About Emma Sarro
Currently, Emma is one of the researchers at the NeuroLeadership Institute (NLI), focusing on translating cognitive/social neuroscience into actionable solutions for organizations and communicating relevant research in an accessible manner to the public. Before this, she was a professor at Dominican College and New York University and a researcher at the Nathan Kline Institute. She received her bachelor's degree from Brown University and her Ph.D. in neuroscience from New York University, and her research focused on the development of sensory processing, the plasticity of the brain and behavior, and the impact of early life trauma.
NLI’s focus is primarily around leadership and how growing and developing your team supports the bottom line and growth of your company. Emma’s work with the NLI supports the idea that there is a huge benefit from recognizing and working within your brain's capacity and challenging it in ways that will lead to improvements (growth, innovation, creativity). On the team or leadership level, there are ways to best engage with others to encourage collaboration, trust, goal-reaching, and better team performance – all while working better within our brain's social needs and dampening our very sensitive threat detection.
In this episode, Steve and Emma discuss:
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Recognizing closed doors
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Accepting that you’re not there yet
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Tips for fostering a growth mindset
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Practicing compassion for yourself
Key Takeaways
- Opportunities are like closed doors that are just waiting to be opened. The unknown and the uncertainty of how things will turn out is part of the challenge of recognizing and opening those doors.
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Accept first that you’re not there yet; when you make a mistake, you learn from it as opposed to letting it mean that you aren’t good at that thing.
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Respect your cognitive capacity. Don’t overwork yourself. Also, exploit the power of the word “yet” - it completely changes the perspective if you add it in negative sentences.
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Reflect on how you can learn from mistakes. Practice self-compassion. Recognize that just like everyone else, it’s all right for you to make mistakes.
“Growth mindset is the first step - just by accepting that you can change and accepting that you can improve is completely different than accepting that you have a certain skill and that whatever you put out is the best that you can do.” - Emma Sarro
Connect with Emma Sarro
Website: https://neuroleadership.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emma-sarro-phd-in-neuroscience-4766784/
Connect with Steve and Jason
Website: Rewire, Inc.: Transformed Thinking
Email: grow@rewireinc.com
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Listen to the podcast here
Emma Sarro: Fostering A Growth Mindset
I'm fired up. I'm excited for my guests It would be so nice to say this is a long-lost friend of mine but this was someone I just got to know. Right out of the gate, I said, “I'd love it if you were part of our show.” Emma Sarro, welcome.
Thanks for having me.
I try to get that level of excitement up because I'm thinking that readers are going to be going, “Who is this? This should better be exciting if Steve's going to pump it up that much.” We'll get to who you are and why you're even on the show. I like to do something before we even get there. I want to know in work or life, however, you want, what are you grateful for?
I would break it up into what and who. What I'm grateful for is where I am. I get to do what I love and nerd out on the stuff that I love every day and help people get better at what they do at work, individually and all of that. The only reason I'm here is to who I'm grateful. My family, parents and brothers were my forever cheerleaders. They helped open the first door into where I am, which is all based on several doors that I had opportunities to open. They were the first ones to help.
When the doors were being opened, did you recognize them at the time?
Not at all until after I was through. In the very beginning, the only reason I got a step forward into the school that I ended up going to was that my parents supported me in a sport. I had no idea what I was going to get by going to the school that I went to. The doors opened up from there.
Most of our thoughts every day, whether we know it or not, are negative. So it does take a good amount of intention to keep us out of that state.
Have you ever talked to people about opening doors? Is that a concept that you talk about?
Not so much but I used to teach. When I would work with students that I was advising, I would try to help them in the same way. Playing this sport, for instance, might be fun but it's going to help you down the road. Add these things to your resume, knowing that they're not going to understand it then but maybe years from then.
The name of our show is The Insight Interviews, which you and I laughed about a little because of your affiliation with the NeuroLeadership Institute. One of the insights that I'm already writing down comes more in the question of, “Do I recognize doors? How can I recognize them?” After the fact, that's cool that we can. I wonder what I could do to recognize a door when the door is open and not maybe just after the fact?
That would help us in making all of our decisions. If we knew that we were at some impasse and had these choice points, we knew that going through one would give us this kind of opportunity but it's unknown.
It makes a lot of people meet those doors with anxiety and fear. Here we are talking about the greatest things of life that went through that door.
I do think you can appreciate these things after the fact but the uncertainty is what? It holds a lot of us away from doing things and making changes.
Growth Mindset: Accepting that you can change and improve is completely different than accepting you have a certain skill and that whatever you put out is the best that you can do.
I could easily read your resume and curriculum vitae. It was wonderful. Give us the Emma Sarro story. I can ask you to synthesize that but tell us how you got to where you got. If you could reader digest as best you can your story that brings you to what you're doing, that would be great.
My parents helped me make the first step. I had no idea what I was doing when I was doing it but I ran a lot in high school. They were my coaches. It was like a runner family but that defined me when I was younger and they still do, to some degree. It helps me get into the ground. When I went there, I was going there to run. That's all I cared about and I had no idea the opportunities that going there would provide for me. That's one of those things where I look back and realize that it changed my life. All of the people that I met and my connections from there helped me to fall in love with Neuroscience.
I happened to take a class in Neuroscience and I loved it. Sometimes when I think back on that class, I don't even think I paid much attention every single day. I was the typical college student but I did love Science and it then opened the door to grad school. I went to grad school at NYU. That brought me to New York. I had a great mentor. I went to the Center for Neuroscience, which is one of the Neuroscience Departments of the university. I studied the Development of Auditory Physiology with Dan Sanes in gerbils. It was amazing work. He taught me so much but also how to teach. I realized that I love translating Science for others. I did love research. I loved working with others more than I loved being on the lab bench.
Eventually, I ended up getting into teaching and taught for about seven years at a small liberal arts college, anything from Neuroscience to Biology, Genetics and a whole range of topics. I loved working with students and seeing their insights. If we're going to link it back to insights, I love watching them learn. It was very gratifying but then a position opened up at the Neuroleadership Institute, which is a different position but similar in that, I'm still translating Science.
In this case, it allowed me to jump back into Neuroscience. I'm fully focused on Neuroscience research. Sometimes I think about what my role is here as keeping the pipeline of research open for organizations. We work to translate science to organizations and help individuals in their performance at work and home, working better with teams, being better leaders, all of those things but we use Science to do it. I love it. I have to, as my job, keep on top of all of the new research and translate this amazing work into something that people can use to get better. That's what I'm doing and it's great.
For all I know, maybe I'm just the freak going. This is so cool. I have so many questions for you. I am a graduate of your Brain-Based Coaching Program through the Neuroleadership Institute and that's what intrigued me about your role. I don't know how much you get to interact with David Rock at NYU. He's a guy that's also passionate about the science of everything. It’s very cool that you get to do that. I wish I was with a group of people because long ago, they were like, “What questions would you like to ask Emma?”
When we overwork, we put ourselves in a state of depleted resources, and we're bound to see things as more threatening or in a negative light.
Here's my first question. Let's say you did that at a cocktail party or with a group of friends and you told them what you did, what questions do you typically get from people when you go into the fact that you got into Neuroscience, Neurobiology, you're a teacher, studying a brain, you kick out about it and it's the brain?
One of the top questions I get is, “Can you tell me what's wrong with me then?” I can't answer that one. I'm a huge brain nerd. I love talking about how amazing it is. That's usually the road that I go down.
This is off the top of your mind, pun intended. What specifically about the brain has amazed you?
The overriding thing that always keeps amazing me about the brain is how adaptive and plastic it is. We don't know the extent to which the brain does to control our behavior. For instance, when things happen to the brain, when we lose sections over or have damage to it, there are some amazing ways that the brain can recover, adapt to our environment and can allow us to do amazing things with our body as well.
Translate that for us. That's very cool. I'm going to make up a scenario here. Let's say I'm a manager. I'm a leader. I work in tech or at a hospital. I think to myself, “I want to get better at my job. I want to grow and improve.” How would you translate this capacity for the brain to change to someone who maybe doesn’t have a pathology like, “What's wrong with me?” Maybe they just want to get better in life, earn a better income or have better relationships. Help us understand what you said about the brain could help those folks.
The first step might be in accepting a different mindset. The idea of a growth mindset is the first step. Accepting that you can change and improve is different than accepting that you have a certain skill and whatever you put out is the best that you can do. Accept first that you're not there yet or that when you make a mistake, you learn from it as opposed to it meaning that you aren't good at that thing.
Growth Mindset: By accepting a growth mindset, you are focusing resources on the part of the brain that allows you to work out and reach your goals.
Accepting a growth mindset, that you can change and improve are awesome. Help me understand that neurobiologically. I get that experientially and humanistically. You're not just saying that because that is a little fluffy feely good thing. What's the neurobiology of a growth mindset?
There are probably several things but some of it is in the opening up a part of the brain that accepts new material. There are two major areas part of the brain that controls our cognitive capacity. Executive functions allow us to plan behaviors, have goals and things like that. There's a part of the brain that tries to keep us alive, looks for threats in our environment and responds to those threats. That part of our brain is very sensitive and it takes resources away from the part of the brain that allows us to go after our goals.
By accepting a growth mindset, you are focusing resources toward the part of the brain that allows you to work out your goals and reach your goals in a way that doesn't restrict you by the emotional restrictions that come in place when you think you can't get there. Part of it is focusing your resources on the part of the brain that will allow you to plan and reach your goals.
You're the scientist of the two of us but if I understand you correctly, the intention to do that is huge because if we don't intend that, that survivalist part of our brain will gather the resources.
To a very global view, that is right. By intentionally shifting these resources to a part of the brain that allows you to see small goals and then feel rewarded by them, that will propel you forward as opposed to being weighed down by this survivalist, “I need to survive and compete against others,” and see yourself in a different light.
There might be some science to this. You've got your finger on that pipeline of good neuroscience. Do you know of any science to suggest what percentage of people walking around the planet or here in the United States experientially? The way you put it, “I gather resources here,” so that you can take habitat. What percentage of people do you experience doing that well consistently?
The idea of reflection is pretty powerful because it forces you to look at what happened after the fact and almost label it, and take the emotion out of it.
That varies a lot and contextually as well. We're incredibly swayed by the world around us and it very easily puts us in a negative state. Even if you were to think about the number of thoughts that we have, most of the thoughts that we have every day, whether we know it or not are negative. It does take a good amount of intention to keep us out of that state.
I'm not trying to say that you're going to say 80% of people because we don't talk like that and the research doesn't support that. If I understand you right, is it fair to say even that the default mode for the brain is negative? We think more negatively, whether we like to admit that or not. Is that because of a survivalist predisposition?
I don't know the statistic or if anyone has proposed that. If they have, then it likely varies culturally. Some of the impacts come from how we grow up and the influences that we have then. There is some classic work in education that shows a very clear difference between enabling a growth mindset versus a fixed mindset in students and how that leads to performance in school and outside of school as well. There are probably huge differences culturally and socioeconomically as well. In a way, we've evolved mostly to survive and compete for resources. It does take a little bit more intention to be placed in that state of growth.
I hope not to put you on the spot too much. If you were going to write a book and the book was going to be entitled Emma's Top 3, 4 or 5 Ways To Foster A Growth Mindset, what would some of the chapter titles be to that? What are some key best practices that you know of to foster a growth mindset?
One of them is to respect your cognitive capacity. When we overwork ourselves, we put ourselves in a state of depleted resources. We're bound to see things as more threatening or in a negative light, as opposed to not. That's one. You use the power of the word yet. We talk about this in NLI all the time but this idea that even by labeling what you feel you're good or bad at like, “I'm not great at cooking yet,” that's pretty powerful if you say it that way, as opposed to, “I'm not great at cooking.” It changes the way that you view the whole skill.
If you put in place practices to see mistakes and reflect on mistakes, the idea of reflection is pretty powerful because it forces you to look at what happened after the fact and almost label it and take the emotion out of it. You feel bad about some mistake that you made. After the fact reflect on it and force yourself to use it as a learning experience, as opposed to ruminating on the negative emotions. That pull into place this emotional regulation piece, where if you're able to label your emotions, it disentangles the emotional heavy piece from your ability to cognitively control it and use it to plan a future goal.
Growth Mindset: Being innovative means that you have to think outside the box. The only way you can do that is by letting your mind form new solutions.
That's three. One had a bunch of sub-points. Anything else for fostering a growth mindset?
If we were to talk about positive and negative emotions and this could maybe be applied to organizations as well but in general, being in an environment that fosters it will help you as well. It’s interpersonal relations. Leaders, for instance, should foster a growth mindset with their employees. Help them to reach their goals and not compare them with other employees. Take the competitive slightly out of that. They can help. The environment itself is important.
Here's what I've written, “Respect cognitive capacity using the power of yet.” You then talked about labeling. “Reflecting on how we learn on mistakes that we learn through reflection and then finding an environment that already fosters a growth mindset puts yourself there as best you can.”
I often think about this idea of self-compassion. It seems a little fluffy. Part of it at least is accepting this idea that we all succeed and fail and feel bad at some point. That is something that we have a hard time doing ourselves where in a way we're pretty self-centered. That's the way that our brain has evolved to think about ourselves all the time. We don't often think that we are the same as others. We see others fail and we think it's fine but we don't think that of ourselves. Part of it is accepting that we can all succeed, fail and feel pretty bad about it.
That's also a form of labeling and noting with a lack of judgment. I can hear that coming through a meditative session with anyone who practices meditation. It is this sense of a lack of judgment of our thoughts and feelings. They are what they are. What are you hope I ask you? What's one of your favorite questions to answer about the brain? I could go down the road of one million different ways. I want to go what are some of your favorite topics or things to answer about how the brain and people work?
I love talking about insights weirdly enough, given the show. I love the idea of the underlying reason why we have insights and the fact that we don't give ourselves enough time for insights. That's my favorite topic.
Stepping away and letting your mind wander is not really being lazy. It's just letting your mind form new connections in a way that it hasn't before.
I don't want to play the same game but if we had more time, Emma's best practices can get insights, which is similar to a growth mindset. Can you give us an example of an insight that you had about yourself that goes beyond the academic understanding of insights but a real example of, “What do you mean by insight? What happened to you when you got a great insight?”
What I mean by insight is it's like that idea that pops up in your head when you're not in a place where you can even write it down. Usually, you're in the shower, walking your dog, driving home from work or whatever it is but it's usually away from your computer. That says so much about what the brain is doing when you're having these ideas. These are these a-ha moments. They usually come with a lot of positive emotions. You feel good and never forget it. They're powerful. What they usually mean is that your brain is working on these problems that you've had that when you're at your desk, you're not able to listen to those sounds.
They're quiet signals that you won't be able to hear because you're focused on something else. That takes the spotlight away from those quiet signals. I've had so many of these moments that I think back to when I was either writing my thesis or working here. When I am away from my computer, I have to bring my phone with me so I can write them down quickly. I wake up in the middle of the night with some idea. That's why it happens. Your brain is still working even when you're not at your computer.
To facilitate that, would you suggest moments of stillness and quietness? Do you intentionally put yourself in those moments so that you can perhaps intentionally have these insights?
I try to. It's hard because we're also busy. Our default activity is to fill the space with something. When we're on a break, we look at our phones and turn on podcasts or music but we think we have to fill all of the space with something. The truth is that to foster most insight is by stepping away and letting your mind wander, which is not being lazy. It's letting your mind form new connections in a way that it hasn't before.
It's more innovative to do this, which is directly applicable to competitive organizations. Being innovative means that you have to think outside the box. The only way that you can do that is by letting your mind form new kinds of solutions. Most of the time these happen when you're in these eureka moments. It always happens when you're not at work. You have to give yourself time to do that. The cool thing about insights or these moments when you have them is it's not like you need hours so you can step away for 10 or 15 minutes at a time.
Growth Mindset: If you can give yourself 10 minutes away from triggers, then those 10 minutes are yours to rest your brain and allow your mind to wander a bit.
“Letting your mind wander. Being innovative,” are some of the things that I was writing down. There are so many off-shoot questions from that. Since we don't have a lot of time, I get to ask you a question. This one's for me and we can hopefully include other people. With that innovation and those insights, talk to us a little bit about the presence of cortisol and the stress hormone cortisol, which we know regulates digestion, heart rate and all kinds of other good things, yet if it's AKA the stress hormone and the distress people a lot of times because we're worried about this and that. Talk to us about the relationship between innovation and mind wandering for the good, eureka moments and the presence of cortisol.
In general, lots of cortisol, especially for long periods of chronic stress, trauma or things like that are bad for the brain. There's a reason it's released to help us survive and get all of our resources out so we can survive long periods of stress but normally, we've evolved to have bursts of this and then had it return to normal. With periods of chronic stress and chronic cortisol, it can have structural damage to your brain. In the short-term, it is a louder signal in your brain than what you need for insights. You won't be able to turn that attention off and listen to those quiet, innovative signals when you have high levels of cortisol.
It'll take it away. However, there is this idea of use-stress, which is your ideal level of stress for performing. The butterflies that you get in your stomach before performing, speaking or things like that are a good level of stress, not very high levels of cortisol and good for performance. Having deadlines and things like that sometimes can be good to a point but chronic stress is over the threshold for what you need and can be damaging to the brain.
I'm super sensitive to making stuff up but it seems to me that it would be pretty difficult to be under chronic stress. We're worried about our jobs, sales, money or our kids. For so many people, stress is chronic. I want to bring you back and talk about chronic stress, the effect of cortisol and on the hippocampus specifically. If one of the things that we're walking away with is, “I'd love to be more innovative, have those eureka moments,” would it be okay to suggest to people to start attending to that level of chronic stress? Forget all the nefarious physiological effects that we know cortisol can bring. If nothing else, it's got to block our ability to be innovative.
If you're able to first step away from the triggers that cause you to feel stress, sometimes it's hard but if you can give yourself 10 minutes away from those triggers so you can't see your computer or you're away from some of those polls, then those 10 minutes are yours to rest the rest of your brain and also allow your mind to wander a bit. It does take practice and is hard to do. That's almost like a habit that has to be formed but it can help the other parts of your day when you need to focus.
Can we come back one day and talk about habit formation?
Yes.
I looked down at my stopwatch and saw the time. I was going, “Cortisol.” It arrested me. I got hijacked. Unfortunately, we got to come to a close. I am super grateful for our time. Thank you so much for being a part of this.
This is so much fun. I love it anytime.
You and I talked about being nerds together in this but you're the one that has gone to the lengths to study this and understand it. I'm super grateful. Folks, usually we end this thing by talking about the insights and I will tell you that it doesn't matter what insights I have. What matter is yours. It is what a-ha moments, eureka moments, insights and dawnings you have as you look at things like finding an environment that fosters itself, compassion and cognitive capacity. If you don't read this thing again and think of yourself through it, that'd be no good. I know I'm going to. Emma, thank you.
Thank you.
We'll see you next time.
