The Power of Dual Thinking

Our intelligence set us apart from the rest of the animal kingdom.

Our emotional awareness enable us to connect, empathize, and survive as a species.

Logic and emotions are powered by different regions in the brain. It is like they are two separate brains, or systems. They influence each other, but they operate independently of each other.

Alone, these systems are limited. When used together, we can thrive.

If you are dominated by logical thought, you might be brilliant but also come across as cold and uncaring. This limits you from connecting with others.

If you are dominated by emotional thought, you may connect with others but come across as weak and reactive. This does not serve you during stressful times.

In this article I am going to teach you how to leverage the strengths of both systems to enhance your life and work.

By recognizing the strengths and limitations of each system, you can leverage them at the right times to solve the right challenges.

By using both systems, you will feel better connected with yourself and others, and you will be ready to take effective action.

Why use our emotional brain?

Our emotional brain is meant for… well… emotions. When we have strong feelings, that is our emotional brain talking.

The emotional brain lives in the limbic system. These parts of the brain include the amygdala, hippocampus, thalamus, and hypothalamus.

These parts of the brain are responsible for recognizing threats and opportunities and readying our body with the appropriate physiological response.

For example, the fight or flight response is handled in the amygdala. An acute stress response is one of fight or flight (or freeze). The amygdala fires up in an instant to ready us for action. The emotional brain is fast. Like… very fast. Our first reactions are always emotional reactions.

Our brains are also good at detecting the emotions of others. We have specialized neurons called “mirror” neurons. These neurons respond to someone else’s actions just as if it were us performing the same actions. So if you smile, my mirror neurons fire to make me smile too. This is why attitudes are contagious.

Because our emotional brains are good at detecting emotions, we should use this while navigating social situations.

Here is where our emotional brains are awesome:

• Connection
• Threat detection
• Risk aversion
• Generating motivation
• Empathy

The rational brain does not excel in these areas.

With empathy, for example, we feel with another person. This connection is felt and not rationalized. Stop trying to rationalize while empathizing.

When in a one of the situations above, lean into your emotional intelligence. Save the rational intelligence for other scenarios.

Why use our rational brain?

I think this is obvious. Our rational brains are what make us humans. They have allowed us to defeat stronger predators, develop agriculture, and travel to space.

Our thinking brains are located in our prefrontal cortex, the frontal lobes of our brain that have evolved most recently.

Our rational brains are used for executive functioning, judgement, and problem solving. This part of our brain is slower to react, looks for data, and thinks through logic.

Need to solve a math theorem? Rational brain.

Need to fix a bicycle? Rational brain.

Need to create figure out how to build a pyramid? Rational brain.

The rational brain is good in the following areas:

• Problem solving
• Judgment
• Creativity
• Logical reasoning
• Planning and execution

Your emotional brain can impact how you feel while tackling the above bullets, but the core work is being handled in your rational brain.

Which brain are you using?

How do you tell which brain you are using? There are two check-ins:

1. How are you feeling?
2. How fast did you react or make a decision?

If you are feeling a strong emotion, you are likely using your emotional brain.

Also, if you made a fast decision, or felt an immediate reaction, you are likely using your emotional brain.

The logical brain can process data without emotion, and because it takes more time to think logically, decisions and responses tend to come slower.

If we take a moment to think (rational brain) we can usually acknowledge if we are acting emotionally or rationally.

Sometimes situations require one brain over the other. Where we get into trouble is using one when we need the other. For example, I fail at this every time my wife wants to vent and I try to fix it (emotional vs rational). Wrong brain.

That being said, you can apply dual thinking in most scenarios… especially when dealing with human challenges.

Dual thinking

Imagine you are in the middle of two people fighting. It could be your kids are arguing, or maybe your coworkers, and there you are in the middle tasked to solve it. What do you do?

If you only use your rational brain you risk misunderstanding the emotions of each person. Remember, people don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. Caring means you connect.

But If you only use your emotional brain you risk not working toward a rational solution.

Here’s what to do - Use both, but in this order:

Emotional < Rational < Emotional -/+

(I’ll explain what the -/+ is in a bit…)

In any situation, your emotional brain is going to be faster to respond. So you cannot get away from this brain thinking first. You will have an emotional reaction.

The question is what you do next. Well, use your rational brain to acknowledge your emotional response.

From this perspective, you can use your rational brain to explore and probe the emotional situation. What happened? What is each person feeling? What are the needs of each person? Which needs are not being met?

From this calm and rational state of being you can actually allow yourself to feel what the other parties feel (your mirror neurons will take care of this for you). Then you can ask rational questions and work to a rational solution.

To recap, we acknowledge that you had an emotional reaction, and then use your rational brain to explore and move forward. Now, you could stop here. However, I like to add an extra step: Emotional -/+.

To take effective action on a plan, emotions can be used as fuel.

Use your rational brain to explore the negatives of NOT applying the solution. This is the - in the -/+.

Ask questions like:

• What will happen if we don’t implement this?
• What will we lose if we keep going like this?

After generating those negative feelings, flip the script and ask the positive (+) opposites:

• What will be our ideal outcome if this works?
• What will we gain from implementing this?

See? Emotional -/+

Negativity serves as deterrent to avoid past behavior. Positivity serves as fuel to take action in a new direction.

This does not only work with conflict resolution between others. It works for conflict resolution with yourself.

If you feel stuck, lost, unmotivated, reactive, angry, etc, use your rational brain to explore the emotions.

Then chart a plan.

Then think of the negatives from NOT taking action.

Then think of the positives if you take action.

Bam… then get going.

The wrap up

We are humans. There is no way to avoid emotional thinking. Also, it is one thing that helps us survive as a species.

Being herd animals we care about our pack, our tribe. Our emotions help us analyze the health and state of our tribe by simply noticing emotions amongst our group.

Do not avoid emotions. Empathy is powerful.

Pair your emotional awareness with your rational mind. With this, your solutions will be considerate of the feelings of your tribe.

Use rationality to solve problems.

Use emotion to fuel action.

Thanks for reading!

Go crush it today.

Clark