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	LIVING AN ENERGY EFFICIENT LIFE Katherine Benziger, Ph.D. (Written for the Spring 2001 edition of Her Quest, a Canadian publication for women entrepreneurs.) Learning to live an energy efficient life has taken on a new meaning. We already select more energy efficient cars that cost less to run and pollute less. Now it seems if we select jobs that use the most efficient area of our cortex – we can significantly improve both our performance and health. Our brain is made of four “functionally specialized” areas responsible for performing very different tasks. Recent, scientific breakthroughs indicate only one area in each person is innately efficient, while the other three require 100 times the energy to think. This discovery surprised neuro-researchers and educators who assumed those who appear more intelligent on IQ tests could learn and do anything better than those who performed less well on such tests. Now “everyone is gifted”. Each of us is smart – concentrates easily, learns rapidly, feels energized, is highly effective – when using our brain’s most efficient area. When we invest our minds in activities and tasks that our brain can manage from its area of superior efficiency, we receive an abundance of energy, mental alertness and inner balance. It is a wise investment. And, if we make it, we will honor and empower ourselves. The context in which we do something matters, too. Research has also established that each of us has a stable level of inner wakefulness or alertness. 15% of us are barely awake; 15% of us are very awake; and 70% of us fall along a continuum between these two very different inner realities. Those in the first group, who are barely awake, need external stimulation (noise, activity, competition, crowds, a crisis, literal or metaphoric fire-fighting) to wake up to perceive and think clearly. By contrast, women in the second group, need no additional stimulation to perform well. Indeed, the stimulation which makes it possible for women in the first group to achieve peak performance, causes discomfort and anxiety in the second group, forcing them to shut down or leave. For this reason it’s important that we each know which group we are in, how much stimulation we need, while accepting that those with whom we work may have very different needs, which must be met for them to perform well. Not surprisingly, our most efficient mode and our inner wakefulness level also affect our success as entrepreneurs. Women whose most efficient area is the Frontal Right tend to be independent and conceptual, cutting edge, big picture. Looking at their own inner vision, they are not dissuaded by the fact that what they want to do has never been done before. They see the trends and invent or create solutions, which make them potentially very good entrepreneurs. Women whose most efficient area is the Frontal Left can do very well as entrepreneurs – but generally elect to buy or leverage an existing company or product originally created by someone else. Women whose most efficient area is the Posterior Right go into business for themselves often, although their businesses tend to be concrete and service oriented, e.g. real estate, hair salons, day care centers, nursing homes, catering. As well, Posterior Rights tend to be less comfortable making overnight business trips which cut them off from their family, so the scope of any venture they undertake tends to be more local or regional. They often make good money, but not as much as more frontal women who naturally focus on and explore bigger territories, and more complex ways to build and leverage any situation so that the ROI is greater. Women whose most efficient area is the Posterior Left are the least likely to become entrepreneurs, but may do so – especially if they are an only or eldest child, and or highly extraverted – by buying a franchise that permits them to leverage their own gift for implementing while, guaranteeing themselves support and guidance from the more the frontal thinkers who own or manage the parent company. A woman’s level of inner wakefulness relate also affects her entrepreneurial style and success. In general, the higher her level, the less likely she is to become an entrepreneur. For one thing, the ability to push to sell an idea to raise money or make a deal is key to being a successful entrepreneur. This type of ‘pushing’ tends to be very uncomfortable for introverts. Another key to entrepreneurial success is the ability to identify a product for which the market is ready – so that she and her investors will make a rapid and sizeable return on their investments. This ability is one found in women who are more extraverted. Introverted women tend to be less interested in what the market is ready for and more interested in what they feel would be right and good for people. Introverts are sometimes seen as the caretakers of human morals and humanitarian values. They serve as our conscience, whether what they are choosing to focus on is popular or not. That makes them unsuited to being entrepreneurs. I am a Frontal Right with a high level of inner wakefulness. I am naturally aware of big picture trends in my area of expertise – human development. However, as a highly introverted woman, I am drawn to solve the problems that I feel are morally and humanly critical more than those that will make money. I have focused on Falsification of Type for 25 years because: I saw how our industrial and post industrial culture rewarded and educated our left modes significantly more than our right modes; how it bullied and bribed women who were natural Intuitives and Feelers to abandon their gifts to achieve success. I have observed the individual and societal costs of this trend – the diminished self-esteem; diminished creativity; and diminished community. As an introvert, I focus on what I believe is important for humanity – whether or not people pay me to do so. I believe it is important. 25 years ago, the market was far from ready to learn about Falsification of Type and its costs. Indeed, 25 years ago, the neuro-science explaining the phenomenon I was studying wasn’t well enough understood for me to prove what I thought I saw happening in the world. The reality is that you would hardly refer to me as an entrepreneur. Rather you think of me as self-employed. That is the difference. Not right or wrong, just different. A more extraverted Intuitive looking at my work immediately starts to identify applications that link to marketable products because they are more interested in the delivering things to the market which the market will buy. It is similar to the difference between an inventor and an innovator. The inventor who is extraverted is also, quite naturally an innovator who takes her invention into the market and sells it. The inventor who is more introverted invents, but has difficulty selling others on the value of what she has invented.
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