Dr. Anthony Jack

Dr. Anthony Jack is a neuroscientist, psychologist, philosopher, and executive coach. His neuroimaging laboratory studies coaching. It also discovered the mind’s essential tension. This major new insight has profound implications for human development and performance. Emotional intelligence researchers and educators assume that human reason is essentially unitary but has different facets (e.g. cognitive vs. emotional intelligence). The latest neuroscience shows this assumption is wrong: the brain is profoundly divided. The divide is not between reason and emotion, as has been assumed for millennia. The mind is divided between two opposing types of reason that work in constant tension. Analytic reason makes us ‘rational’ through math, science, and logic. Analytic reason distances itself from emotion, aiming at an ideal of cold and impersonal objectivity. Empathic reason makes us ‘reasonable’ through social intuition, ethical awareness, motivational and spiritual insight. Empathic reason works with our emotions. It controls them in much more effective ways than the analytic strategy of suppression until… overwhelm. Empathic reason is how we understand different human perspectives, and bring them into contact through creative triangulation. Unlike many exercises that come from work in emotional intelligence, the highest functioning individuals don’t mix up these two types of thinking. That is inefficient and creates interference. Instead, they oscillate between them, matching the situation to take the best from each. As a coach, Tony works with high-performing individuals whose success has been primarily built on analytics (e.g. finance, tech, medicine) helping them realize long-suppressed empathic talent.

Bringing together people and ideas to create beauty

My mother

It’s Not About the Nail (video), Jason Headley