A Brain That Makes Peace Makes Money

By Don Joseph Goewey

Your brain, your peace of mind and your ability to make money are all tied together. It has to do with the neurological opposite of peace, which is stress, and what stress does to your brain.

The stress hormones that are released during stress reactions cause higher order brain networks to shrink and primitive networks that make people reactive to expand. It effects people and companies at every level. Research has definitively shown that:

A brain under stress is incapable of sustaining peak performance. The greater the stress the more likely you are to make bad decisions. You’ll choose risky alternatives or make premature decisions. Survival goals will replace long term considerations. Memory, learning and your ability to detect errors will decline. The higher brain, which generates creative intelligence, will dampen, leaving the lower, reactive part of your brain in charge. In this brain state, you‘ll ruminate over problems you’ll tend to exaggerate, instead of creating solutions.

Chronic stress renders people neurologically incapable of sustaining positive emotions, motivation, or interpersonal resonance. Biologically, stress defines a brain locked into survival mode. In this state, the brain determines that joy or loving kindness is a poor survival strategy and turns your emotional set-point to negative. It drains the brain of enthusiasm and makes you paranoid. You misread people’s intentions and then react to your misperceptions. Fight or flight becomes aggression and escape behaviors.

Stress reactions burn up energy and leave you fatigued. It impacts your health. There are a million Americans absent from work every day due to stress and 80 percent of serious illness is preceded by high stress in the previous year.

Eight in ten Americans struggle with stress. The culprit is genetics and past traumas, which wire the brain for fear, triggering chronic stress reactions.

Neuroscience has discovered a solution. It is called neuroplasticity, which means you can change the way your brain is wired. A shift toward a “dynamically peaceful attitude” rewires the brain for higher functioning. It does this by quieting fight or flight and strengthening higher order brain function:

Your emotional set point defaults to positive.
Networks producing reward-based motivation and goal-directed behaviors activate.
The executive functions that make you decisive, creative and practical come on line.
Systems responsible for memory, learning, and attention become stronger.
Circuits that generate interpersonal resonance expand.
Homeostasis locks in, generating higher energy and greater well-being.

This is you, energized to sustain peak performance. This is you with the neural strength to extinguish stress and generate positive emotion. All this positive change in brain function comes from a shift in attitude that moves you from anxious, worried and pessimistic to peaceful.

An attitude of peace fortifies everything you need from your brain to make money, to make love and to stay healthy. It’s time to give peace a chance. Here’s something to get you started. Each day this week whenever you find yourself reacting stressfully to people or events, tell yourself I could see peace instead of this. Repeat this until you get a glimpse of peace and then relate from the calm, kinder and more open perspective it affords. You’ll be rewiring your brain for power.

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About the Author:

Don Joseph Goewey has worked in some of the most stressful places on Earth - from cancer wards to refugee camps to corporate offices – helping people transcend stress and fear to reach a higher potential. He co-founded a human performance firm, ProAttitude, to end stress in the workplace. His new book, Mystic Cool defines a proven approach (featured in Outside Magazine January 2010) that literally rewires the brain to extinguish stress reactions and light up higher brain networks to sustain peak performance and greater well-being. To contact Don, email . Learn more about his book and coaching program at For corporate training, visit