Sucheta Kamath: Welcome to Full PreFrontal, a brand new podcast where I will be exploring the job of the CEO of the brain that’s in charge of a set of skills called ‘executive function.’
So executive function is one’s capacity to do what you mean to get done but more proficiently, promptly, intentionally, and flexibly. A highly-developed executive function skills help you regulate your behaviors, your attitudes, your actions by taking into account your hopes, desires, and goals. These skills help you adjust, adapt, and redirect your focus, and motivation in an organized way to produce results that help you achieve your immediate and future goals.
So the term ‘executive function’ is new but the idea is really not. You’ll see what I mean. Everyday activities rely on strong executive functions. For example, remembering to pick up prescription after work, turning in your homework assignment, depositing a check, using a coupon before it expires, waiting for your turn to speak in a meeting, requesting an extension on a project, or avoiding temptation to binge-watch Netflix. Yes, that also requires good executive functions. So you only become aware of your executive function skills when things go wrong. That is when you run into a glitch or when you don’t achieve your goals. Strong executive function is also necessary for more complex tasks such as building a vegetable garden, working with a subcontractor, for example, while you are wanting to extend your sunroom, or refinancing the house, or coordinating a summer family reunion. Let’s say you are in charge of that summer family reunion and you need to decide which days work for everyone involved. You need to check the flights, you need to book the cheapest hotel in the best possible location, you need to kind of go through all activities so that they fit all the ages. You need to troubleshoot if luggage gets lost or somebody doesn’t get the right room, etc., etc., etc. So in essence, to pull this off, you need great executive function. But that’s not all; your brain recruits the finer aspects of executive function skill in social situations where you have to navigate people, their moods, their reactions, their attitudes, or their beliefs. At the family reunion, for example, the real fun begins when the entire family gets together. With everyone there, you have to manage expectations, reach consensus, navigate conflicts, dodge interrogations, persuade others to change their mind, and most importantly, get everybody to have a good time.
So you see, executive function is not just one’s capacity to do what you mean to get done, but you have to get it done in a socially appropriate way by keeping your goals in mind, and some goals you have is to really form relationships or maintain them, or even repair them. Our brain’s prefrontal lobes act like the conductor in this case orchestrating and coordinating various goals and plans. During events like family reunion, we organize our thoughts, ideas, actions to get from point A to point B by navigating the world using optimal executive function and come to the other side unscathed, but the very prefrontal system in charge of executive function is vulnerable to physical, mental, psychological stresses. Executive function can simply fall apart with high level of stress, distractibility of the digital world, lack of sleep, inadequate nutrition, over commitment, or unceasing pressure to do well. So it’s important to understand how executive function works.
In my 20 years of clinical experience, I have witnessed people’s lives getting disrupted or even devastated by their distractibility, disorganization, lack of prioritization, poor planning, and inability to see the big picture. I have learned a lot about the way brain works and what goes into training these skills, and I’m very eager to share that with the world.
On this podcast, Full PreFrontal, you will hear me interview world-renowned experts who will simplify this concept which is very complex and bring clarity and resources, and hopefully, a message of hope that executive function skills are malleable and they can be learned. In short, Full PreFrontal is a podcast about discovering how to expand the brain’s capacity to be more proficient, organized, thoughtful, reflective, flexible, and socially savvy. When you learn how your brain works and what your brain is doing, it will allow you to unlock your full potential and will help you let itself change.
Now, I’m doing this podcast and I wouldn’t be able to do it without a partner. So on my podcast, I will be joined by Todd Schnick, my producer and partner-in-crime. Say hello, Todd.
Producer: Hey, Sucheta, it’s great to be with you. I’m so looking forward to collaborating with you on this show and eager to learn a lot more about our executive functions. In all honesty, [laughing] when I first heard about this subject, I thought it was going to be something about how a CEO operates in their corporate environment. I thought it was how executives function in the C-Suite, so clearly, I have a lot to learn about this subject and so looking forward to it. So how did you think about creating this podcast, this actual show?
Sucheta: Well, Todd, I have been in practice for a while and I love listening to podcasts but I didn’t begin to think about launching one until March of this year. To be specific, on March 20th, which happens to be the United Nations’ International Day of Happiness, and according to the world’s happiness report, once again, Norway, Denmark, Iceland, Switzerland, and Finland dominated the charts.
Producer: Really? See, I wouldn’t have guessed those countries to lead the happiness charts. I wonder why they rank that high, I mean, after all, we’re all the same species, are we not?
Sucheta: Yeah, I was thinking about the same thing, and that got me wondering, how do these Scandinavian countries actually manage to pull this off? Maybe there’s some secret sauce in their location or weather, or maybe even culture, or maybe there is something in the collective psyche of people. As I began to explore this topic, I discovered that a lot of people have thought about this as well and many say that a Danish concept of Hygge might explain the secret of happiness.
Producer: Hygge? So what the heck is that?
Sucheta: So apparently, this word is set to have no direct translation in English, Todd. At the most, the closest in meaning is the word cozy. So Hygge is a cultural concept which kind of reflects simplicity, relaxation, and being in a state of gratitude. In other words, cherishing everyday wonders with a sense of awe. Sounds to me like the Scandinavian culture somehow infuses the minds of people to dignify the mundane tasks by forming meaningful rituals so they can find joy in daily mission. You know that can be really hard. How does this connect to other areas? Well, these countries have also managed to work out the balance between personal achievement, individual creativity, and entrepreneurial initiatives, and they have inculcated some kind of concern, not just with themselves but their country and for the whole world.
Producer: Hmm. Alright, well, I’m beginning to see the connection between finding joy in the daily mission and what you were saying at the top of the show about doing what you mean to get done. It’s almost like being in the moment, this idea of being in the moment leads to happiness.
Sucheta: Yeah, and this Hygge captures the spirit of all those who have discovered how to do the daily essentials with great care and to simply do it well. And that is the essence of happiness, isn’t it? We want to be happy but that happiness can be achieved by simply doing, whether it’s simple or complex, life’s missions and task with great joy. So the million-dollar question really is, how do we bring meaningfulness in routines, see beauty in the repetitious and seemingly ordinary aspects of life and stay engaged in welfare of all? Well, that requires you to shift mental set and challenge your attention, control your impulses of the wandering mind, and reflect deeply and meaningfully which are all tools created by thus prefrontal cortex.
Producer: Yeah. Well, what you just said, shifting your mental set, channeling your attention, controlling impulses, and in my experience, my personal experience, that isn’t easy so how is all of this connected to executive functions?
Sucheta: Well, here’s the connection. We all are pursuing happiness but it’s hard to be happy when you are distracted, bored, impulsive, annoyed, stressed, fallen behind, stretched to the limit, or disillusioned with the whole thing called life. The way I see it, Todd, happiness is connected with the act of taking a perspective on one’s self, one’s own condition, and changing your attitude, behaviors, actions, and even effort, and that requires a great deal of something special, and guess what that is? Strong executive function.
Producer: Well, I’m beginning to see the connection. I mean, most people aren’t happy in my experience. They’re certainly not satisfied with where they are in their life or their career, their families, so it seems more clear to me now that knowing more and understanding executive functions can help you in the end to be just more happy, yeah?
Sucheta: Yeah, and as I mentioned earlier, executive function is one’s capacity to do what you mean to get done in spite of intrusion, disruption, distraction, hiccups, and unexpected changes. That’s kind of where the rubber meets the road and executive function is a set of higher order skills recruited during any tasks, activities, and situations that demand an intentional and novel response during unseen or unpredictable circumstances. So if we are doing something daily and mundane, we may not need to recruit our higher order skills but we can get bored and disconnected from that mundane. But when we are engaged in something novel and challenging, we may be panicking or may not be deliberate, and that balance is what is really required. So while navigating last-minute interruptions and unanticipated roadblocks, we must persist and be deliberate and goal-focused, and we must adjust or attention, motivation to problem-solve while shifting our point of view to deal with life’s complexities. And if we shift and adjust immediately, easily, willingly, and consistently, no matter what the result is, whether it’s favorable or not favorable, you can imagine, Todd, we will be happy. Let me give you an example, Todd. Let’s say you have a doctor’s appointment at 3:00 and his office is only 15 minutes away from yours. You leave your office at 2:30, giving yourself plenty of time. You get to the parking deck and you realize that you have left your laptop charger in your office, and you don’t plan to come back after the doctor’s appointment so you need that laptop charger. So you quickly run upstairs, hoping to just grab it and get back into your car, and proceed to the doctor’s office. Well, it doesn’t go as you planned. As soon as you arrive back into your office, your boss who doesn’t know you’re leaving for the doctor’s appointment that very minute, stops you and hands you some important papers, and proceeds to explain what this new project is, and you have a dilemma. If you don’t cut your boss off [laughing] or make that transaction short, you’re really going to be late for your appointment, and so you see, you have to reassess, shift, and readjust your attitudes, your feelings, attitudes you act as to achieve your goal. So in this case, your goal is to get to the doctor’s appointment on time but you also have to adjust your attitude and your actions so that you don’t kind of insult your boss or you don’t appear rude. So when you do that delicate balance of taking care of your goals, in that instant moment, you are pursuing happiness.
Producer: Oh, gosh, thinking about that scenario you just outlined there, Sucheta, I mean, that’s a situation that I don’t do very well, when I have to reassess, shift, and readjust when my boss interrupts me like that. There’s a lot of people who don’t handle that scenario very well or any kind of a sudden disruption to the plan or the routines. I mean, this causes stress and you just don’t know how best to proceed, right?
Sucheta: Yeah, so executive functions are brought on board when you experience a challenge. If it’s autopilot, if it’s routine, it’s predictable, no executive function complex engagement is required. But in these circumstances, we need the shift from autopilot to deliberate mode. And some people just don’t change or don’t shift fast enough. Let me give you another example. Let’s say, haven’t you had days where you have arrived at work and you have wondered like, how did I get here? You have driven and you have taken left turns, shown left turn signal, you have stopped at the stoplight, you have even let somebody go but you were, all the while thinking about something else, and so those kinds of scenarios, the autopilot is kicking in, no executive function is needed, and then suddenly, you find that you’re on your regular road and there’s a road work ahead, and lanes are closed or there’s a tree fallen, now you have to remap the whole thing and come up with alternatives, and this requires deliberate process of executive thinking.
Producer: Well, or if you’re driving to work and everything goes as normal, then I guess you’re not necessarily leveraging your full power of your executive functions but if you suddenly have a flat tire then all of a sudden, you have to rethink your entire approach. I mean that’s a good example, right?
Sucheta: Yes, exactly. So your executive function collectively supports the process of learning to learn, a very important part that gives you proficiency in your life that doesn’t come from any formal training. Executive function also support learning from mistakes, the process of learning from mistakes and developing soft skills that we use to manage social situation, and these skills help us deal with difficult people, or people in general. Collectively, executive function help you problem-solve.
Producer: So I used to think that there were just some people just naturally good at dealing with sticky situations. I’m understanding now that that just really means they have strong executive functions.
Sucheta: Yes, and I can give you another example, if you like. This actually happened to a friend of mine. She flies all over the world for work and this was her 10th trip to France. She had the whole flying routine down but after checking her bags, checking in her bags and standing in line for about 20 minutes, she handed her passport to the security agent only to discover that the passport had expired. So before she left for her trip, she obviously did not check, and after discovering, of course, the security agent would not let her go any further, so this is a situation that makes you say, “Okay, what do I do next?” So during adversity, executive function is what lets you pull yourself by the bootstraps with your good mental, emotional, and psychological elasticity, and this is nothing but resilience, right? So people typically describe resilience as a character trait but it really is good employment of executive process.
Producer: Gosh, again, just hearing about that example makes me panicky [laughing] because I would not handle that situation well, and what I’m learning here is that there are people that do handle it well and it’s because they have good executive function, and the people who panic and don’t handle that situation well, their executive functions are not providing the power and the will, and the ability to deal with a stressful situation.
Sucheta: Yeah, and you can think of many other situations in our daily life, right? So after you fail a test, you have to adjust. After a break up, you have to adjust. After you get laid off, you have to adjust. After even getting robbed, you have to adjust, so the minor hiccups such as leaving your laptop charger in the office or it could be slightly bigger hiccup such as not noticing your passport has expired, or even bigger calamities, such as having to divorce your spouse of 25 years. So all that requires executive function skills in essence.
Producer: Alright, so are smart people just better at this? I mean, what happens when people that have a high IQ, are they just better at this? Is IQ the same thing as executive function?
Sucheta: That’s a great question and this is a question that often people ask me when I present or a lot of parents, particularly, when bringing their smart kids, ask me. Well, executive function is related to but different from what we normally mean by IQ or intelligence. IQ measures language and logic skills, for example, and may not capture real-life adaptability. In fact, a research shows that executive function exclusively is a better predictor of academic skills and success rather than IQ. IQ refers to your smarts while executive function refers to how well you make use of your smarts. Does that make sense?
Producer: It makes all kinds of sense.
Sucheta: In essence, Todd, executive function has more to do with being able to put what you know into practice or being able to put your knowledge to use, and capacity to test in light of your future goals. Unlike IQ, executive function skills can be taught. In short, executive function is one of the most important set of skills that children need to acquire in order to be successful. It probably is most frustrating to see smart underachievers. So IQ tells us a lot about a person’s potential and when that potential doesn’t materialize, it can lead to a lot of dissatisfaction, and hence, it’s really important for us to understand executive function and its role in real-life success.
Producer: Okay, good stuff. Alright, well, Sucheta, let’s continue this conversation after a quick break. We’ve talked about what executive function is all about. I’m curious now, are there collective skills that make up executive function?
Sucheta: Of course, and so I kind of shared with you, Todd, that executive function is the key set of skills that are required for self-direction, impulse control, mental flexibility for academic, job, or life success. Brain’s executive function system is often compared to an orchestra conductor, and it guides and directs the rest of the brain, and this rest of the brain has many or several components. And let me walk you through what they are.
So the first and primary component is your attention system. Attention system refers to your ability to focus or pay attention but it’s not just simply paying attention; there are many, many types of attention. So for example, paying selective attention, sustained attention, alternating attention, divided attention, but what really matters from executive function point of view is your ability to pay attention to stuff that matters. So for example, you walk into the room and you are looking for your glasses. You are laser-sharp focused on glasses and you are literally ignoring they keys that may be right next to the glasses or the wallet that may be right next to the glasses, or an envelope with a return stamp on it, and you may ignore that and this kind of knowing what to pay attention to and continuously pay attention really matters. So take a student in a classroom: the student is, let’s say looking out the window and looking at cars, so he is paying attention so we really can’t accuse the child that you’re not paying attention. Well, what he’s not doing, he’s paying attention to the right stuff. He should be paying attention to the teacher but he’s not. He’s really paying attention to the cars. So paying attention to what matters is called executive attention.
Producer: Well, paying attention to something for a long time, something that matters, that’s hard for a lot of people, me included. I mean, I guess I never realized that this idea of focus is executive functions. When we complain about someone not focusing on something, that’s what they’re really struggling with. I never really fully understood that.
Sucheta: Yeah, and so I think more and more I describe these components, it will become clear to you that you and I have life experiences that kind of have created interruptions because of one of these parts not working well, so take example of the second component. It’s your impulse control, and so impulse control sounds very lame in a way that you sound like somebody has the impulse of grabbing a cookie from a plate, but that’s not only what refers to impulse control. Impulse control is more life self-restraint. People also, in my field, use the word inhibition. This inhibition makes you not behave inappropriately or not take steps that will cause self-harm, or create roadblocks in your own success. So take an example of this woman. Recently, I read a story that she was arrested and even put in jail for six weeks for playing Ed Sheeran’s song for non-stop during late hours of night, creating ruckus in her apartment building, and the neighbors complained and guess what? This was not the first time she had done that, so this impulse to want to play Ed Sheeran’s song because you love it bur you played again, and again, and again, for a whole one hour is poor impulse control. Does that make sense?
Producer: It makes all kinds of sense. I mean, how many people do we know that just say what they want, do what they want when they want to? I mean, I’m realizing now all these people out in the world that I observe and get frustrated with, they’re not bad people, they just have poor executive functions as I’m understanding this.
Sucheta: [laughing] Yes, and so let me take you to the next, on this journey to the next executive function component which is working memory. So working memory is a very interesting term because a person who’s not in cognitive neuroscience may–pay attention to this working and memory where terms can get misguided that, is this my memory to remember, dates and events, facts? No, no, no. Working memory is your capacity to hold onto something while you’re working on it, so we use this kind of skill all the time. So for example, if I quickly give you my phone number and I continue to talk to you, while you write down your phone number, you cannot process what I’m saying, or if you focus on what I’m saying, you can’t write down the phone number. We use this skill while paying a tip, so if I’m calculating a tip, the bill was $73 and the service was not that great so I want to give only 15%, I am multiplying 73 by 15 and divide it by 100, so if I’m doing this mathematical maneuver in my brain and if you talk to me and tell me how you’re planning a trip to go to Paris, I am going to find it very difficult to actually do the calculation. So working memory is really important holding place in the brain where a lot of planning and a lot of decision-making happens, and it kind of, when it’s compromised, it can create a lot of problems for people.
Producer: Oh, gosh, think about how prevalent this problem is today. We’re the age of this digital distraction, right? What happens when your email pops up or you get someone text you, or someone messages you on Facebook? I mean, boom! You lose your train of thought quickly. I mean, it’s a big problem today.
Sucheta: It is, and so I will tell you a little bit more about the next kind of challenge or component that can also rely heavily on working memory, for example. That’s prospective memory. So prospective memory is memory for the future. So it’s your capacity and ability to remember to remember something to do in the future. So this is not memory for the past events. But you can imagine, let’s say this minute as I record this podcast, a thought comes to me that I need to pick up my dry cleaning but I’m not going to pick it up until the end of the day, so from now until end of the day, I need to remember to remember to pick up the laundry. But what happens between now and the end of the day is lots of life events and lots of things, and there’s something called ‘ongoing tasks,’ so as I’m reminding myself to remember to remember to pick up the dry cleaning, I’m also remembering to do something that is going to happen in three minutes or something that’s going to happen in one hour. So prospective memory is really essential type of future-oriented executive function that recruits working memory to hold onto something you’re going to do in the future when the time occurs.
Producer: Yeah, well, yeah, you mentioned dry cleaning. I can tell you, a week ago, Friday I dropped off a prescription at the drug store and I said to myself, “Okay, you just have to remember to go this afternoon and pick it back up. It’ll be ready roughly around this time,” and I swore, there’s no way I’m going to forget to pick this thing up. Boom, Saturday morning, I realized I didn’t have my prescription and they weren’t opening until Monday. So [laughing] this happens to me all the time.
Sucheta: Yes, and we will talk with a lot of experts and they will help us understand how to manage it better, but yes, you are not alone in having struggles with this kind of executive component. Let me talk about the next executive process which is organization and sequencing. So organization probably is the keyword that people describe or use when they talk to me about their executive function problem. They often say, “I’m disorganized,” so let’s quickly talk about, what does organization and sequencing mean? So organization is your capacity and ability to create systems based on patterns and based on your understanding of how information relates to itself. So we use organizational skills all the time to create structure and routines in our daily life, so where we keep our car keys, where we keep our spices, or where the plates and glasses, and forks, and knives go. So that’s more outwardly organization. But let’s talk about internal organization. So internal organization is more how, let’s say you have five things to do this evening and it might be more effective to group them based on proximity, so for example, picking up dry cleaning might be a good idea if the dry cleaners is right next to your grocery store, and grocery store is right next to the CVS, so now what you do, is you create an organization and a sequence by taking care of things that are happening in your future by grouping things together. Now, people who are not good at that or fail to either create a system or fail to create an organized and sequenced aspect to their life, or they fail to adhere to it. And one of the things I always say in my practice, that it is not enough to create an organization. You have to keep up with it, and keeping up with it requires another set of organization. That means it’s like the Seinfeld episode where, Spare or Square, if you remember, Elaine was in the toilet and asks, when the toilet paper runs out and she asks the neighboring woman in the stall, so most often, we are reminded that we are short on toilet paper once we’re using it. And so this kind of chaos can create disruption in achieving goals, and innocence brings happiness.
As we talk about organization and sequencing, let me move into some other components of executive process which is planning. So we have short-term planning and we have long-range planning, so short-term planning, as I was mentioning, is picking up dry cleaning and making dinner, or feeding the family, but the long-range planning is more of goals that we pursue overtime that may take six months or a year, or they may happen once a year. For example, renewing a business license or kind of getting a new tag. Those are goals that we have that we are pursuing but they are happening in the distant future, but the long-range planning is more like losing weight or extending that sunroom that I was talking about, so these kinds of set of skills require complex recruitment of executive function, and so this then brings us close to connecting to the future self. So executive process allows you to connect to the future self. So future self is what? What is future self? So it’s me 10 years down the road. It’s me five years down the road. It’s me one year down the road. And most jobs or workplace asks you to say, hey, what do you hope to achieve in one year? Or when you do a performance review at a job and you are asked to say, what did you achieve, everything what you wanted to achieve now that one year has passed by. So it’s really hard to stay goal-oriented and when the long-range goals are so far away in the future.
Producer: Well, boy, I long complained about friends and family, and business colleagues that they just didn’t think long-term enough. I mean, this idea of connecting to your future self, I think most people are really lousy at that, me included. I mean, that’s game-changing when you begin to discipline yourself to think about your future self because that changes how you act now, right?
Sucheta: Yeah, well, I think it’s not that we are really good at it. I think we can really get bad at it, and so we need to have organization and structure, and routine to bring our attention back to these goals that we have for our future self, and if we don’t have a process in place where we do reflection and thinking, and kind of planning, yes, we are going to go astray for sure.
Let me talk about the next executive component, Todd, and that’s emotional control. So your executive process goes into regulating or controlling your impulses and paying attention, and kind of holding onto thoughts that are fruitful and useful to your future plan but those thoughts can be about our emotions and our feelings. So emotional control is to manipulate our own emotional state to stay the course. So this really happened to me recently. I was coming back from a meeting and there were massive thunderstorms in Atlanta, and the plane, we were in Kentucky and the plane wouldn’t take off until we had clearance, so we were locked, loaded, and ready to go on the runway but the message came and we had to be delayed. So the pilot came and the person in the seat next to me kind of slammed his iPad and had a big sigh, and another 20 minutes went by and again, the pilot came and says, “Sorry, but we have no further notice, so we’re going to continue and it may take an hour,” and this time the man stomped his feet and really like almost cussed under his breath, so that’s the kind of example of poor emotional control. So emotional control is again put to test under circumstances of roadblocks or interruptions, or when plan gets interrupted. So the plan was to fly and the plan was not to be delayed, and when he got delayed and the plane didn’t take off, he did not adjust that well.
Producer: Well, it sounds like you are describing me on that plane. I am not a good traveler. You know I travel quite a bit and when there’s a delay on a flight, I get very frustrated. I get upset. I whine like a little child. Now, I used to say, “Alright. Well, Todd, you are just not a patient guy.” Well, I guess what I should say now is, “No, you have poor executive function,” because I didn’t realize that connection. Because I do observe people on the plane who handle it just fine. They just relax, they sit back, get some more coffee, read a book and they don’t seem flummoxed at all and yet I act like a child.
Sucheta: Well, that’s a great observation about yourself. What I would say, that instead of saying, “I don’t have good executive function,” Todd, I would say, Todd, employ your good executive functions because you can really call upon them and you can temper yourself, and you can redirect yourself, and you can do something called self-talk. You can guide yourself in these moments of crisis and bring your attention to staying in the moment and being present, but yes, I 100% agree with you; it’s not easy and it’s certainly not easy if too many–you are bombarded by interruptions one after the other.
So this brings me to the next component of executive function which is called cognitive flexibility. So flexibility, the word flexibility is kind of self-explanatory, but cognitive flexibility refers to your capacity to take perspective and think about others, and be able to think about a perspective from somebody else’s point of view, and shift your mindset to almost stop thinking from your point of view, and when you do this dance of thinking about someone else’s point of view, thinking about your point of view, so on that plane, for example, if you think about the pilot who probably has a next shift, if you think about the flight attendants and all the work they will have to do, managing frustrated and disappointed passengers, if you think about those who have connecting flights to another country, or if you think of other returning home whose wife has gone into labor, so if you start thinking about other people who have bigger crises, bigger needs, then you kind of take a better perspective on yourself and say, “Okay, I think I can manage this.”
Producer: Yeah, well, thinking about this cognitive flexibility and understanding the perspective and thinking about others, I mean, this goes back towards, as you said at the top of the show, your ability to do what you mean to get done but in a socially appropriate way, right?
Sucheta: Yes. Yes, so anytime and every time we are managing a crisis, managing a novel situation, managing a failure to do well, we have to stay socially appropriate. And if we are good thinkers and we have great capacity and intelligence to think complex, and we can solve worse problems, but if we are inappropriate, we are going to have difficulty navigating that social scene and connect deeply with people, and emotionally stay vulnerable and be able to express our love and compassion for the world, and that’s why it’s not adequate to be just smart. It’s really important that we are able to self-restrain and control ourselves.
So this brings me to the most complex aspect of executive process which is self-regulation, and the self-regulation refers to self-awareness, self-control in the moment, and self-monitoring, so self-monitoring is continuing to keep an eye on yourself. Self-awareness is making a note about your behaviors, attitudes, your irritability, your failures, and self -change that happens, happens through self-awareness.
Producer: Yeah, this idea of self-awareness, I think, I’ll say this bluntly, I think most people are not self-aware. I think just lack of self-awareness is a huge contributing factor, going back to the top of the show where you’re talking about this idea of knowing the self and being able to take actions that will make you happy. I think self-awareness is critical, this idea that you let off the show with unhappiness.
Sucheta: Yeah, so I mean, I’m going to tag this back to the next executive component which is problem solving. So your self-awareness is a tool to solve problems for self, so when you hear the term problem solving with respect to executive function, it is not solving problems of the world. It is teasing out ideas and putting them back together in a new and useful way for yourself to benefit your own goals that you have. So it’s not a selfish goal but a self-enlightened goal, that how do I create peace and harmony for other people? So for example, if you get into an elevator and everybody’s riding quietly except this one obnoxious person who’s loudly talking on the phone, so if that person is not self-aware, he’s not going to solve a problem that he has created for others in a way, and in return, that becomes a problem that he is going to face himself. It’s his own inability to self-restrain and then creating obnoxious, his obnoxious behavior’s creating tension in the elevator will make people not like him or not find his company enjoyable, so for that, he needs to solve a problem for himself.
And this brings us back into motivation. So the last component of executive process is self-motivation. This is an ability to mobilize your focus and energy and activate your own self with your future in mind, and so a lot of people that I work with in my practice suffer from motivation. They have no motivation to remind themselves to remember to remember, say picking up the prescription as you mentioned, in the moment, it feels like there’s no way I’m going to forget to pick up the prescription, and you have to kind of motivation to remind yourself during the passage of time and say no, no, no, this is really important for me and I’m going to do it. So mobilizing this internal energy also requires that recruiting high order skills of executive process.
So as you can see, Todd, there are very complex set of skills that together make up executive process. And a slight problem with one of these components can make you less proficient, make you tardy, make you not be able to achieve your goals in a successful way, and it is a very delicate balance that all of us are striving for, and those who are constantly falling short in one or two areas, or many areas, certainly experience executive function disorder.
Producer: Alright, so Sucheta, I’m thinking here, what’s the difference between a person such as myself who occasionally, as I’ve admitted over the course of this episode, that I occasionally have a problem with my executive function versus someone, say who’s got a very serious, severe, chronic issue with her executed functions?
Sucheta: Well, Todd, we all have executive function good days and bad days, and we can, of course, be victims of stress and our own poor planning, or distractibility, but well-developed executive function is essential ingredients, as I said, for life success. Its in practice wide-rage from students the employees, from married folks to widows, from low-income families or low-income individual to billionaires. Everyone needs a strong sense of executive function to thrive and blossom but they are not taught, so they can be impaired at a clinical level and that presentation is a lot different than somebody who runs into occasional faux pas. The two distinct features I feel are the frequency of the number of, how often these glitches happen and the complexity or the scope of these glitches, that means how wide its impact is on their life. So people with executive function deficits tend to become highly distracted; they are unable to focus for long periods of time, they are often impulsive, they are disorganized. They tend to be tardy, they take quick decisions that they regret quite often. They also have limited awareness of their own problems. These individuals tend to be emotionally labile or they kind of tend to get aggravated or fly off the handle very quickly, or they tend to implore or feel bad about something that they have failed to do, so they don’t have that resilience in them that allows them to kind of bounce back very quickly. They sometimes tend to get aggressive or get into social conflicts on a regular basis. People with executive function deficits tend to have inflexible mindset. They sometimes have difficulty dealing with problems that require great deal of attention to detail, and as you can imagine, such presentation or a person with these kinds of problems that are often thought to be soft skill problems can be easily misunderstood, and they are often misunderstood because it’s hard to put up with somebody who is unreliable or inconsistent, right? Often, the world is dissatisfied with their performance and is dismissive of their true potential, Todd.
Producer: Well, listening to you there, I guess instead of seeing people behave this way and taking immediate punitive actions against them, we need to recognize and consider that they may have deficiencies with their executive functions. That’s a whole new way of looking at these kinds of individuals. So I guess I’m curious to know about some of these implications of an underdeveloped executive function.
Sucheta: Yes, so people with executive function problems are often crippled by poor insight and lack of use of strategies. There’s a general unawareness and apathy towards their own condition which is so counterintuitive to an observer because one of the best motivator is failure, right? If I fail, I’m going to get energized to make changes in myself but unfortunately, that doesn’t happen with people with executive function problem, so those who are aware but unskilled are ashamed and embarrassed about their failures. So as you can imagine, this combination of poor insight or insight with some awareness of problems but great emotional maladjustment can create a lot of roadblocks for these individuals.
You know, Todd, I spend most of my time in my practice with clients, helping them connect their frustrations to lack of motivation and their desire for success with lack of organized thinking, and giving them that understanding, really, I found, really helps. What I learned in my practice, that ordinary people, with exceptional dedication tend to do better than people with extraordinary talent but without any commitment or effort for self-change.
Producer: Well, I used to think all that matter was the ability to succeed, so it sounds like to me that the will to succeed is just as important.
Sucheta: Oh, absolutely. But I don’t want to end this podcast without a message of hope. I truly believe that brain’s executive function can be trained. New habits can emerge with dedicated routines. New attitude can emerge with flexible perspective-taking, and new skills can emerge with exercise-based training, and I have done that. I have done that in my practice and I can’t wait to share that with people. But simply by experiencing challenges or failing at routines will not lead to change. Change comes with introspection and acceptance. It comes with patience and hard work, and finally, it comes with willingness to be coached and to be trained. The very skill that goes into self-change is motivation but people with executive dysfunction often lack motivation, so it becomes a real catch-22 for those who are trying to help these individuals.
Producer: Well, we always say, change is hard and people don’t like change but this appears as, this willingness to change appears to be the key towards success, achievement, and happiness.
Sucheta: Absolutely. So this brings me back to our whole conversation when you asked me how did I get into this podcast, well, I wanted to connect executive function to our desire to be happy. Happiness is a state of mind and our executive function helps us master that state of mind. I hope this podcast will energize people to seek happiness by working on themselves.
A well-known researcher, Martin Seligman, who studied positive psychology says that happiness is not just a private matter or individual business. In fact, foundation of individual happiness relies on both individual and collective contributions, so when we make change to ourselves, we are making a change to our environment. When we become happy through the changes we bring about, the world will become a happier place.
Producer: Well, the world would be a happier place and now I get it. I mean, good, strong executive functions is the key for all of us, in the workplace, in our families, with our friends and neighbors. That’s the secret to success in life and business, yeah?
Sucheta: Yeah, so I feel this podcast will help people zoom in on their search for happiness by shifting perspective with tools like reigning in distractions, that distracting mental chatter, or engaging in self-reflection, and redirecting thoughts and actions towards the future goals can truly make them happy. By stepping up and rising up, and by finding out how we get our brain to do what we want it to do, we will be making an inner revolution possible.
So don’t forget to tune into Full PreFrontal, a podcast that explores the mysteries of executive function.