of is this going to? Am I going to pay a price for that?

Garry Schleifer: 21:11

What's the impact on my career, on my impression, to my leader and to my team if I say no? Exactly? And if flip side is not great either, because then you know there's breakdown, whether it's mental, physical, right, stress increases and sickness increases, that sort of thing. So yeah, no. I know it's funny, we're easy to say no when it comes to sales conversation, when somebody's trying to sell us something, but we're being sold a bag of goods, we have to say yes.

Paul McGinnis: 21:47

Yeah, yeah, and there's a green again at work. Right, the that nature of social pressure and social interaction and the nuances and challenges of it. Just navigating a simple request and what that brings up for people.

Garry Schleifer: 22:01

You know, I'm really going to leave with that demand versus deserve. What's demanding my time and what deserves my time. That's really resonating with me. Thank you very much h for that. By the way, was your favorite myth?

Paul McGinnis: 22:20

Oof my favorite. Well, I have two, two kind of biases here. One is just the left- right brain, one is so entrenched in people's thinking and there are leanings and as, again, as I understand it right, I will always make that disclaimer.

Garry Schleifer: 22:33

Yeah, you're not a neuroscientist or a researcher.

Paul McGinnis: 22:37

No, I don't. I try to be careful about absolutes in the language I use. There are some leanings, as I call them, in the brain about where something maybe is a little bit more dominant. As I understand the breaking system, the ventral lateral prefrontal cortex, or VLF PFC. I think, if memory serves, that it's more the right versus the left. It could be the other way again, not a neuroscientist, I think that's the meaning to one hemisphere, right, but the way the brain seems to operate is very network, you know, sort of integrated across both hemispheres and that another end. So that idea of oh, I'm this or that, that label people put on themselves, I think precludes them from, from accessing other abilities that are in their integrated brain, right, and maybe in Gordon talks a lot about integrated neuroscience.

Paul McGinnis: 23:34

I pushed back on or I was surprised by actually was when I was doing all this learning and development and was the idea of learning styles, which has kind of been debunked.

Paul McGinnis: 23:42

As I understand it, many of us in the talent field still see, I still hear quite a bit of that talk out there and that's so. That's like a holy grail on most of things and that's the other thing. It's not just the neuro myths, Garry, but it's. It's how counterintuitive some of the research, what it kind of displays to us, and so that's been really informative and surprising and helpful to me. So it's not just the myths which can kind of send us down some rabbit hole, but it's just the nature of how some of what we do think the science says the opposite. And these aren't strong myths out there, they're just understandings or beliefs that we carry that kind of, I think, fall outside of the myth area, so that those two in particular, left right, brain and the learning styles, when I was doing a lot more of that, I didn't say speak to it too much because again, it's a bit, you know you'll stir a horn and stir it a lot from this podcast.

Garry Schleifer: 24:38

I'll wait for the heat. Well, I know it. Let's hope it stirs up some feelings and emotions and observations and learnings.

Paul McGinnis: 24:48

Even in my own learning and in my own facilitation and what I know about the brain, that the, the, the visual cortex, is way bigger than the auditory cortex and it's way more integrated. And so to say I'm an auditory learner I think it seems to fly a bit in the face of the power of the brain and how much harder that would be if we just relied on that. So just from a, I hate to say, common sense kind of approach, but just if I look at the research and how the brain is structured, I go, I don't know, that doesn't make sense to me. Now, if you use multiple senses, that's gonna create more, a broader set of attention across the brain. That's gonna create stronger wiring, so that I do get. So the more you can mix modalities, the more powerful that experience is gonna be. And then there's other cliches we have about a picture paints a thousand words, speaks to the visual cortex. Right, we don't say a paragraph paints a thousand words, because the paragraph is only so many words.

Garry Schleifer: 25:50

A podcast paints a thousand words. No, yeah, exactly, yeah, no. Well, we hope that our podcast do help in their own way. Paul, what would you like our audience to do as a result of the blog article in this conversation?

Paul McGinnis: 26:07

Yeah well, first I'd suggest or I don't want to tell them to do anything, but I would suggest be curious that I'll often talk with leaders about the difference between being skeptical and being curious. One is kind of closing down and one is kind of opening up, and so if you are skeptical, then research this, dig into this a little bit, find some research. By the way, most of the research is incredibly dry.

Paul McGinnis: 26:35

So that's how you get through, yeah, but obviously be curious and maybe pick up some books on it, maybe listen to a few more podcasts, find a few neuroscientists that spark an interest in you, or find some topics in the field that you'd be more interested in.

Paul McGinnis: 26:53

What is going on in the research? It seems like each neuroscientist is studying something a little different in their lab, and so be curious and kind of go out there and see what's there for you. The other thing I'd suggest is be curious about your own experience as a human and how your brain operates, and notice what is going on when you're at your best and when you're not quite, and what is happening inside your own head, and the more I think we start to understand that and get an understanding of it, I think the more empowered you'll start to feel. Again, we're all human. It's never gonna be perfect. I don't have the level of regulation I'd like still a work in progress but I think those are the two biggest things is be curious and learn more, but also pay attention to your own human experience and how that informs you.

Garry Schleifer: 27:43

Yeah, very much so, and then thereby informs yourself about your clients and how to work with them. So, yeah, thank you very much. What's the best way to reach you, paul?

Paul McGinnis: 27:53

Well, you could reach out to me by email, paul@ response-ableconsulting. com, or my home office number is 516-216-4233. That's in the US, so that's a plus one in front of that Eastern time zone. Yes, sir, I went east of the New York City region on Long Island, and also on LinkedIn and I think my profile link is included with the article and probably on the podcast Bio Info. So, yeah, and we're also. I'm always trying to create community around this. I met so many people through the programs I've delivered and just through the work I've done that. If you're interested in learning more, I wanna challenge anything. Let's have a conversation. I learned both ways, yeah so we'd love to connect.

Garry Schleifer: 28:44

Get curious, call Paul. There you go. Oh, Paul, thank you so much for not just for writing that article but for joining us for this Beyond the Page episode. It's been amazing Manding versus desiring. That's it for this episode of Beyond the Page. For more episodes, subscribe via your favorite podcast app like Apple or Spotify. Please let your friends know If you like it. Let your friends know if you don't. Let me know If you're not a subscriber to choice Magazine. You can sign up for your free digital issue of choice Magazine by going to choice-online. com and clicking the Sign Up Now button. I'm Garry Schleifer. Enjoy the journey of mastery. Thanks again, Paul.

Paul McGinnis: 29:32

You're welcome. Thank you so much for having me.