Making Hope Happen: Create the Future You Want for Yourself and Others by Shane J. Lopez Read Free Book Online Page B

anymore or aren’t in your best interests and links you to goals that warrant your resources. It pushes you to make smart choices.
    This is the part of my brain that nudged me toward reality and helped me recognize that I wasn’t young or talented enough to pursue one version of my dream job—shortstop for the Boston Red Sox. The rACC was also at work when Jerome Groopman was trying to figure out whether he should experiment with more treatment for the back injury that caused him so much pain. Groopman had to sort through the best- and worst-case scenarios for the future and align these scenarios with his feelings, his years-long emotional battle with pain. Only then could he choose hope.
Planning Your Next Steps
    The final key station along the brain’s prospection pipeline is the youngest part, the prefrontal cortex. It lights up when college students are asked to think about the courses and credits they need to graduate, when CEOs are challenged to develop and execute a vision for their company, and when you are asked to think about how you will search for that dream job.The prefrontal cortex functions as the brain’s command center, carrying out the executive functions needed to convert vision to reality. It gathers and coordinates information from many other parts of the brain, develops strategies for reaching a goal, and executes the plan. It moderates the constant interplay between our emotions and our cognitive functions, and it also processes social cues from the world around us. All this is necessary for us to be able to develop and follow a course of action to the outcome we desire.
    One recent study of prefrontal cortex functioning stands out for the way it reinforces the importance of hope. Suzanne Peterson, business professor at Arizona State University, used EEG technology to tap into the minds of fifty-five business and community leaders as they created visions for their organizations’ future. The leaders were first given a hope test and then asked specifically to think about how their organizations would grow, how growth would align with their core values, and how they would better serve clients. The electrical activity of their brains was mapped as each individual envisioned the future; then all the maps were compared. Every executive showed prefrontal activity, but those who had previously tested low in hope showed more activity on the right side—the side associated with negative outlooks and behaviors. Those who came up with the most positive plans for the future showed more activity on the left prefrontal cortex, where prospection, our hopeful vision, becomes pathways—hope in action. Take your index finger and point to the middle of your left eyebrow. Now move your finger up about an inch. There you are.
    In the prefrontal cortex, we attach ourselves to the future through a goal that matters to us. Our hopeful brain then helps us marshal and manage information that is relevant to the desired event (including recognizing any obstacles to this goal) and it produces an elevated feeling that firms up our commitment to the future and attracts others to us. Ultimately, the hopeful brain tells us to reach out for more resources and support.
Spreading Hope to Others
    Hope is not just a personal resource. It’s one of the most important ways we create our families, our communities, and our society. Thanks to our big frontal lobes, we humans outstrip every other species in the size and complexity of our social networks. And from the moment we’re born (in some cases, even before), our brains and minds are shaped by the bonds we form with those closest to us.
    Emotions are as contagious as the common cold. We often feel someone’s anger or sadness or indifference even before they say a word, and our own mood shifts in response. But when we’re “in sync,” our motions and gestures start to mirror those of other people. Our breathing becomes coordinated and physical markers like heart rate align. We