Before I retired, I spent a good deal of time taking part in online webinars to keep current with new media trends. One resource I discovered is leadership and culture coach Christine Comaford, who for 30 years has been helping leaders navigate growth and change using her expertise in human behavior and applied neuroscience.

Applied neuroscience. What a wonderful term. Not just neuroscience, but applied neuroscience.

In her presentations, Comaford simplifies the functions of the human brain by focusing on three different areas she refers to as the reptilian brain, the mammalian brain, and the pre-fontal and neo-cortex which she refers to as the executive brain.

Simplifying even further, she assigns a question to each of the three areas. The reptilian brain deals with the question “am I safe?” The mammalian brain addresses “do I belong?” and the executive brain concerns itself with “do I matter?”

These three questions are useful considering when viewing marketing messages and even the news. Marketing messages or news stories that focus on fear of your surroundings address the reptilian brain. Those that focus on differences between you and others address the mammalian brain. Understanding this can help raise your thinking above these lower functions by shifting attention to the executive function question of mattering.