Self Mapping – Getting to self awareness and self esteem

Grant Leboff: Brian in business, in leadership, there has got to be a certain amount of self-confidence and that means, at least to an extent, liking yourself and liking what you stand for. I don’t know if this is a very British trait, certainly, to have a lot of self belief and we can’tbe arrogant! So just how do you get to that? How do you get to that place because, for me, certain self-awareness means being aware that we don’t get things right, and those kind of things – but then that’s a dangerous territory in which to sit – and then liking oneself afterwards. I think were all good at beating ourselves up about stuff, so how do you get to a place where you’ve got your self-awareness, and at the same time you like yourself as well?

Brian Mayne: it’s a whole bunch of things that go into the mix but, in essence, self-esteem is the measure of how much you like yourself. All the time that you’re telling yourself that you’re wrong in some way; that you’ve made this mistake, that you’ve done this thing wrong, that you’ve done that wrong, all that is causing low self-esteem because, when you think negatively it stimulates the neurons in your brain to release a chemical called cortisone. The cortisone gives you the feeling of sadness and depression, and that lowers your self-esteem. When you think a positive thought about yourself, you tell yourself I like myself, I’m okay with myself. That releases a different chemical, serotonin, and that raises your self-esteem.

So it’s a balance between accepting that mistakes happen. No one sets out as a baby to be less than their best, but we learn through life and we learn through the experiences of life and, sometimes, we get it wrong, and that’s okay because that’s part of the journey in getting it right.

What I encourage people at every organisation and every level within every organisation to do, is to be themselves. Take off the mask, be your true self, be okay with yourself and have a culture in the organisation where we don’t tolerate incompetence, but when somebody makes a mistake they don’t have to be so fearful that they can’t put up their hand and say ‘look here’s this mistake that is been made’. In doing that, not only is it a learning for them – that helps them to move forward and keep their self-esteem intact – but other people can learn from it as well. We don’t just learn from our own experience, we learn through the experiences of others. There is always a balance between being really open and not trying to hide behind the mask or hide from the realities of life, and at the same time, being okay with yourself and the fact that every so often things go wrong.

Grant Leboff: And how do you maintain that balance? In a leadership role or in a business role, you have got to make decisions all the time, you won’t get them right all the time. It’s good to be able to reflect, to see where it went wrong and how it went wrong, because you learn from that. But at the same time it’s very easy, then, to get in a cycle of I’m rubbish and I made a mistake, and then you beat yourself up and you’re back into the low self esteem and that cycle. Are there any techniques / tips for people as to how they can keep that balance, because it’s quite a delicate line isn’t it.

Brian Mayne: I use the self mapping system. The self mapping system uses a combination of words and pictures to activate the whole of the brain, and it really captures people’s best thoughts about themselves. It captures their best feelings about themselves, and it captures their best actions. This is because, regardless of what you do, each person is a compilation of thoughts and feeling and action.

It really starts with the thought / it starts with the consciousness. You think of a good thought about yourself – ‘I like myself’. That triggers the release of the chemical serotonin and it gives you a good feeling. That feeling shows up as an attitude, that attitude empowers or influences your behaviour and action, your behaviour and action leads to results. So if you have a map that you look at once-a-day – and I recommend people to do it in the morning –  that triggers a whole chain of consciousness and feeling and action that carries a person through the day. It sets them up to have their best day, and it’s why I have so many corporate organisations using it. It’s a great leadership system, but we live in such a fast changing world that I find more and more organisations are looking for people to be leaders of themselves at every level, not just at the senior level.

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