Can’t Get You Outta My Head

I’m just not myself anymore

“One of the best things that ever happened to me was a severe concussion.”

That was a statement I didn’t expect to hear when we first started BillionMinds. As many of you know, our company was inspired by interviews we conducted with hundreds of employees at all levels in organizations. My co-founder Ryan and I were researching a book that would examine the reality of work for people today and try to understand why employee engagement was low.

That book is still on the back burner, but the interviews have continued, and I’ve tried my best to put as many of their insights as possible into this newsletter. Perhaps one of the most interesting insights came from the subset of people who had suffered some trauma, for example, a traumatic brain injury.

If you or someone you know has had a traumatic brain injury – you will understand that the results of it can be significant. As people recover, they may have memory problems, difficulties maintaining focus, slowed thinking, and challenges in problem-solving. On top of that, there can be major emotional effects, including mood swings, anxiety and depression, irritability, and personality changes.

That’s a lot to deal with, and of course, some people struggle with these symptoms more than others. But a common thread we found in our interviews was that people did what people do best—they adapted. And as they adapted, many of them started to embed new habits—habits that served them well months or even years later.

Sally

One of our interviewees (I’ll call her Sally) had a pretty high-powered job that often involved important meetings and lots of follow-up at the end of the day. She had an excellent method for ensuring reliable follow-up—she would jot down a word or two on Post-it notes during the meetings and then go through the Post-its at the end of the day until all of them were dealt with.

But then Sally had a very nasty cycling accident that caused a traumatic brain injury. A week or so later, Sally was back at work, but suddenly, the Post-it notes weren’t working anymore. She’d look at them at the end of the day and have no idea what she was referring to.

This was really tough. Sally had always been known for her reliability, and she was proud that it was part of her identity. Now that was gone?

So Sally did what humans so often do – she adapted to the new constraint. She created a new paper-based system for more detailed notes during the meeting and added a 10-minute period at the end of each meeting to act or at least add additional context for follow-up at the end of the day.

Sally is fully recovered now, but here’s the thing: She never went back to her old system (though she has recently enhanced it with Generative AI). Sally discovered that getting everything “out of her head” made her more efficient and also helped her handle stress. It meant that she no longer had that nagging feeling she was missing stuff. As a result, she was more present in the moment and even got better sleep.

Douglas

Another one of our interviewees, I’ll call him Douglas, was known for his incredible work ethic. Douglas would routinely work from 8 a.m. to 12 a.m. or 1 a.m., often barely seeming to take a pause.

On one of his rare days off, Douglas joined his local cricket team for a match. That Sunday, he got hit on the head by a cricket ball. If you are not familiar with cricket (and if you are not, you are missing out), cricket balls are harder than baseballs, so being hit on the head by one is not a good idea.

Douglas spent the night in the hospital and was largely okay right away, except for one thing. At around 4 p.m. every day, he started to shut down—all energy and motivation were gone. Suddenly, the man who was accustomed to working 16-hour days was working about 8. And every attempt to “push through” failed.

So, Douglas also needed a new approach. Rather than pushing through the hours, he started focusing on the outcomes. He knew he had a limited window to do work, and by his standards, it was pretty short. So he turned hour-long meetings into 30-minute meetings, added focus periods where he could rapidly get things done, and hired a virtual assistant to take care of all the “busy work” that took up unnecessary time.

Doug also recovered, but again, he never returned to his approach. In fact, I spoke to him again last week, and he now uses that freed-up time to connect so much more with family and friends. That’s why his quote is at the top of this newsletter.

Perspective and Control

I’ve been focusing this section on traumatic brain injury, but hidden within our interviews are all kinds of trauma – from childhood neglect to divorces and cancer diagnoses. The stories are really too hard to hear, but of course, way worse to experience. And there is NOTHING to support the theory that “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” Whatever a motivational poster tells you – when life is sucking it can be tough to keep going.

But (and it’s important but), it IS true that when bad things happen, we adapt. Two things happen as a result – we gain perspective, and we reestablish some form of control. In many (though not all) situations, that can be positive.

In Sally’s case, she could no longer rely on her memory as a crutch for being less organized in her approach. So she created repeatable systems that would serve her in the moment, reducing her stress as a result. She realized that she could still follow through without a great memory and would be able to do so for many years to come, even as her memory became less reliable through aging.

As for Douglas, he first figured out how to get things done in a much shorter period of time, then used that freed-up time to reconnect with people that mattered to him—something that almost certainly will help him live a longer, happier life.

And that, I believe, is the point. Our ability to adapt and adjust is already a superpower, but our ability to learn from those adaptations can supercharge that superpower.