photo credit: Pardesi*

A very common similarity that I have noticed in human behavior is that ‘we want to do something, but we don’t end up doing it’. I want to have a successful career but I disrupt my interview. I want to be thin but I over eat. I want to excel in my job role but I don’t complete my tasks for the day and so on.

How can the rationale behind this behavior be explained? Seth Godin in his recent post explained the phenomena – why is it so difficult to do what we say we want to do?

Answer: The Lizard Brain (Resistance)

Resistance – The voice at the back of our head telling us to go slow, not take risk, compromise and back off. This resistance grows further as we get closer to an insight – the truth of what we really want. Lizards (a physical part of your brain) hate change, achievement and risk.

An advice to entrepreneurs is to block the lizard brain. Be open to change and development, compromise, have meetings, fear critics, take risks and pacify the lizard.

The lizard brain is here to stay – it’s your job to figure out how to ignore it

The lizard is a physical part of your brain, the pre-historic lump near the brain stem that is responsible for fear and rage and reproductive drive. Why did the chicken cross the road? Because her lizard brain told her to.

photo credit: Joshua Rappeneker

None of us are unaware about the economic downturn and how it has affected businesses – small or big. You have the idea, drive, creativity, plan and resources to launch a startup but there are certain aspects you should be careful about when launching a startup in the midst of the recession.

Focus, discipline and building value – three tips for Startup launches and the rest follows. Seth Godin, (the Marketing Guru and founder of Squidoo) in an interview with Mashable gives more light on this matter. Here is what he had to say:

http://mashable.com/2009/02/04/seth-godin-advice-for-startups/

Understand that in a down economy, not only is there less money for people to spend on you, but you have to spend less money to make stuff that’s worthwhile.