Want to gain insights into the neuroscience behind creating change, habits,  decision making and gain a better understanding of some of our actions? Dr Gabija Toleikyte discussed this and much more on Episode 1 of the Reframe & Reset Your Career podcast. In this episode, we will learn about: Habits -  why we form them, what needs they serve, why it’s so difficult to change them and potentially looking for alternatives to those habits. Forming new habits takes time and repetition. Emotions - The role of emotions and learning how to understand our emotions and their underlying cause. Activities such as meditation, physical exercise, and time with loved ones may help to calm emotions. Motivation versus Inspiration – finding those activities and work which inspire you may help to increase motivation. Procrastination – it’s important to understand the root causes of procrastination and then tackle the cause to improve productivity. Decision making – when we have too many decisions to make, we may become stuck in analysis paralysis, and eliminating the decisions that don’t matter may help.  The “Amygdala hijack” may lead to us saying or doing things we regret so it’s best to not make any important decisions at this time! Overwhelming levels of stress are not good for performance but there are certain levels of stress which may help focus. The importance of sleep, exercise, and nutrition for brain health. Finally as an extra bonus, insights into personal relationships and why we are attracted to certain people. Dr Gabija Toleikyte is a neuroscientist, lecturer, and performance and wellbeing coach.  She is currently a lecturer in psychology at Sheffield Hallam University and her first book, “Why the F*ck can’t I change?”, will be published in January 2021. There were two significant events that helped develop Gabija’s interest in neuroscience, Firstly, when she was around 8 years old, she went to see a neurologist to deal with some migraines and he explained to her in detail how the brain worked, which fascinated her. There was a second slightly more sad event as her father had a stroke which severely affected him, fortunately, after intense therapy for three months he made a good recovery.  Gabija completed her PhD at University College London and her PhD findings were published in one of the highest impact research journals, Nature Neuroscience, in 2017. Prior to that, she undertook award-winning research on Parkinson’s disease at the University of Helsinki. During her PhD, Gabija also qualified as a business coach and coached UCL academics and administrative staff. Combining her neuroscience background with coaching experience Gabija started her own consulting company, providing coaching and seminars for organizations and the general public. Gabija is also a TEDx speaker and her work has been featured in the Guardian.   I first met Gabija in 2017 at one of her evening lectures and quickly became a huge fan of hers and neuroscience and have attended a number of her lectures and workshops since then. I was so pleased when she agreed to appear as the first guest on my podcast and we had such a fun conversation. Gabija discussed the importance of motivation or inspiration in relation to personal productivity and told me "I like to move from motivation to inspiration. So motivation is pumping yourself up to do the task you don't want to do which requires constant energy in order to do so. Now if you really get clear what things you really enjoy doing, what things are truly important to you and link that task to those things … you would naturally feel more inspired to do that task and being motivated would just follow naturally from it. So I find that a much more long-lasting effect."   People & Resources Mentioned Daniel Kahneman – “Thinking, Fast and Slow” Antonio Damasio – “Descartes’ Error”   Contact Gabija Website: http://www.mybrainduringtheday.com/ LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/phd-gabija-toleikyte Twitter: https://twitter.com/supergcoaching?lang=en Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/supergabija       Reframe & Reset Your Career Resources & Contact Info YouTube Channel:  https://www.youtube.com/c/ReframeResetYourCareer  LinkedIn Page: https://www.linkedin.com/company/reframe-reset-your-career/?viewAsMember=true E-mail - [email protected] Thank you for your continued support of Reframe & Reset Your Career, I do appreciate it. It would be great to hear from you, the listeners, and your thoughts about the podcast, YouTube channel or anything else, it's always a pleasure to hear your views. I have had some great reviews but not had any way of responding.    *Reframe & Reset Your Career, including any comments made by the host and guests, is for informational purposes only and does not constitute advice of any description, including but not restricted to financial, legal, investing or medical advice.*

  I am a complete novice to the podcast game and just did not think that I had the talent to host one. However, during lockdown last year, a good friend of mine, Lindsey Stewart, celebrated his 20 year anniversary at one of the big accounting firms and he kindly asked me to interview him for a podcast to mark the milestone. I have to admit that I was a little apprehensive but we had such a great time recording the interview and received some positive feedback and this was the initial spark to start me thinking about hosting a podcast. I am not a professional career coach, my background is in Finance and I have worked for over 15 years in front office and advisory roles in Investment Banking, the “big 4” accounting firms and Investment Management. However, probably similar to many of you, my career path has not been linear or smooth, there have been a number of peaks and troughs. Even though, I have worked hard and achieved some good qualifications, I have been through periods where I have struggled to find the right job and sometimes have felt stuck and dissatisfied.  This brought up two thoughts “is there a smarter more strategic way to approach career development as sometimes working harder is simply not enough?” and “is there a way of creating a systematic approach to the whole process?” This started me on my journey to understanding and developing skills and strategies to assist the job search process but also helping career progression once we’re employed. One of the practical ways I did this was by volunteering for the last two years for the CFA UK Soft Skills Working Group and have helped organise a number of events and webinars on a range of topics from public speaking, changing habits to improving productivity. I have also become fascinated by neuroscience and psychology, and was introduced to concepts such as mindset, neuroplasticity and and habit creation through wonderful seminars by Lucy Whitehall, a positive psychologist and Dr Gabija Toleikyte, a neuroscientist. I was intrigued by the notion that our brains are similar to those of our ancestors on the plains of Africa thousands of years ago. However, the life and death threats that our ancestors faced are very different from those that we face today. It made me think that if we are able to gain a better understanding of our brains, it may help us to understand why we do the things that we do and provide insights as to how we might change.  In the podcast, I talk about the highlights of the first two episodes. Episode 1 is with Dr Gabija Toleikyte, is a neuroscientist, lecturer, and performance and wellbeing coach, and the author of “Why the F*ck can’t I change”. Episode 2 is with Dr Christian Busch, who directs the CGA Global Economy Program at New York University (NYU) and is the author of “The Serendipity Mindset The Art & Science of Creating Good Luck”.   Rather than simply talking you through my life and career, I talk about the following events and themes which have had a significant impact on my life and career: Playing Cricket – I played for Middlesex, which is one of England’s professional teams and subsequently Essex from the under 11 to the under 19 sides and was lucky enough to play a couple of Essex Second Team matches. I was actually paid for one of the matches, so technically, I was a professional cricketer albeit with a very short career at the lowest level possible! I talk about important life lessons which cricket taught me and I was able to apply to my professional career such as motivation, being resilient, learning to feal with failure, confidence, teamwork and gratitude. Standing out from the crowd – I started my career as an Auditor at EY in London with over a 150  graduate trainees from the top universities in the UK, who were all ambitious and determined to succeed. It made me think how I would be able to distinguish myself from my peers. I discuss the ways in which I tried to do this and how learning new skills, such as speaking Japanese, and technical knowledge helped me. Building relationships - much of my career progression has been based on being authentic and trying to build relationships based on having common interests rather than being transactional. I talk about Robert Cialdini, the renowned author of “Influence” and finding “commonalities”, how keeping in touch with a former colleague helped me find a job in banking and when building my network, the importance of a genuine connection, thinking long term and how both parties might benefit. Luck – luck has played a huge role in my life. I was fortunate that my parents are both doctors who believed in education and was lucky to be educated at a great school and subsequently went to the London School of Economics. I talk about how it’s impossible to control luck but we are able to control how we react to bad luck and try not to dwell on it, thinking of it as a numbers game and the bad luck that I had when interviewing for jobs after university and how it turned around when I interviewed at EY.   Resources Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion – Dr Robert B. Cialdini Mindset – Dr Carol Dweck   Contact https://www.linkedin.com/company/reframe-reset-your-career/?viewAsMember=true  https://www.facebook.com/ReframeandResetYourCareer https://twitter.com/HarshaBoralessa   *Reframe & Reset Your Career, including any comments made by the host and guests, is for informational purposes only and does not constitute advice of any description, including but not restricted to financial, legal, investing or medical advice.*