From Chocolate Spills to Leadership Skills: Managing Your Brain at Work

 Have you ever wondered why some days drain you completely?

It’s not just bad luck—it’s brain science. I learned this the hard way after a day of unexpected stress, multitasking, and one very messy dessert. Here’s what NeuroLeadership taught me.

I knew this workday would be busy and different from most of my days. Earlier this year, I decided I no longer wanted my car because I work from home and travel rarely. I felt it was a waste of resources. My husband had recently retired, so we’re trying out sharing his truck. I don’t drive it often and don’t really like it, but since I use it so little, it gets me where I need to go. My daughter has her own car, but it's broken, so she needed a ride to work. I decided to take her and work from our office in the tech center. I also had a meeting with a new acquaintance downtown later that day, so it made sense to work at the office. My schedule was full, and I thought I was well prepared for all the events that day.

I got up that morning, got dressed to meet a new business acquaintance, and went to work in the office. I drove my daughter and me to work. I got in and got settled into my windowless conference room so that I could take 6 hours of back-to-back conference calls.

The meetings were nicely stacked, some business discussion meetings, then the first performance meeting. I had prepared for the meeting in the preceding week, so I knew what I wanted to say and had an idea of how the discussions would go. The first performance meeting went exactly as planned. I moved on to the other 4 business meetings, and those were status quo. The final meeting before I had to leave to go downtown was the second performance meeting. This one took a wrong turn, throwing me off my rehearsed scenarios.

The unexpected turn added a few more calls that had to be made, and it took me back personally. I really didn’t have much time to process what had happened because I had to get on the road to head downtown. I checked the traffic app, and it was smooth sailing to my destination. I had never been there before, but the day before, I looked at the directions and thought I was pretty well prepared. I knew there were some parking garages nearby and how long it would take to get there. Even with the little extra time I took with the last call, I was going to be there 5 minutes early.

“Your ability to make great decisions is a limited resource. Conserve this resource at every opportunity." (Your Brain at Work)

I popped in the destination in Maps and was off. While driving, I made a few calls to discuss the situation that had happened before I left. I was feeling somewhat stressed at this point. I got to a point downtown where I needed to pay attention. The road forked differently from what I saw on the map app, and I got confused. I sent a voice text to my party and said I would be late. I took the wrong fork and drove around the long way, then I picked a garage that I determined was too many blocks away and left the garage, then I missed the turn AGAIN! I finally parked the truck and got to the restaurant.

The meeting was going great. The conversation flowed. Then we ordered churros with chocolate sauce on a plate. I picked up the plate to move it to the center of the table, and the chocolate sauce came flying forward and spilled down the dress I was wearing. I looked at the expressions on my new acquaintances' faces and made a little joke about chocolate being the new-in-style perfume, then used six cloth napkins to wipe it off me and the table around me. We continued our discussion about our work, and I was really inspired by the meeting.

It was about 4:30 and I had to get going. I had told my daughter I would be able to pick her up by 5, but she started to text me earlier, stating she had to get to the rental car place by 5:30. I walked to the parking lot and checked the map app, and it was going to take me an hour to get back to the office where my daughter was. I ended up telling her to Uber, using my account, to the rental car place because I would be late.

I knew that on the way home, I needed to stop by the grocery store to pick up a cake mix. There was a celebration at work the next day for the Fourth of July, and I wanted to make a really neat cake whose pieces, when cut, looked like the American flag. I had practiced making this cake just a few days before, and it was perfect.

I got home and started making the cake. By this time, it was 7 pm. I misread the directions, and this cake was a “failed it” rather than “nailed it” kinda cake.  Needless to say, I went to the grocery store, bought some cupcakes, and called it a day.

So what caused the cake to fail?

Dr. David Broch, who coined the term “NeuroLeadership”, details in his book Your Brain at Work that our brains have a limited capacity to perform. He describes our brains as a stage with a conductor, and the actors are the events that occur each day, kind of like that Disney movie Inside Out.

When it comes to leading yourself exceptionally well, a key component is knowing your limits. Let’s analyze what happened that day.

• I was out of my normal routine.

• I was driving a truck that I wasn’t confident driving.

• I had to take my daughter to work.

• I had 2 difficult meetings scheduled for the same day, one didn’t go as I had envisioned.

• I had to go downtown to a new place to meet relatively new people in my circle.

• I spilled chocolate down the front of my dress.

• I was getting texts from my daughter about time constraints that weren't there at the beginning of the day.

• Traffic was terrible going home.

  
  

According to Neuroscience, I had too many new, unexpected, stressful, and highly important things vying for my attention. By the time the end of the evening rolled around, I wasn't thinking clearly enough about how to follow the directions for my cake, and it flopped… literally.

Dr. Brock says it is important to manage attention and energy.   Attention is a limited resource; multitasking reduces efficiency. Prioritize high-energy tasks when your brain is freshest (usually in the morning). Use rituals and routines to conserve mental energy.

How will I fail forward from this terrible day? I will make sure that the tough conversations are had on days when my routine is not changed. I will have those calls first in the morning. I will not multitask when trying to get to a meeting where I want to be fully present. Since the location was outside my usual area, I needed more brainpower, and I should have taken an Uber or Lyft.  I will not try to do more difficult tasks after a day that has already drained my attention.

“Mindfulness isn’t difficult. What’s difficult is to remember to be mindful.” – Your Brain at Work.