Archive for Brain
Are You a Planner or Do You Live Extemporaneously?
Posted by: | CommentsLeft brained people normally like to have events planned they are going to attend.
Right brained people would like to be informed the night of the event that there is something happening.
A right brained person may want to do something because it will give them the feelings they want to experience. They may not closely calculate the costs and whether they can really afford it. The left brained person will not go for it if it is not in the budget.
We can move from right brain to left brain. The highly lateral person, like myself, moves to extreme right and left brain activity for certain functions. I don’t control in advance those shifts. A mixed function person will have moderate right and left brain tendencies and move back and forth automatically depending on the activity.
At one time, the market place was looking for mainly left brained people. They do the best in school and they usually get the masters and doctorate degrees in specialties or become doctors, lawyers, and accountants.
The creative world was for the right brains and people in college did not usually have an entrée into that world from what they were studying unless it was their major.
We have entered the era of the right brain. Now business wants creative people.
But business wants more than that. It wants people who can move back and forth from right brain to left brain activities, but even business doesn’t always know how it is done. Even though Big business is installing collective software to collect ideas like a net and creating their own servers and clouds, they are not yet instructing people how to play.
Most of our competitor counties are installing creativity curriculum into their educational systems at very early stages and continuing it right through college. China knows that it cannot lead forever with just manufacturing given the nature of currencies. They have created incentives for individuals and businesses to create more patents.
In fact, they want to triple their patents by 2015. They have a patent approval office with a third more people than we have in the U.S. They have beaten us in manufacturing and now are they going to control all the licenses for new products?
A patent is a new idea or design on making something substantially more useful or creating a wider range of uses or something for a different user than originally intended by an existing product. Or it can be something brand new that we have yet to imagine.
Lateral thinking is the challenging of existing assumptions, patterns, uses, designs, or results to name a few. Lateral thinking, like business today, needs a thinker who can move from left to right and back again.
Our left brain of the neo cortex can define a problem or state an issue or pattern that needs to be solved or challenged. Then the left brain has to be suspended to get into real imaginative thinking where we come up with all the possible alternatives They can be good or they can be wacky.
When performed in a group, the wacky ideas can lead to more wacky ideas or to some more practical ideas. The idea is to suspend judgment until all the ideas are on the table.
The left brain is very active from the time we wake up and engineer our way to work and begin our scheduled tasks. To suspend it, we have to get into monotonous activity that bores it. In our culture, people fight boredom like the plague and therefore allow themselves very little creative time. The usual escape is alcohol and TV.
To be constructive, the boredom time has to be more like meditation, running, long walks, biking, hobbies, car washing, house cleaning, taking a shower, gardening, a nap, or sleeping. It has to be an activity without input. Looking at emails, texting, social networking might not be serious work, but they all rob the brain of a chance to refresh.
That is why when we have loaded the left brain with the problem and the data available, we often get the solutions in the most unexpected times. The right brain has access to the left brain data but works on relationships, patterns, intuition, new assumptions.
Once we have created alternatives, the left brain has to evaluate the best ideas. Which ones are really capable of being funded or getting support. . Which ideas would work in the present scheme. Most of us have a best time for left brain thinking as well, Mine is early in the morning when I am fresh.
The fourth step in innovation is combing the best ideas with the needed solution and working through to implementation. This is usually a whole brain exercise. When our brain is fully synchronized the frontal lobes are coordinating our rational and emotional thought into the most productive output
Getting yourself into top physical condition with extremely healthy eating habits and exercise balances the nervous system and brain chemicals, dopamine and acetylcholine to create optimal beta and alpha waves.
If you want to be a thinking machine and propel your life into the next level, maximize your conditioning and thinking skills. We have a mental war to fight.
The Natural News.com had predictions for the new year and part of one was:
“..we’re going to see more people rebelling against the status quo while simultaneously expanding their own awareness of the bigger picture — how things work in our world and what their role might be in uplifting our shared reality.”
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Read Edward de Bono’s Lateral Thinking
Read Jacelyn Wonder’s Whole Brain Thinking
Read Patt Lind Kyles Heal Your Mind Rewire Your Brain
Read Robert B Tuckers Innovation is Everybody’s Business
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Entering Flow Everyday for Maximum Productivity
Posted by: | CommentsThere are two good reasons to get into flow for tasks and for life.
- While in flow, you will produce your best effort for today. Flow is a relaxed but slightly energized concentration on something important to you. Flow requires that you have some competence or have practiced the activity to the extent you do not have to talk yourself through the steps.
- Secondly, Flow is the most enjoyment you can have in an activity. There is no struggle. The exercise is almost effortless. You are in a highly consciousness and almost unconscious state in that you are only into the single act and everything around you ceases to have importance.
Ravizza (1977) was one of the first sport psychologists to describe how athletes felt during their greatest moments. Interviews of 20 male and female athletes who played in 12 different sports yielded the following characteristics:
- Loss of fear—no fear of failure
- No thinking of performance
- Total immersion in the activity
- Narrow focus of attention
- Effortless performance—not forcing it
- Feeling of being in complete control
- Time-space disorientation (usually slowed down)
- Perceive universe to be integrated and unified
- Unique, temporary, involuntary experience
I have been in the zone in sports and I get into the flow most every morning to write. With the one or two times I remember with sports it was an involuntary act. It just sort of took over my body. Today, I think professional athletes go through rituals to get themselves into the zone. We certainly see performances that could have been in the zone, but as spectators we don’t know what is going on in their heads.
As I writer, I set up my flow or zone. For me it is the most important thing I do during the day that requires both my left and right brain to be synchronized. I try to set up all my left brain activity before I get into the writing, because then it often takes off into the creative which can be utilizing the information and data collected to create new or intuitive relationships.
Flow requires previous practice at the task. It requires a relaxed concentration. It requires a calm excitement about what is to be done. It assumes you have competence and yet the task is going to have a slight challenge, but not greater than your ability.
It assumes the outcome is important to you, but once in the flow you are not worried about being judged. I have no real time limit for how long the task will take and no rush to get it completed. There is nothing else that has to be done while I am into my effort. I often get up in the middle of working to let thoughts flow over a new idea, but I don’t really break my concentration by allowing other obligations to creep into my consciousness.
When I am finished I often look at the work and tell myself that was amazing. I often love what I have done and at that point only have minimum concern what everyone else will think. I often feel a let down or the reduction of attentive focus after I have finished and need a break. Sometimes I need to read the news or even read my emails to let myself down from a natural and not an adrenalized high.
I have tried to set up my life in the same vein. I have moved to the beach so that I can move into connection with nature as often or as much as I need everyday. I get very relaxed, refreshed, and energized at the beach or in the mountains. I get very highly charged with my writing and research so I like to have a very effective release.
With the ability to refresh everyday, I can write seven days a week.
Art Fong, one of the great scientific innovators as quoted in a blog by Shankar of India said:
.. when the going gets tough, go backpacking, fishing, skiing, so forth. Relax. It gives you a break when your problems are all mixed up in your cranium. I found sudden answers while looking at the clouds, a falling star, or a fawn. Thinking of problems while in a new environment often leads to a new path to the solution.”
It is sometimes said the shower is one form of meditating. You can get just as lost with other forms of monotonous activities like running, walking, biking, hobbies, car washing and so forth..
But writing is just part of the Flow in my life. I also love healthy eating, exercise and reading for research and relaxation. With a mostly raw diet and the opportunity to surf everyday and plenty of time to read, I have created days that have plenty of challenge and opportunities to focus. Each activity is rewarding and in which I can get totally absorbed.
Creating focus is also eliminating all distractions possible to make it easier. I take care of my obligations or bills early so they are not on my mind. I have disconnected my cell phone and TV. I love but have distanced myself from the news and even football so that I am interested but not addicted.
Creating flow is Creativity Peak Performance. It is a worthwhile goal. It is a work in progress. You can start anywhere. You could start today.
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$200,000 a Month for Good Ideas
Posted by: | CommentsJust when you thought you knew how to think.
Big companies pay Jump Associates $200,000 to $500,000 a month to come up with solutions to abstract problems or $200,000 a day to train 25 people how to think. David Segal NYTimes.
It must not be what we think it is.
Thinking is not the same as when you were in school. Thinking was thought of as a left brain activity to get the right answers to math, science, and English problems. The difference now is that technology can find right answers. Business needs new questions and to solve problems that haven’t been considered yet and to challenge what already exists.
School was always about teaching you things already known and brainstorming has always been about getting the right answers through a logical process that builds one right answer on top of one another until the right solutions is reached. That is vertical thinking. A+B=C. If you can’t find B, the process is stuck.
Innovative thinking in the new era allows for wrong answers and propositions and “what ifs” so as not to stifle the whimsical or silence the reticent.
Innovative thinking has deep roots. In 1948, Alex F. Osborne wrote a book on “Your Creative Power” in which he said we have a creative muscle that has to be exercised and that group think is a great way to come up with ideas.
In the 1960’s, Edward de Bono may have coined the term Lateral Thinking to challenge accepted patterns, assumptions, and results.
In the 1990’s the dot com bust made it clear business could not rely on traditional ideas and that it was necessary to innovate or die. Now we know change is necessary. Keith Sawyer wrote a book “Group Genius” in which he shows all the better innovations have been created in group think.
So why aren’t corporations doing their own thinking?
“Although we like to believe we know what is going on in our brains, we know almost nothing about what is going on inside them,” … “We’re not only blind to certain things, but we’re blind to the fact that we’re blind to them.” Clayton M Christenson, Harvard Business School Professor.
The budding industry of Collective Intelligence is a $250 million a year business and growing at 30% a year. Big business is setting up the software through third party providers to encourage its people to pitch in. Wouldn’t that alert individuals that innovation should now be part of their repertoire and that everyone should begin to learn what innovative thinking means?
Govindarajan, the Dartmouth professor, presents companies with what he calls the three-box framework. In Box 1, he puts everything a company now does to manage and improve performance. …“Companies spend all of their time in Box 1, and think they are doing strategy,” he says. “But strategy is really about Box 2 and 3 — the challenge to create the future that will exist in 2020.” David Segal
We need to go back to school to learn how we are expected to think now. It’s not the same thinking. Maybe it should be called Modern Thinking. It includes knowing how our brain works in the thinking process. It includes being able to access the left sphere of the neo cortex and right sphere at will and switch back and forth consciously.
It is inducing brain states. It includes understanding how to suspend left brain thinking to access the creative, intuitive, imaginative abilities of right brain and how to access the slower speed Theta waves.
The Theta wave state can be accessed as we enter or come out of a night’s sleep. It can be reached through meditation. It is often reached while doing monotonous exercises like running or walking or gardening. Sometimes we come up with a great idea in the shower.
Our Beta waves of the left brain get over active and cause anxiety which is very anti creative. The side affect of the powerful dopamine becomes adrenaline. Then we are in the practice of suspending the left brain with alcohol or TV to escape. A healthy process would be to reduce stimulus and relax which would invite right brain thinking.
If we are going to move into the new generation of thinkers we need to learn how to improve our life styles in a healthy manner that creates optimum thinking, moods, and temperaments. We need to create our personal environment for cultivating the optimum brain states.
Healthy eating and exercise create the body and mind set that is operating at peak performance. Understanding how to prioritize creativity periods in our schedule is necessary to access right brain and revelation opportunities.
The Modern Thinker understands and utilizes Lateral and Whole Brain Thinking. Then the Modern worker knows how to collaborate with software and fellow workers through advanced Emotional Intelligence. At some point soon, we may be collaborating online with people we have not met. It will be the convergence of the Internet and Social Media.
I can see the continuing trend of reduced office spaces with no cubicles and everyone operating mobile with their I Pads throwing their ideas into the corporate idea pool and working through issues for which the corporation hired us. Technology will take care of daily activities, but people will be needed for new direction.
Good ideas obviously have value in the market place and job security may be more dependent on the multi tasker who includes creative thinking in their routine. If technology can replace people to get the right answers and business has to go outside to get people who think, what’s next for today’s employment?
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Read Edward de Bono’s book on Lateral Thinking
See Jacquelyn Wonder and Whole Brain Thinking
See Robert B. Tucker on Innovation is Everybody’s Business
See Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman
Get Free Download “Healthy, Lean and Happy Forever”
See Innovative Downsizing for full coverage on all these topics
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Being in the Flow is Like the Big “O”
Posted by: | CommentsThe other day I went to the post office around 11:30 a.m. and returned to work on my new E Book. Before I knew it, it was 4:30 p.m. Where had the day gone? I couldn’t remember.
Sometimes I write a post in the morning and when I am done I am aware that the clock moved forward, but I was unaware of the minutes. I sit back and look at the piece I wrote and tell my self it is amazing. Not another person in the world might agree, but at the moment it doesn’t make a difference. I did it for me. The satisfaction is so immense that it keeps me coming back like good sex.
You have had experiences where time passes but you are unaware. You often say, where did the day go? Ever have a conversation and pretty soon five hours have passed. How about reading a good book you can’t put down. We see movies that have us on the edge of our seat.
Being in the flow or the zone feels like total suspension of the left brain. You are in the emotional, creative, intuitive zone of the right brain. You are not thinking of logical steps, or organizational needs, scheduling, or why some things don’t make sense. Good movie makers have developed the art of taking you to their lair of total emersion.
You are not worrying about the economy or concerned about why the U.S. is at war or feeling sorry for people that are poor and starving. You are connected to universal energies that connect you to an object of interest like a laser. There is nothing outside the beam.
I have played sports where a few times I was in the zone. My motor skills were perfect and the world outside my focus did not exist. I could feel I was doing well but I was more excited by the fact that I was so absorbed. I did not want anything or anyone to distract my concentration. I wanted to stay in the cocoon for as long as possible.
The highest order of Emotional Intelligence is working in the Flow according to Daniel Goleman who wrote a book called Emotional Intelligence. The flow is usually in an area of competence that we have mastered or al least practiced ad infinitum. Then we begin to experience our work by concentrating on what ever it is and our mind takes over as if on automatic control.
I think we could set our lives to live in the flow. Having just an interest is not quite enough. We have to have a commitment to something that gets 110% of our focus at times. We have to work at it until we are developing some competence. It has to be something that we practice or in which we engage frequently.
In our lives, we have to be able to focus on our interest without major distractions. It would be enhanced with a near perfect diet that doesn’t allow digestion to become a major factor in our day. It would include fitness so that our brains are fully stimulated with alpha and beta waves. The brain would not have too little or too much dopamine that regulates it perfectly before anxiety creates adrenaline.
In our lives, we would minimize our daily distractions or be able to put them in a box. It is best achieved by minimizing all those little activities that one at a time tear from our capacity like cell phones, emails, text messages, TV, and the news.
Eliminating distractions is almost as important as practicing our habits. Then our days become filled with proper eating, exercise, creativity and engaging in our area of focus. Falling away are the ills of poor health, electronic and digital addictions, distracting world events, and non essential activities.
In the world of flow, distractions disappear but it is easier to get into flow if there are not too many to begin with. Then there is only you and the object of your desire.
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What is Peak Performance and Living in the Flow?
See more about Living in the Flow and in the Zone
Soon a free E Book on “Peak Performance and Living in the Flow”
See Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman
Get Free Download ‘Life Begins at Inspiration”
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Peak Performance and Living in the Flow
Posted by: | Commentsf you have been following the posts of the last few days you have some context for this topic.
My thinking has evolved through several steps to get to this point. I began with the value of healthy eating and fitness to arrive at appreciation, connection, and inspiration. I then moved to creative thinking as core to improving our value and welfare in this new economic era.
Adding innovation and emotional intelligence were the last two pieces to become the ideal corporate employee. Since we are also individuals, the qualities sought by big business would also suit us if we operate small or online. A forecast for the future melding of the internet and Social Media for business purposes predicts online collaboration with strangers.
We must learn how to invoke creative thinking. We must learn how to develop ego less communications in collaborating in person or online. We must have minds and bodies operating in peak condition to offer our best products daily.
Taking it from the beginning I suggest you get as close to a raw diet as possible. Or you can look at raw and ask what you would have to add in to make it palatable. I went to raw and have since added in a chicken breast every other night. You need to exercise at least every other day to support brain activity.
I would hope that getting healthy would give you appreciation for how we can live best on this planet. Knowing you can really feel good, might give you some appreciation for being here and inspire you for ways to express yourself or even open up some activities for which you can feel passion.
Thinking can be divided into a few necessities which you can investigate to get more detail or read my past posts. But key are the capabilities for
- Lateral Thinking,
- Whole Brain Thinking and
- Emotional Intelligence
Lateral Thinking is the development credited to Edward de Bono in which we challenge all assumptions and learn to investigate patterns. If we challenge the purpose, the utility, and the continued relevance of all systems and products without judgment about our ideas we get into the Innovative Thinking process.
Whole Brain Thinking is understanding which of our right or left brain is dominant and how to build more parity into their functions. Then we learn how to move from right to left or back in creative thinking. Finally we learn how to move into the appropriate brain for the activity we need or how to suspend one brain to elevate the focus of the other.
Emotional Intelligence at its core means understanding your feelings as they happen and being able to regulate your behavior. Secondly it means understanding the feelings of others and being empathetic. A higher level is being able to control others’ feelings which could lead to popularity, leadership, or interpersonal effectiveness.
The highest level of Emotional Intelligence is flow or living in the zone. This is focus on an activity that consumes your attention and time itself. It usually occurs with an activity you have practiced and in which you have competence.
If you were to create a life in which you were mentally and physically fit, had inspiration, creative thinking skills, and focus, you could experience peak performance and flow on a continuing basis.
My Free Download E Book “Life Begins at Inspiration”
The following books are available at Amazon.com. Used they are often just a few dollars.
Innovation is Everybody’s Business by Robert B. Tucker
Lateral Thinking by Edward de Bono
Whole Brain Thinking by Jacquelyn Wonder
Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman
Heal the Mind Rewire the Brain by Patt Lind-Kyle
The Best Ideas Are Alive at 2 a.m.
Posted by: | CommentsAt two a.m. Pacific Standard Time, people from Hawaii to New York are sleeping.
Ideas are dancing in the universe waiting to be plucked like so many children waiting for adoption.
When we fall asleep our left brain goes into suspension and our right brain becomes dominant as we pass through the Theta waves into the Delta waves of sleep.
We enter the sleep and dream stages where the right brain has free access to the left brain unfettered by thoughts of scheduling, multi tasking, appointments, text messages, or emails. All our creative powers or abilities to create alternatives or reflect on hard data can access universal energies of the subconscious and the new ideas dancing in space.
As we awake in the night or just before we awake in the morning we pass through the Theta waves again leaving the .5 hertz Delta waves and passing through the 4 hertz Theta waves where we connect to our subconscious thoughts. Once we are fully awake we move into the right brain Alpha and left brain Beta waves at much higher hertz from 12 to 30 and beyond.
I pay full attention to my theta wave thoughts before I open my eyes in the morning. I am often not sure whether I have awoken at 2 or whether it is already time for me to get up at my normal 4:30 or 5 a.m. If ideas are flowing, I will lie in that state for as long as necessary to get the full benefit of the inspirations.
New ideas and breakthroughs often come when the left brain is in suspension. The right brain and pre frontal lobes of the neo cortex where left brain data and logic combine with limbic brain emotion and right brain creativity can all combine in a large play yard of interweaving thought and emotions.
Creativity requires a combination of left brain work suspended to give the right brain a chance to see the relationships between the defined problem and the researched data.
Full brain synchronicity allows the pre frontal lobes to captain the ship and combine the best of our thoughts, emotions, logic and passion like so many fruits in a blender. You can support this activity by creating the optimum circumstances for these occurrences.
Give the brain a rest. Or suspend the left brain with monotonous activity like running, long walks, biking, hobbies, gardening, car washing, house cleaning, shooting baskets, pleasure reading, dancing, meditating or any activity where you don’t need to compete or keep score.
Optimal brain function is served with healthy eating and regular exercise. Alcohol and drugs can destroy the creative process even though like TV they suspend left brain activity. The brain “working memory” is in the pre frontal lobes where data is collected and remembered while working on a task. At a certain point it may get fully taxed and need a break.
During this time if you let the right brain dominate by going on a walk, to the gym, for a run, take a nap, or meditate, your system has a chance to create useful ideas from the data that can be applied to solve your problem.
Taking a break to read emails, send texts, create schedules, or write memos might be part of your days “to do list” but it further crowds the brains memory capacity and rules out the entry of creative thinking.
You won’t create many times in the day like awaking from a restful night of sleep, but the more dream like breaks you give the brain, the more creative your day will be.
You Can Make or Destroy Your Creativity
Posted by: | CommentsA NY Times article today by Perri Klass, M.D. discussed the latest findings on A.D.H.D.
For years many have discounted that it is a real mental disorder. It is most notorious as an affliction of hyperactive boys in elementary school. It has been found that girls suffer the same but are likely to be well behaved so it goes unnoticed.
The detractors would say that it is societal pressure to succeed and be right, plus electronic devices coupled with multi tasking, over scheduling, and over stimulus. Some would say the nature of concentration has changed.
On the other hand there are several practices that could enhance the Anti A.D.H.D. behavior; the anecdote, if you will. The anecdote is needed for creative thinking.
The brain has two spheres that often work independently to create innovation. The left sphere is responsible for rational, logical, calculating and organizational thoughts. The right sphere is responsible for creative, spatial, motor skills, and relational thoughts.
The innovative process as outlined in Jacquelyn Wonder’s book “Whole Brain Thinking” would have you alternating between right and left brain at each stage of the process.
The left brain defines and states the problem. Then the right brain creates the multitude of alternatives and possible solutions. (See also Edward de Bono in “Lateral Thinking”). Then the left brain evaluates all the possible scenarios to select the best ones. Then the right and left brain unite to consolidate and formulate the best solution for the defined problem.
Using one sphere requires suspension of the other sphere. In the modern work day, we are easily seduced into the left brain because we are always calculating, organizing, and scheduling. Suspending the left brain to get to right brain thinking is the trick.
This has to be accomplished by giving the brain a rest and entering monotonous activities. Some of them are meditating, pleasure reading, gardening, car washing, aerobic exercise, sleeping, and house cleaning to name a few.
When the left brain has defined the problem and researched the necessary information, the right brain could find the proper relationship between the two if given time to disconnect from the left. The right brain creates revelations, epiphanies, and ahas!
How do we hamper the proper functioning and coordination of the tasks? We never give the brain time to relax, refresh, and unwind. We spend too much time looking at emails, checking social media sites, checking cell phones and texting, looking at our watch, plugging in ear phones, etc.
All the times that our right brain could be accessing the information we plugged into the left brain, we are filling up our brain memory with busy activities to either give us some adrenaline or keep us from getting bored.
Boredom is the access to the right brain. But it doesn’t have to be boredom. A long walk, a run, a bike ride, a nap, a pleasure book, a hobby, cleaning, sitting in the sun, hiking, or playing with our pet could all lead to left brain suspension and new revelations.
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If you would like to read the NY Times article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/14/health/14klass.html?ref=health
If you would like to buy Jacquelyn Wonder’s Book on Whole Brain Thinking
Purchase Edward de Bono’s book on Lateral Thinking
See Robert B Tucker’s book Innovation is Everybody’s Business
If you would like techniques to gain mind control and relax get my free E Book download Healthy, Lean and Happy Forever
Emotional I Q is More Valuable than I Q
Posted by: | CommentsThe purpose of I Q is to measure our capabilities for math and linguistics. It might be a good predictor for how we will do in school, but has been shown to be only 20% of the contribution to how we do in life.
Even students with high I Q’s that score well on SATs have not always excelled over students who were high on “hope”; the willingness and belief that they could do well.
In life, I Q is no longer a guarantor of success even for scientists and engineers.
Keith Sawyer, noted innovative expert, in “Group Genius” claims over the last 50 years the biggest innovations have come from group collaboration, not individual breakthroughs. In today’s environment, everyone has to learn to play well with others
More CEOs say they are looking for sociability in interviews. Corporations are spending to develop Collective Intelligence and top innovators and collaborators have greater promise of promotion and job security.
When life started for man and every other species, the reptilian brain gave only a few real options. The olfactory senses detected most everything early life needed to know about prey or predators or sex.
The next evolution provided man with the limbic brain which is his emotional center. In emergencies the emotional center can over ride all thinking to invoke action. With the third evolution of the brain man developed the neo cortex which separated him from all other species.
Now he had the ability to evaluate with a “working memory” to collect and work on problems and to consider the meaning of emotions fed to the frontal lobes from the limbic brain and stimulus fed by the thalamus.
The emotions still have the power to interrupt all “working memory”. Integrated into the brain first, they evolved with strong powers. The emotions emitted by the limbic brain can undermine the “working memory”. Emotions such as fear, anxiety, worry, anger, and sadness all have powers to interrupt the left brain hemisphere of rational and linguistic thought.
Yet, there are powerful positive emotions that can create the highest form of mental productivity like love, hope, and empathy. In the positive state man can perform every function at the highest level often given the names of “flow” or being in “the zone”.
“The emotions are a call to action. They motivate positive feelings or negative feelings upon which the brain has to consider and act:
- Recognizing a feeling as it occurs is the keystone of emotional intelligence.
- Handling feelings so they are appropriate is an ability that feeds on self awareness.
- Marshalling the emotions to serve us in the form of attaining goals is the direction we want to create
- Empathy in recognizing the feelings of others is fundamental to people skills.
- Handling relationships is managing the emotions of others which is the highest call of popularity, leadership, and interpersonal effectiveness.” Daniel Goleman “Emotional Intelligence.
Learning to recognize our emotions and even evaluate them while they are occurring is the state and skill first needed to channel them towards positive action and disrupt them from destructive behavior.
I have mentioned in my E Books that I am able to observe my mind give me messages about health or exercise. I consider what the mind is telling me to do and then decide whether, for example, I am really tired and should rest or whether I can push through.
The same can be achieved with feelings of anger, worry, anxiety, fear, or hurt. We can observe the emotions, evaluate them and then launch counter measures. The difficulty of some negative emotions like “anger” is that they actually energize us and we could learn habitually to turn to them in times of stress. John McEnroe comes to mind as a tennis player who used to improve his game with bursts of outrage.
But this is not playing well with others and for the most part these emotions can have lingering affects on our moods that eventually affect our temperament and can even evolve into disorders.
The best performers are athletes who talk about “being in the zone” and workers who talk about “being in the flow”. This is most likely to occur when you know you have a skill and are in a situation where you are tested but not over whelmed. If you feel over whelm you will go into a panic or worry mode and stop your momentum.
In the mornings when I consider all the research I have collected on a topic and realize I can synthesize and write about it with my point of view, but that it will still be a test, I can sometimes get into the “flow” where it pours out of me just like I would have wished.
Flow is total focus without concern for how you are doing or judgment. It occurs somewhere between boredom and anxiety. To put someone in a situation where they have natural competencies and are challenged but not over whelmed can put them into their “flow”.
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Information in this research was provided by Daniel Goleman in his book “Emotional Intelligence.”
To learn more mind mastery through diet and fitness that leads to inspiration down load my free E Book
The Value of Optimism and Pessimism
Posted by: | CommentsNo one likes to be a Pollyanna and yet no one wants to be a fool.
We are on the precipice of a big fall or on the large plateau before an eventual climb. The scale has respectable weights on each side. We could head for deflation or we could eventually see hyper inflation. So many governmental entities are waging to keep the balance.
Short term reports are not always good long term indicators. Where as in the past we normally looked to see how leading companies were fairing as bell weathers of future prosperity, there are much larger forces in play.
Now we have to look at how Portugal, Spain and the Euro will fair in case of bank defaults. We have to consider how global investors will evaluate the dollar as the U.S. tries to spend its way to growth.
As individuals we cannot function at our optimum if we harbor negative thoughts. We need energy to create advancement. We need a positive outlook to fuel passion. We have to stand out among others to attract the good fortune we deserve.
This does not mean we should be egocentric and try to step on others in our climb. It means that we can only depend on ourselves to carry us through what ever we may be facing. We must marshal our own resources and focus our energy.
Since governments have a larger impact on the economy than Wall Street, I think it would be best to follow their model of increased austerity. When future income is in doubt it is probably better to reduce expenses.
We should follow the lead of prospering businesses. Use all our resources and focus to be more competitive. Each company and individual would do well to inventory their strengths, weaknesses, and capabilities.
For the individual, we can create a positive mental outlook by improving our energy through fitness and health. If you are feeling better everyday, it cannot help but create a feeling of optimism about what you could create given the chance.
“Getting to Peak Performance” should be a strategy of every individual as their trump card to play in the new game. Some of the areas that could be natural resources for individuals are healthy eating, fitness, creativity, innovative capabilities, whole brain thinking, and emotional intelligence.
If you are focused and rapidly developing your own capabilities you are creating both a great offense and defense. You could be in the Super Bowl of personal performance. It would be hard to be pessimistic if you are personally growing. At least some of your negative thoughts would get balanced and hopefully over whelmed by the positive transformation you are personally creating.
In the near future, I will be further developing resources for these personal transformation areas and invite you to tune in.
Who is Getting the Income and Security in the U.S.?
Posted by: | CommentsI am not against the rich, but in a democratic country, it looks like it is getting more difficult to be impartial when it comes to viewing the benefits of taxes, legislation and government spending. The three greatly influence the distribution of available income and resources.
Take a look at two current examples. The Obama administration had considered not extending the tax cuts for the wealthy. The Republicans then said if you want to extend unemployment benefits you had better extend tax cuts for the wealthy.
A one time payment of $250 for social security benefactors in return for not raising their income for a second year in a row was blocked by Republicans.
In light of Republican Tea Partiers wanting fiscal responsibility, does everything in the Republican Party go out the window when compared to how income is distributed in the United States? It is not too difficult to understand their platform and how the class wars are alive in the U.S.
There is a depression for non large corporate America. High unemployment, no bank financing, and anemic economic growth have choked off most Americans to sources of capital.
Whereas large corporations have income and need to reduce expenses and maintain competitiveness to ensure continuity, the bottom rungs have fewer viable sources for increasing income.
One of the reasons that there is no capital for small business and individuals is that banks over the last 20 years have been laying their consumer debt off to global private investors. The melt down eliminated private investors who were wiped out buying the securitized debt and banks no longer want to hold the paper.
The $600 billion the Fed is going to spend to keep interest rates low does not stimulate the economy. When banks were keeping loans they were responsible for about 70% of loan activity. Since they started laying off paper they became responsible for about 35% of paper. Therefore, Federal Bank policies do not have the affect they had in the Greenspan era.
We are seeing more civil unrest in Europe as the results of fiscal government austerity kick in. Eventually, governments have to cut expenses to maintain lower bond prices for financing their debt. Who bears the brunt of government austerity programs?
In response to a NY Times article on the shrinking self employment factor, one reader has a good summary:
“It is no longer possible for small companies to survive, unless they are in the financial industry or something similar where money is no object to their clients. The death of small business in America is not an accident. It is the result of legislation and fiscal policy which has consistently favored off-shoring and corporate business. The trend will not reverse. The unemployment which results when it is simply too expensive to start a new business has become a permanent feature of our economy.”
What is the solution?
Is there anyone not taking personal downsizing seriously?
Savings will be the best source of capital in the near future. Then how to increase income will be the best next question. It appears more likely that employment or contracting with a viable industry or business is important.
A few industries seem to be rising in the tide and alliance as a supplier or affiliate or employee is a good guarantor of income. What types of services are needed in the new economy?
Either great technical skills or innovative skills to see new processes and opportunities are key to continued employment or future employment. Corporations also seem to be stuck to hiring traditionally good corporate skills. If you were valuable before, you have a better chance of being valuable now.
Learning how to think laterally and how to incorporate whole brain skills for creativity and innovation would be important in creating personal value. As corporations spend more on gathering Collective Intelligence, your ability to prove you are a team player and think creatively could help.
Learning how to think more productively and perhaps escape narrow habitual patterns would also help in evaluating your own alternative scenarios and next step strategies.
For a great long article on our economy, how we got here and the hoops we have to jump through in the next few years to stay afloat read:
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/category/thinktank/
For a an introduction on creative and innovative thinking visit Edward de Bono’s book on “Lateral Thinking”
And
Jacquelyn Wonder’s book on “Whole Brain Thinking”.
To develop your personal skills and discipline for improving your value visit the free download “Getting to Peak Performance”
How to Create More Revelations and Break Throughs
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- Cover of Bill Gates
In this competitive world it would be great if we could spend eight hours coming up with revelations and breakthroughs. We could all be Bill Gates.
Some people are clearly better than others in tapping into their subconscious and getting the solution to burst to the surface in a revelation, epiphany, or aha! I get them now and then and am always very excited when I see the light.
Jacquelyn Wonder in “Whole Brain Thinking “ spells out how the mystery can be more organized or planned. With the right routines, we can be accustom or train our minds to be more inventive more frequently.
We use our left brain and right brain hemispheres to solve different kinds of problems. If we can use both together or alternately, we can be more effective.
Real creative thinking might start with a process of left brain first where we define the problem. Then we want to move to right brain where we work on various alternatives whether they are useful or fanciful. This was labeled by Edward de Bono in processes he called “Lateral Thinking”
Then we want to move back to the left brain where we evaluate and judge the alternatives for a few or the best solutions. Then we move to the right brain again to integrate our thoughts and evaluations into the best possible solution to the problem we defined.
Revelations are most likely when we have spent time researching and working hard on a problem by developing research or writing out what is known. Then when the left brain is suspended, the right brain will often see the whole picture, a pattern, a visualization, a thought or an inspiration.
These revelations often burst forth as a single sentence, thought or picture that might contain hundreds of words or even thousands of pages behind the one quick visualization. One guru that was teaching commercial real estate agents how to be more effective sales people said he received all his hundreds of hours of lectures and exercises through one revelation.
I find my best revelations arise in the low hertz mental states of pre wake up theta brain wave state. In the sleeping delta wave state our brain waves are at .5-4 hertz. In the subconscious theta states that we experience before waking, in meditation, or in very relaxed activities often with the eyes closed we are in the 4-8 hertz range. I often wake with the topic I am going to write about popping into my head in this stage.
At other times we might suspend the left brain thinking in more “brain less” activities like house cleaning, hobbies, gardening, or car washing. Some states we know suspend the left brain because they are rhythmic and monotonous like walking, running, dancing, swimming, and so on.
Marathon runners often report great revelations or even hallucinations.
Normal left brain hertz cycles are in the 14-22 range with over active and anxiety stages at 22-33 hertz and even short bursts over 33 hertz for memory consolidation and acute problem solving. Very high stages of sustained beta can develop into the adrenaline over powering our dopamine as a side affect and result in ADD or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
Alcohol can also suspend the left brain and even though it throws us into the child like state of our right brains and makes us often more sociable, it doesn’t seem to give way to many useful revelations.
So we can create the atmosphere for revelations by giving our minds time to unwind while working on important problems. Staying up for 24 hours might help create research and facts that may solve problems begging for logical outcomes but is not likely to evolve into creative breakthroughs.
I follow the habits of many writers who know that creativity occurs in waves. We work at times we know we are most creative and usually set up the circumstances. Then when we are “burned” we get into other activities to give our left brains a rest.
I have several activities I engage in to refresh. After a morning session of writing and research I will go exercise, surf, or even just go to the beach (where I live) and read or look at the ocean. I will then return to do different work or less demanding routine work. In the afternoon I will again do something that gives me a break and try to come into more vigorous work in the evenings.
If you are working hard on something in which you need a “creative break through” or if this is an important part of your job, you need to schedule the “mind less” and the rhythmic activities to into your routine to get those “pops ups” that will hopefully solve your problem.
Knowing How to Switch Brains for Tasks or Happiness
Posted by: | CommentsWe have a left brain that is dedicated to our rational and language thinking and a right brain that is dedicated to physical and creative thinking. The left brain by itself would be cold and rational and the right brain by itself would be an emotional train wreck.
Most of us have a dominant side and feel most comfortable operating in that sphere. I have double dominance and am very lateral which means one sphere dominates for some activities and another sphere dominates for others. Highly lateral thinking is very male.
In early adolescences girls have greater language aptitude and males have greater physical aptitude. That means early on, girls are more left brain and boys more right brain. That is why when children are very young, girls seem so much smarter. Einstein didn’t really talk until he was five and he was thought to be retarded.
One of my pervasive characteristics is that my right brain sphere of physical and creative likes continuous change; nothing wrong with that unless I wanted to stay at one job for a long time because it was a great job.
Nothing wrong with that unless I had a long term project that required daily input and the routine was pretty much always the same. I would just as soon drink arsenic. I need change which means I have to be doing something dynamic.
That is why in my career I was always a good builder but a poor maintainer. That also makes me a bit of an adrenaline junkie; good for some things, not good for others. People who get bored can have self destructive habits.
Luckily, I went the other way and my change is continued improved healthy eating and fitness. The continuous new goals keep my right brain interested. I could have gone either way.
Knowing which brain sphere is dominant and what it demands to be happy could be crucial for healthy constructive living.
I took a test in the “Whole Brain Thinking” book by Jacquelyn Wonder. After an opening explanation of the three topics her book will cover she gives you a test to see how you currently operate. The results could be eye opening. It was clearly an explanation for why I do things. I could also see that one of my daughters is very left brained and the other very right brained.
The next objective is to learn how to move into the appropriate brain sphere for the activity you want to pursue. As a simple example I realize that in the morning when I go to the kitchen to make coffee, sometimes my process is confused because I am obviously right brain thinking as I try to get the coffee filter, coffee, water and coffee pot all together in the same process.
If you want to do calculating, organizing, or analysis you want to be in your left brain; If you want to be creative; your right brain. If you want to get out of one or the other, you can do some simple mind exercises to help make the change.
But the bigger over riding issue I see is how many people might be stuck doing activities that are counter their dominant brain comfort and be frustrated, unhappy, and maybe incompetent.
The other side would be if employers gave simple aptitude tests that would place people in the jobs in which they would be happiest and most proficient, productivity could be increased. An additional insight might be that if someone was not performing properly, it may not be because they were not paying attention, it maybe because there brain functioning was not optimum for the particular tasks.
When we say someone is out of their mind, we may be right.
If you want to excel and find your passion and inspiration, it might be best to know which side of your brain you enjoy most and what type of activities would inspire you. The second benefit is that with a better understanding you might actually adapt your brain to the task at hand.
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You can buy Jacquelyn Wonder’s book used starting at a $.01. I paid five cents so I could get a local shipper and get it quicker; Plus shipping of $3.99.
You might also want to venture into positive habits for left or right brainers:
Healthy, Lean and Happy Forever
Innovative Downsizing as a New Paradigm
Posted by: | CommentsDownsizing is not a very optimistic word, but it is a global reality. Whether you call it austerity or downsizing or deleveraging, the actions and affects are the same.
Strangely, in this era it is not just a reality for people who are receiving less income.
It started with the world’s largest corporations. Those that were able to intelligently cut staff by determining which people would not affect the innovation or creative capabilities of the organization have remained innovative.
Those that just cut indiscriminately to reduce over head have been shown by studies to have lost leadership.
Governments are faced with downsizing. Are they doing it intelligently or they going to ruin their competitive advantage for generations? Noteworthy is Britain’s austerity program that is eliminating the financing for scholarships that has been the primary source for citizens to attend their excellent universities. Now only the rich will get the best educations.
The austerity program gripping Ireland is having the same affect that austerity has had on many corporations. It demoralizes the masses. As the I.M.F.and ECU start dictating terms that could last for decades, the people realize they have in a sense lost sovereignty.
Without pointing the finger of blame, the world has spent its way to this situation. It has spent money it didn’t have enabled by fiat currencies and financing. A fiat currency means there is nothing backing the money but faith.
Financing means you can leverage the money to purchase something that is five to 1,000 times more expensive than the money you have in your hand. Debt backed securities were leveraging to infinity the financing of purchases made with fiat currencies.
Deleveraging, austerity, and downsizing are the same. The world was living on trillions of dollars it didn’t really have. It was like one cow being sold to 1,000 people hoping no one would actually want it.
Now as the world deleverages, the secret for continued optimism will be how we handle the psychological, financial, and recovery phases of rebuilding on a more solid foundation.
Because the income and assets we had were not backed by solid value, we will slowly settle to a more realistic level. This is not to say that in this process some will become more affluent. But statistics show that the super wealthy for a number of reasons are decreasing from 10% of the population to 1%.
Because this may be a long process, it is important we try to preserve human dignity and morale in the process. It is time to take a new accounting of who we are and what we can still accomplish.
Rebuilding our wealth may not be the most likely outcome. Therefore we had better find ways to enjoy our lives with lesser means. This is the psychological aspect that most people will find difficult.
We will have to find the value of human life in different scenarios. We will have to learn how to entertain ourselves with less spending. This usually means we can turn to exercise, hobbies, writing, reading, connecting with nature, and conversation.
If this sounds horrible to you, start contemplating the opportunities to slow down and release a lot of tension created by too much stimulus. If you slow down to a point where you can spend more time with yourself and even get into meditating, you will discover a new world, albeit different.
The financial reality will be that we will do with less. We will have to learn how to purchase and surround ourselves with things we actually need. If those purchases are items that could help us grow and explore areas we have not discovered so far, we can be more excited about the prospects.
Finally, we have to learn how to adapt to the new reality in the long settlement and then recovery period. Business will need to be innovative. It will survive in the transition as consumerism changes. Developing the ability to accept the change, institute our own positive program for coping, and creating thinking and innovation skills that can be applied in the new paradigm will help us come out on the other side.
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Start with your own positive program for developing health, fitness, discipline and inspiration. These are great characteristics that can lead to more courage, acceptance of risk and passion for new growth.
Healthy, Lean and Happy Forever
Soon the new website InnovativeDownsizing.com and
Monthly Newsletter “Downsizing and Thriving”
The Thrill of the Break Through
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- Image via Wikipedia
Innovation experts usually say that the revelations, epiphanies and ahas come after a history of hard work and concentration.
After the mind and subconscious have dealt with an issue for awhile in serious contemplation, one a day bubble pushes to the surface and you give it an OMG!
I just had one of those surfing. I have been relearning over the past several months, giving it my best shot every time I could, which on good weeks is four times a week. The last week I have been going out in small surf and cold water.
Yesterday the surf was bigger and I was thrilled to give it a go. I usually start getting a little revved up as I put on my wet suit. My pulse quickens and I realize that my excitement has me going through things a little quicker and even recklessly; the result of adrenaline.
That is why I like to get my board waxed before I put on my wet suit.
Once out in the ocean I was waiting for the waves which were coming in sets with ten minute rest periods in between. I saw a nice swell building and so I paddled to it, got in front and as it built I paddled over the top and got up.
As I was riding down the face I said to myself holy sh*t. It wasn’t the “oh no” holy sh*t, it was the wow HS. It was the biggest wave I have ridden and I felt like I definitely belonged there.
I felt like telling the wave, “yes it’s me on your back, and don’t roll your eyes because I’ve got this one.” At the end of the ride I realized that I had made a break through. Not just because it was my biggest wave, but because I was calm and confident and knew that I was going to ride it.
The next one I nosed, but so what. I realized that I had reached a new plateau because I mentally had accepted my belonging and the physical was there to match.
That is the result of effort day in and day out without ever thinking of quitting and never doubting that performance or knowledge can be improved. I do the same with my writing. I have easy times and tougher times but I just don’t quit.
Anyone can do this. The thrill of the breakthrough is definitely worth the pain of the struggle.
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Healthy Lean and Happy Forever
There is a Virus in Your Brain’s Computer
Posted by: | CommentsWouldn’t you say that part of leadership is the talent, art, or ability to make good decisions? Decisions are the acts generally made by the mind that then give our brain an instruction.
Let’s go for a walk, let’s watch TV, let’s eat. There are bigger more important decisions for our minds that affect the quality of our lives.
If you lived on a ranch a few generations back, you’re horse was very important. It took you out to visit your grazing cattle and then rounded them up. It could take you into town to get supplies and to a doctor for an emergency.
You took very good care of your horse.
Recently, the computer on which I depend started slowing down and acting crazy. I discovered through conversations with experts, that I probably had malware or spyware that enter through innocuous means and then take over.
The Norton 360 system can spot viruses but not Trojan horses that enter hidden in innocent files or programs. Then they open up once inside your system and destroy it.
We are as dependent on healthy brains as we would be on a horse or on a computer. We need to make good decisions and the better our mind and brain are functioning, the better our decisions and eventually the duration and quality of our lives.
We would never deliberately drink gasoline because our brain could smell it and know it could kill us. But we can eat French fries that look and taste good and they get right past our defense systems. We could eat great desserts and fine tasting sodas and delicious fried foods and be so happy.
These foods get inside and open the Trojan horse.
Who is leading this parade? Everyone has certainly talked to enough experts to know this stuff can slow down your operating mechanisms, make you act crazy and kill you.
I found an expert software firm that could seize control of my computer’s operating system online and clean out the spyware and malware and give the computer a full tune up for $129. They couldn’t always clear all the problems that had occurred.
You now have a second chance. You can start eating the food groups that nature provided and stop eating the spyware and malware that looks innocent and then explodes into cancer and heart disease once it’s in your body.
A good leader does the right thing.
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