Your ability to manage your brain is your most important skill. When you understand the animal origins of your dopamine, serotonin and oxytocin, you have power. Your happy chemicals are wired by past experience so they're hard for your verbal brain to make sense of. Mirror neurons also shape our responses in ways that are not obvious to the verbal brain. To be a good leader, understand your own responses.

1. Leadership and the Brain
Loretta G. Breuning, PhD
Loretta@InnerMammalInstitute.org
Inner Mammal Institute
dopamine endorphin oxytocin serotonin

2. Managing
your brain is
the skill
beneath all
other skills

3. It’s hard
because
we have
two brains

4. 1. The verbal cortex
2. The limbic system inherited
from earlier mammals

5. Your mammal brain
cannot process language.
It responds with chemicals

6. It releases happy chemicals when
it sees something good for you
dopamine endorphin oxytocin serotonin

7. It releases unhappy chemicals when
it sees something bad for you
cortisol

8. Your mammal brain can’t tell you in
words why it’s releasing chemicals

9. Your verbal brain doesn’t
control the chemicals

10. So how can you find your power
to lead yourself and others?

11. 1. Your happy chemicals evolved to promote
survival, not to make you happy
2. Your chemicals are wired from past experience,
but new wiring can be built from repetition
3. Mirror neurons fire when we see others experience
rewards and threats

12. 1. Your chemicals evolved to reward survival
action, not to flow all the time for no reason
When you know how they work in
animals, our impulses make sense

13. Dopamine
is the expectation of a reward
A reward is a way to meet an
UNMET need

14. Dopamine
releases energy when you approach a reward
Each step closer to a goal
stimulates more dopamine

15. Think about what you do to trigger
dopamine in your life
It keeps you focused on the
unmet need

16. Oxytocin
is the pleasure of social trust
Our brain makes careful
decisions about when to trust

17. Oxytocin is released when
it’s safe to lower your guard
When you’re separated
from the herd, your oxytocin falls

18. Think about what you do to trigger
oxytocin in your life
It keeps you focused on the herd

19. Loretta Graziano Breuning PhD, Inner Mammal Institute © 2015
Serotonin
is the pleasure of
social dominance

20. Loretta Graziano Breuning PhD, Inner Mammal Institute © 2015
Serotonin
is not
aggression
but a calm
sense that
“ I
will get the
banana ”

21. Think about what you do to trigger
serotonin in your life
It keeps you focused on
social importance

22. 2. Our happy chemicals are wired by
past experience. To rewire, feed your
brain new experiences repeatedly.

23. We repeat behaviors that stimulated our
happy chemicals in the past because
experience built a pathway
dopamine endorphinoxytocinserotonin

24. To build new pathways,
design a new way to get rewards
and repeat a lot

25. The electricity in your brain will
have a new place to flow

26. 3. Mirror neurons activate when we
see others experience
happy or unhappy chemicals

27. Choose your companions
carefully

28. Don’t reward bad behavior
because everyone will notice

29. Your power over your brain’s
responses to the world…

30. You can learn to notice old
pathways and design new ones

31. You can lead others to trigger
good feelings in healthy ways

32. You can create new
ways to feel good!

33. books
podcasts
videos
infographics
training certification
slide shows (incl this)
5-day Happy-Chemical
InnerMammalInstitute.org
The Inner Mammal Institute
has the resources you need
to make peace with your inner mammal

34. Loretta@InnerMammalInstitute.org
contact me

36. horses lead from the center

37. how to manage frustration

38. cortisol

39. New paths to dopamine

40. Plan many goals so you can keep
stepping even when one path is blocked
Plan a short-run goal, a long run goal, and
a middle term goal to keep feeling good

41. Small steps are enough if
you keep taking them

42. New paths to serotonin

43. Take
pride in
each
step