Five secrets from neuroscience to make female talent shine

“Our brain has a fundamental principle, which is to ensure our survival. In order to keep us safe, it is constantly evaluating whether information from the outside represents a threat or not. If I have lived through it before and I ended up okay, I go for it, and if it did not end well, I reject it. If we are able to escape this alarmist radar our brain has and connect with the ability we have to do things, we can get a positive brain, a brain that accompanies us,” Ana Ibáñez explained at the beginning of her presentation at BBVA Tech Women, a program that aims to boost female talent in the bank’s Engineering area.

And that is one of the first secrets of neuroscience to make the most of our abilities: a positive brain. Having a positive brain means that we are able to perceive any challenge as an opportunity instead of seeing it as a threat. “We are and we live what we think. If our brain gives us the energy we need to face any challenge before us, it gives you that extra boost of positivity. You will dare to do things,” the expert said.

So what can be done to obtain a more positive brain? According to Ana Ibáñex, it has been neurologically demonstrated that thoughts can change based on the energy we have. In other words, if it is the right energy, we tend to have more positive thoughts and vice versa. Energy can be programmed and therefore so can thoughts if we can get our brain to connect with the right level of activation of prefrontal cortex areas. For example, things like music, with a song that evokes a happy moment that took place and makes our brain activate the appropriate neurochemical.

The second secret is to face challenges without stress. Even though it is practically impossible to make stress disappear, just like thoughts, stress can also be programmed.

For Ibáñez, the key lies in telling our brain the benefits that the situation causing the stress will provide us and how long it will last, knowing that it has an end. “We need to tell our brain that it has an end, and that we will also have time to enjoy ourselves and do pleasant activities that do not require it pursue any goal other than having fun and letting off some steam in order to balance the daily burden of duties,” said the chemical engineer and expert in applied neuroscience.

The third secret is to reprogram how we value ourselves, improve self-esteem. But what is self-esteem? “Self-esteem is something alive that goes up and down. I would define it as how lovable we feel we are by ourselves and by others,” Ibáñez stated.

Since we are little, human beings seek to find a sense of belonging, feeling part of a group due to a question of survival. If they love us, they will protect us and take care of us. To a large extent, feelings from our childhood are one of the issues that directly impact our self-esteem as adults.

“Recognizing the pattern that accompanies us in our adult age and that is self-limiting is crucial. Recognizing that programmed pattern, that characteristic that defined us then, and replacing it with one that we want to define us now will help us find a ‘state of flow’, or that state that allows us to flow - that current that does not close doors, that frees up spaces - will bring out the talent we have that we sometimes unconsciously overshadow and limit by living a restricted life instead of flowing,” she added.

It is also effective to identify your own talents. If it is hard for us to see these talents, we can ask people around us to highlight several positive things about us. Sometimes they are not visible to us, but they are to everyone else and hearing it from other people can make us more aware of them.

The fourth secret is related to impostor syndrome. In Ibáñez’s words, “it is the demonstration of the fact that you are a sensitive person. The people who suffer from impostor syndrome the most are intelligent people who are very demanding of themselves, who set the bar very high and are sensitive to what happens around them.”

Thinking that your accomplishments do not belong to you, that you achieved them by a stroke of luck, by chance, that you are not what others see, that you run the risk that you will be discovered…. This is related to the belief that things are achieved from hard work. When we are good at something, it isn’t hard for us and that is where the brain alarm goes off: you are doing things very well without making an effort. You are going to be caught. You are an impostor.

In order to reduce the doubts that come from impostor syndrome, Ana Ibáñez recommends we think that if we are there, it is for a reason, “because I am good at it, because I like it and because we have already faced a lot of challenges to be here. That should be enough to not have to demonstrate anything else.”

According to the expert, another thing that helps is seeing that what we do goes beyond ourselves; it impacts others and helps them. When our goal is to do something that has an impact on others, the brain doesn’t come out based on the fear of whether or not we will do it well, but based on the opportunity that it will be valuable to someone.”

The final secret is that female leadership is the future. The female brain is highly flexible due to the numerous changes it faces, such as monthly hormonal changes, maternity, etc. This flexibility gives women superior adaptability and greater cerebral wisdom, with intuition, global vision and empathy.

“We have many qualities to be great leaders. In order to achieve this we have to see opportunities instead of threats; have divergent thinking, creative thinking that we can attain when our brain is content and energy, being capable of detecting our energy and changing it.”

“All women are leaders. All women who develop and work in the STEM field have the ability to have an impact on girls and teenagers, future professionals in the scientific field, and also on other women, because we need that brain that has so many abilities and the capacity to adapt, because without a doubt that will greatly improve our world,” she concluded.

Ana Ibáñez’s talk is part of the BBVA Tech Women activities, a program that aims to give visibility to and strengthen the female tech talent that exists in the organization in order to create models that inspire and become role models. To do so, along with other initiatives, it is essential to promote personal and professional growth of the women in technology, Some of the other actions include the talk given by Silvia Congost, Google’s #IamRemarkable workshop, and reinforcing and projecting your personal brand on LinkedIn.