Action Potential.

This semester I started taking BioPsychology. If you're unfamiliar with that term, it's basically the study of the brain and it's functions. I am definitely not gifted with the knowledge to understand a lot of what we are talking about, but our professor, Alexander Toftness, PhD, is extremely knowledgeable and well versed on the topics. If you're into "science stuff" and want to learn a lot from a very knowledgeable person, you can find his Youtube channel here.

Recently we have been learning about what we call Action Potential. To dumb this way down for you (almost to the point that I feel I could understand it), our brains are essentially an electrical network. Positively and Negatively charged ions (particles) moving about Neuronal pathways (channels) to power our bodies and keep them working. When our Neurons (the pieces of the neuronal pathways that kind of "complete the circuits" if you will) become positively charged to the point that they become depolarized, or reach a difference in voltage greater than -40mV between the inside and outside of the cell body, they reach what we call Action Potential. Stick with me - this does turn into a leadership blog post. I promise. This Action Potential is what causes our brain to function, or fire.

The cool things to note about Action Potential for the sake of this blog, are 1) Positive charges are the cause of action potential. 2) Once action potential is reached, there's no going back. 3) More brain activity is due to more action potential. What this means is that once that specific difference in charge is reached, the action is going to take place. There's no stopping it. The more times this happens, the more action occurs, and positively charged ions are what make this happen.

Sometimes as leaders we find it hard to get our teams going, and if we're really unlucky, even ourselves. We ask all of what seem to be the right questions, just to end up right back where we left off; discouraged and unmotivated. What if our natural reaction to discouragement and lack of motivation was to always generate some action potential? Here's what we know:

1) Positive charges are the cause of action potential.

2) Once action potential is reached, there's no going back.

3) More activity is due to more action potential.

What if instead of trying to bootstrap our way to encouragement and motivation, we just surrounded ourselves with positive charges, or positive influences. Afterall, positive charges (influences) are the root cause of action potential, and once it's reached, there's no going back.

In the second paragraph, I mentioned that the charge is calculated by the difference between the inside and outside of the cell body, i.e. the cell and it's environment. You don't need to have the most positively influenced team (although that would be ideal), you just need them to be more positively influenced than their environment. Once we're positively influenced past that of our environment, we are going to go. All the way. Every time. No going back.

So how do we do it? We be the positive influence. We bring energy, we encourage, we motivate, we uplift, we empower, to the point people become so fired up that they can't help but be moved to action. You've likely heard the saying, "Hurt people hurt people," but the latter is also true, "Helped people Help people." Help others to be energized, encouraged, motivated, uplifted, and before long they will be helping others do the same. More activity is due to more action potential. It's a chain reaction; opportunity for exponential growth, but it starts with you.

If we want to lead well, we should look to be the positive influence that helps others reach their action potential.