Are Your Leadership Abilities Good Enough To Juggle It All?

Silvia Damiano
2 min read

Juggling requires coordination, concentration, and a great deal of practice. Many people feel like they are doing a juggling act when they try to balance work, family and social obligations. What if it were possible to increase performance, balance your life and improve leadership skills, all at once? 

Learn To Juggle And Live A Little

Most of us take our lives very seriously. And we should—within reason. But it’s important to laugh and love and really LIVE our lives.

While work is essential, it shouldn’t be the most important thing you do. To learn to relax a little, consider learning to juggle.

You may giggle and say that you could never learn to do something that requires so much mental and physical coordination. But that isn’t true. Don’t you have to multitask in your leadership position? Don’t you have to juggle multiple ideas and thoughts and workloads? Most of us do, and you are likely no exception.

Activities like juggling are good for your brain. Neuroscience has shown us that your brain needs exercise, like any other part of your body.

Forcing your brain to do the same routine at work day in and day out is not going to stimulate your neurons. Instead, your mental acuity will gradually slow and wither, just like muscles that are not used.

Leaders must be mentally, physically and emotionally fit to provide the leadership required in the new world of work. You can’t get by anymore with loud, brute orders. Your employees have valuable input, and you have to create the kind of work environment that allows integration and creativity to thrive.

I’ll drop something for a while, a year or maybe several years, and then pick it up again. I think that’s the way successful innovators work. They keep juggling ideas, keeping them in the air, in the back of their mind, to inspire them or enable new recombinations.

George M. Church

Are you really able to balance everything going on in your life? Or could you benefit from learning about how to correctly juggle all the critical things you need to do? Neglecting yourself is often the first way that we ‘deal’ with too many stressors. However, this is literally the worst thing you could do! 

How Can You Improve Your Leadership Abilities And Still Handle Everything Going On, Without Neglecting Yourself? 

Learning how to keep your body and mind in sync and performing at their optimum levels is critical for attaining performance. This can occur when you develop your integration, balance, ethics and mental readiness. 

You can increase your integration, and at the same time you can strengthen your social brain networks, critical in creating positive and sustainable relationships with others. These networks are as important as the ones that handle analytical thinking. Your mind cannot function well unless everything else from the neck down is also addressed. Your gut, body movements, sleep and breathing all contribute to a better you.

It is possible to learn to juggle, both in the physical world and in the reality inside your brain. You can increase your physical and mental performance with exercises like juggling, and you can also apply neuroscience to enhance your leadership abilities. It’s the best of both worlds—what are you waiting for?

Originally posted on: 5 April 2018
Last updated on: 24 March 2024
Silvia Damiano

Silvia Damiano

Founder & CEO
About my Brain Institute

Scientist, educator, author, speaker, coach, award-winning leadership specialist, filmmaker and creator of the i4 Neuroleader Model & Methodology.

Silvia's scientific background and curiosity about the human brain led her to a decade long journey of research into optimal brain functioning and the application of neuroscience in leadership and daily life. Her past and current roles have uniquely prepared her for the current undertaking, that of leadership activist & change agent.

Silvia Damiano founded The About my Brain Institute in 2009, with the purpose of democratising leadership & neuroscience. She has a passionately held belief, that leaders in our 21st century global economy and their organisations must radically change long-held ideas of what constitutes effective leadership

In her ground-breaking books ‘Leadership is Upside Down’, ‘Brain-Friendly Leadership’ and the 2018 documentary ‘Make Me A Leader’, Silvia provides both compelling evidence and explores the importance of leadership in our personal and professional lives and what it takes to develop the human behind the leader.

Silvia has worked in different countries, across many industries, helping teams and organisations improve business performance. Silvia’s clients have described her as a passionate, dynamic, a highly experienced speaker and master facilitator on the topics of Emotional Intelligence, Cultural Change, Neuroleadership & Engagement.

Silvia is passionate about leaving a legacy of well-rounded leaders who can act and decide in a way that better serves humanity. Her clients include Microsoft, Australian Stock Exchange, NSW Government, VISA, Fuji Xerox and Manpower amongst many other global companies.

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