Cognitive neuroscience has found seven important findings about how your brain is wired that affect your performance.

1.       The way you sense information and the way your senses are connected to your brain are unique and diverse.

2.       The more you use a particular style of cognition and sensing, the more developed that skill and modality becomes.

3.       Different life skills and job requirements need different kinds of cognition to exploit the best opportunity for success, so it’s important to match your strengths with your profession.

4.       The physical environment you are operating in has a direct impact on your sensing and performance.

5.       When you receive information through your preferred mode of sensing, then your ability to accelerate learning and increase performance is enhanced.

6.       In the same way you have strengths and preferences and sensing modes and cognition style, you can expect to have certain blind spots as well.

7.       At a certain level of stress, performance is reduced no matter which cognitive style and sensing mode you favor.

Taken together, these seven insights which are supported by strong science, suggest that it is very important for you to align your strengths with a favorable environment when you want to rapidly accelerate learning, understanding and productivity.

As an individual, it is worth the time to conduct self awareness exercises that will help you identify your preferences and strengths so you can apply them in your career and personal life.

As a member of a team you will want to know the strengths and preferences of your fellow team members, in order to improve your organization and cooperation.

As a team leader, you’ll want to ensure that your processes and policies take into account the rich diversity of human cognition so that you leverage multiple points of view and learning styles and so that you ensure you have no group blindspots.

As a trader, you’ll want to ensure that your trading style and trading environment are aligned with your preferred modes of perception and that your physical environment is conducive to high performance.