See or make connections between ideas that seem far apart, look to nature for models and principles to solve problems, make the familiar strange and the strange familiar, cultivate curiosity, ask lots of questions, observe, be a good listener, and read to generate questions. Reading without reflecting is comparable to eating without digesting. These are but some of the many useful bits of advice that Dr. John Adair offers in The Art of Creative Thinking.

Dr. Adair was kind enough to answer some questions that occurred to me as I read his book.

Q: You have written books about time management, team building, strategic leadership, growing leaders, decision making and problem solving, effective leadership and management and many others. What motivated you to write a book about the art of creative thinking?

Dr. Adair: Two reasons. First, on a personal level I am always looking for ways to enhance my own creativity, so this book is a record of my own journey. Secondly, I believe that creative thinking (having ideas) and innovation (bringing them to market) are vital today for any form of human enterprise.

Q: To be a great leader do you have to excel as a creative thinker?

Dr. Adair: You certainly have to be a clear thinker with a good strategic mind. A great leader, in the qualitative rather than historical sense of ‘great’, is creative, simply because excellent leadership and creativity are two sides of the same coin. It’s about inspiring and drawing the greatness out of people, releasing creative talents, building teams and – ultimately – making a better world. What could be more creative than that?

Q: I can’t think of anything that could be more creative than making a better world. What would you recommend to young managers who aspire to gain a reputation in their organization as being capable of generating innovative and creative ideas?

Dr. Adair: Yes, to have a good idea and to make it happen successfully is a sure way to make your name. It depends, of course, on the ethos of the organization. It won’t do you much benefit if you work in that organization I won’t name whose chief executive said the other day: “Change? That is the last thing we want; things are bad enough already.”

Q: In your book you advise your readers to practice serendipity, which your readers may be surprised to learn is a term that originates back to the mid 1700’s. How does one practice serendipity?

Dr. Adair: Serendipity is the happy knack of making discoveries (or having new ideas) when you are least looking for them. Know it can happen and don’t be surprised when it does.

Q: Do you need to have a “prepared mind” in order to be creative?

Dr. Adair: It certainly helps. All sorts of ingredients go into the making of a prepared mind. It isn’t just a matter of being free to be attentive, vital as that attribute is.

Q: Could you please tell me about your concept of the “Depth Mind” and how it relates to creativity?

Dr. Adair: The “Depth Mind”, as I called it, is central to creativity. What it means is that much of our analyzing, synthesizing and valuing goes on at an unconscious level, and in some cases the resulting ‘product’ is a new idea that rises suddenly or gradually into the surface mind. This process is exceptionally well attested in the biodata on creative people, from the talented to gifted. Most people are familiar with the Left Brain and Right Brain distinction. More recently brain research has, I believe, confirmed my “Depth Mind” hypothesis by identifying it in the Rear Brain – it is the Front Brain that does all our conscious thinking.

Q: You wrote that one way to develop your curiosity is to ask more questions when talking with others and when thinking. You called it “talking in your mind to yourself”. Does that mean we need to become more child-like in asking questions, and never cease to ask more questions?

Dr. Adair: Yes, you have hit the nail on the head. Or rather the bolt. For you should think of questions as a set of spanners – hammers are useless- that release the bolts of the Pandora’s Box of creative ideas that are potentially present in every meeting you will ever have. The trick is to open the boxes of other people’s Depth Minds! It’s hard work being a creative thinker – let others do it for you and then build on their ideas.

Q: You advise that one of the best ways to train ourselves in observation is drawing or sketching. Do you recommend that in order to increase our creative thinking abilities we should go to art college or at least take some lessons on how to draw?

Dr. Adair: Drawing teaches you to see things as they really are. It also frees you from the tyranny of fearing other people’s comments on your efforts. It also uses parts of the brain you don’t normally utilize. You may not become an artist like your teacher, but you can pick up a lot of crumbs under the table about what it means to be a creative person.

Q: You point out that creative thinkers are good listeners and also there is a great deal of benefit from reading and reflecting on what we read. Do you think there is a risk of people becoming less creative with increased exposure to mass media and reliance on quick sources of information such as internet search engines?

Dr. Adair: There are no signs of people becoming less creative – it’s amazing how many people are creative today in an enormous variety of ways. Mass media and the internet are sources of information and ideas, so I have nothing against them except as time management hazards. You do need time to think, and over-indulgence in the media or running down Google’s endless ladders may not be cost-effective from the creative thinking perspective.

Q: You said that preconceived ideas, which we all have, are really dangerous when they are below our level of awareness. Does this mean that the most creative thinking will most often be done in collaboration with others, because it is easier to recognize unconscious assumptions in others?

Dr. Adair: As a Chinese proverb says, No man is wise by himself. The same holds true for creative thinking. It is a social activity, although paradoxically you may spend much time on your own – as writers, composers and artists do. You should, with a little practice, soon begin to discern an unconscious assumption that some one else is making. And if anyone points out to you what you are taking for granted unawares, then they are doing you a very good turn and you should thank them.

Creative thinking always involves this sort of team work. A parting word of encouragement, the worst unconscious assumption you can make is that you are not a creative thinker. You may, of course, be right, but you will never know until you put into practice the principles I have outlined in The Art of Creative Thinking. The trouble is that we don’t know ourselves very well in some respects and we tend to be poor judges of our own creative potential. So experiment, have fun, and give yourself a few surprises.

Conclusion: This is a book that should be read by those who wish to develop their ability to generate more creative ideas at work or in their personal life, and therefore be more successful. In case we should become discouraged John Adair reminds us that a lot of our efforts will not be very creative in themselves, but will support future creative thinking as we engage in analyzing, synthesizing, imagining and valuing. Dr. Adair recommends that the aspiring creative thinker keep a commonplace notebook — a necessary tool for creative thinking.  Writing information makes it become a part of you, make entries as they occur to you, do not try to be systematic, record what stimulates, interests or is memorable (let your instincts or intuition decide what is worth writing down), include inspirational quotations, stories and examples, don’t worry whether the idea is right or wrong and, don’t look at your entries very often so when you do they will spark creativity.

Dr. Adair’s website is located at www.johnadair.co.uk/ .

BBQ - Event Plan

Author: Jamie Nast
Idea Mapping is a simple and profound tool that helps individuals improve planning, creativity, thinking and learning while simultaneously creating and producing incredible results. An idea map is a colorful, single-page diagram that visually captures issues we face each day. This technique gives people the increased ability to more competently plan, organize, communicate, remember, innovate, and learn — and accomplish these faster than ever before! By engaging both hemispheres of the brain, this approach frees us to think, see, and understand far more efficiently than when using a multi-page, linear document outlining the same information. The associative process that Idea Mapping uses is easy to learn and mirrors how the brain naturally and freely connects information. This book teaches readers how to create and read idea maps, describes the three keys to developing idea maps, and guides readers in overcoming potential obstacles when initially learning this skill. Idea Mapping includes a wide array of actual maps (and the stories behind them) created and used by 21 business people around the globe. Whether you’re an overwhelmed businessperson, an overworked entrepreneur, or someone who just wants to solve problems better and faster, Idea Mapping is a perfect guide for anyone who wants to work more efficiently—and achieve success in business and life.

Do you ever suspect that you’re sitting in the driver’s seat of a high performance brain, but unfortunately it came without an owner’s manual? You’re certainly not alone; most of us have the unshakable feeling that we are inherently capable of “much more” if only we could get our brains in gear! Folk wisdom has always alluded to how little of our brains we use, but until recent ground breaking scientific discoveries we had no way of really knowing. The first neurologist to scientifically observe, “The brain indicates its powers are endless” was Australian Neurology Nobel Laureate Sir John Eccles. (Lecture: University of Colorado, July 31, 1974.) Today Neuroscience has discovered more about the brain in the last decade than in all the years of previous human history combined, and the implications of the latest research are clear — the human brain is far more powerful, with the potential for immensely greater intelligence and higher achievement, than was ever before imagined. British Pediatrics Professor, John Lorber, did autopsies on hydrocephalics, an illness that causes all but the 1/6th inch layer of brain tissue to be dissolved by acidic spinal fluid. He tested the IQ’s of patients before and during the disease and his findings showed that IQ remained constant up to death. Although over 90% of brain tissue was destroyed by the disease, it had no impact on what we consider to be normal intelligence. Russian Neurosurgeon Alexandre Luria showed, by performing ablation experiments, that one third of our frontal lobes are dormant. His method was to give physiological and psychological tests prior to surgery, remove parts and whole frontal lobes, the re-test afterwards. His conclusion: removal of part or all of frontal lobes causes no major change in brain function, (however with some change in mood alteration). (Luria, A.R. “Frontal Lobes and the Regulation of Behavior.” Psychophysiology of the Frontal Lobes. 1973) Finally, the human brain contains roughly 10 billion neurons, mostly in the outer layer of brain cortex. The function of these currently dominant brain-cells is fairly clear, but the brain also contains 120 billion glial cells. Aside from some secondary care and feeding of neurons, the primary function of the glia brain-cells is not clear. What miraculous discovery awaits mankind within these mysteries? The wisdom of the persistent urban legend that says “we only use 10% our our brains, at best” has taken on an added dimension. John Eccles remarks on this saying he thinks that number is too high, after all “How can we calculate a percentage of infinity?” The art and science of training our minds to tap into its greater potential is not new. Buddhism, for example, is an entire way of life based on the training of the mind. And in more modern times, mind training has become so widespead, that the same could be said for Olympic Athletes, or Professional Golfers, or Financial Market Traders, etc., where mind training is also an entire way of life. However, given the inspiring advances in neuroscience, a vast shift in Mind Training has begun to happen, taking on new more personal dimensions and touching our lives in very direct and immediate ways. It is as though each new scientific discovery gives us our own personal key to unlocking our mind’s greater potential. Personal mind training instruction abounds on every facet of personal development imaginable — health, wealth, happiness, relationships, physical fitness, income, sexual satisfaction, communication, just to name a few. And sprinting in the lead is Professional Mind Training with its many diverse areas, such as: Neurofeedback Brain Hemisphere Syncronization Bi-neural Stimulation Autogenic Training The Mozart Effect Kinesiology Brain Food Neurolingistic Programming Enriched Environment Neural Training Biofeedback in all its numerous forms Brainwave Entrainment in its many forms and the list goes on and on! Along with these types of technologically cutting edge mind training, ancient consciousness altering techniques are being retooled into such modern mind training modalities as Mind Altering Breathwork (Yoga), Vibrational Mind Medicine (Tibetan singing bowls), Sound Therapy (Mantras, Drum Beating, Chanting, etc). Even the more familiar, but still misunderstood, Self Hypnosis is experiencing a vast resurgance of popularity. All of this is making mind training one of today’s most exciting and rapidly expanding fields. But the results it is generating in terms of ever and ever greater human achievements is even more astounding. World sports records are now routinely being broken with each Olympic event. Sir Roger Bannister’s breaking of the 4 minute mile world record in 1954, a human threshold which was at the time believed to be impossible or at the very least ruinous to a runner’s health, is distant history now. Many runners have since beaten it and by the end of the century the one mile world record was 3:33.13 minutes. In a span of 93 years, 14 different athletes have been recognized as “the world’s fastest man” as world records fell one after another, but records fell lower after 1990 which is when coaching is acknowledged to have begun to include serious mind training. Additionally, the more wide ranging records in the Guinness book of World Records are also now being broken with regularity. Even the book itself keeps breaking its own records, as the longest running best-selling copyrighted series of all-time! Mind training has earned its stripes and as Victor Hugo said, “No army can withstand the power of an idea whose time has come.” Add to that John Eccles voice reminding us, “The brain indicates its powers are endless”, and the future of developing human potential — our personal greatness — has never looked more limitless!

Everyone knows that the key to a healthy body is diet and exercise.  Many people obsessively work out every day to keep in tip top shape.  So, if we’re so concerned with exercising our bodies, why do we often neglect to exercise our minds?  Our brains are just like our muscles: use it or lose it.  If we don’t do daily activities to help keep our brain in top order, we lose important skills; particularly the skill of remembering.  So if you want to remember your mother’s phone number, your grocery list, or where you left your keys; start exercising your brain.

So, how exactly do you exercise your brain?  There’s no brain gym you can get a membership to with “memory classes”, but there are things you can do on your own.  Here are some things you can try to keep your neurons limber.

* Open a newspaper.

Sure, reading the paper might expand your knowledge, but if you really want to get your brain in shape, turn to the crossword puzzle.  You can also try solving other puzzles that require using your language skills.  These help you remember things by making you regularly access simple memories (i.e. certain words)

* Try the latest puzzle craze.

Go to a book store, go online, or look in the paper; you’re likely to find Sudoku puzzles. These are number puzzles that are becoming increasingly popular.  They help exercise your brain’s deductive reasoning skills. Plus, they’re fun and incredibly addictive.

* Learn something new.

You’ve probably heard people say that learning something new pushes old information out of your brain.  This is not only wrong, it’s just plain silly.  The capacity of your brain is only determined by how much you want to put in it.  Try learning a new skill or how to play a musical instrument.  Learning a skill and continue to use it will keep your memory accessing skills limber.

* Books, games and services.

While there aren’t actually gyms you can go to, there are ways to get exercises specifically designed to improve memory.  You can find these in book stores, online, and even in video game stores.

While it’s great to exercise your brain cells, don’t skip out on your trips to the gym.  Keeping your body in good physical shape will help keep your brain healthy too.  While cardio is the best work out to keep you healthy, you can still keep your memory if you can’t perform a strenuous workout.  Even a simple walk for an hour a day can help prevent or slow memory loss.  So get up and go as much as you can to keep your brain going.

Most people don’t worry about memory loss until they start to notice it slipping away, but the best time to start is while your mind is still sharp.  You may not be able to bring your memory back, but you can keep it from fading.  Regularly working your mind has even been shown to ward off Alzheimer’s.  So if you want to keep your mind sharp, be sure to eat right, get enough rest, and exercise regularly.

1. Visualize ultimate success. Don’t dwell on negative thinking for doing so will block your creative energy. Instead, you should always revel in the fact that the answer is already within you. You simply have to pull it forward from your creative mind. Visualizing failure will block your creative energy and visualizing success will bring it forward.
2. Be still and know that the answer is within you. There is absolutely no need to fear that the problem can’t be solved. The answer will come to you if you stop worrying and take a more relaxed approach. Be quiet and still and allow the creative ideas to come forth. In addition, always be willing to just sit still and let your thoughts wonder freely.
3. Be patient. Don’t rush the creative problem solving process. It sometimes takes a while for your creativity to solve a problem so don’t become frustrated if the problem isn’t resolved right away. Instead, enjoy the creative process for what it really is, an internal process and be open and receptive to allowing those new solutions to come forward.
4. Create a positive environment. The creative mind flourishes in a healthy and positive atmosphere so if you are having a hard time creatively solving a problem then you may need to create a more positive and uplifting environment. This can be done by cleaning up, adding plants, burning aromatherapy candles, or doing whatever you can to create a creative and positive environment. For once you have a creative environment in place; your creativity problem solving skills will burst forward.
5. Take time away. If possible, take some time away to really allow your creative problem solving abilities to materialize.  Sometimes you need a change of scenery and other times you just need time away. However, you must be willing to give your spirit what it needs, a mini vacation to sort through your thoughts and come up with the perfect solution.
6. Engage others in the creative process. If you get stuck and can’t seem to get out of a rut, it may be a good idea to discuss your problem with others. Sometimes they can provide creativity problem solving techniques that will help you. They may also be able to solve the problem for you. The important thing however is to only enlist the help of like minded and positive people like you. You don’t want to ask someone to assist that will instill negative energy into your mind.
7. Meditate. Meditation is one of the best ways to engage your creative problem solving skills. By elevating yourself to a different level of consciousness you become more intoned with your thought processes and can truly see the connection better than when you are distracted. For this reason, meditation is a great way to engage creative problem solving. By following the above basic steps, you can and will creatively solve any problem that may come your way. You’ll solve problems with confidence and less stress than if you simply followed traditional methods. So, enjoy the problem solving process by using creative problem solving techniques now and for the rest of your life!

Do you ever feel like you have some great ideas, but when you sit
down to write them, they’re not so great? Or even worse, you can’t
really get a sense of what the ideas were?
In one of my graduate student coaching groups we have been
discussing the difficulty of translating partly formed ideas into words
on paper. One technique that makes use of a normally underutilized part
of our brain is called “Mind Mapping.”
What is a Mind Map?
Tony Buzan, who created the word “Mind Map” and has written extensively on it, describes it as a powerful graphic technique that
makes use of the way our brains naturally work. He says it has four characteristics.
1. The main subject is crystallized in a central image
2. The main themes radiate from the central image as branches
3. Branches comprise a key image or key word printed on an associated line.
4. The branches form a connected nodal structure
How Do You Mind Map?
Mind mapping is best done in color. If you have some markers or colored pencils, and a sheet of white paper, you’re ready. If you don’t, just use what you have. Start with the central idea that you are trying to wrap your mind
around. It could be the big picture (e.g. your next chapter) or a smaller idea (e.g. the next few paragraphs.) Write it down in one or two words at the center of the paper, and draw a circle around it.  If there is a symbol or picture that you can put with the words, sketch that in. The idea is that you are activating the non-verbal side of your brain. The quality of what you draw is not important, since you will be the only one seeing it. The same is true for the ideas you come up with. Don’t edit, just put in what comes to mind. There are no rules for the way to proceed from here. I tend to break rules, anyway. The way my mind works, I start thinking of related ideas, categories, and ideas, which I write in little circles surrounding the circle in the middle. I then use lines to connect them. Tony Buzan likes to draw curved lines emanating from the center, and write the related or associated ideas on the lines. The result looks like a tree emanating from a central spot. My technique looks more like a bunch of lollipops. As you continue to add associated ideas to your outer circles or branches, you continue to draw the connections. You will notice as you fill them in that there are cross connections that appear. I find it helpful to draw lines between those interconnecting ideas.
How Does a Mind Map Help?
The brain is an associative network, and the right hemisphere (in most people) is responsible for non-verbal, visual, associative and much creative thinking. Normally when writing, we are mostly making use of our left hemisphere, which tends towards the analytical, one-thought-at-a-time approach. Our internal thoughts, however, are not shaped like that. Thus we have a roadblock as we try to get our brilliant thoughts on paper. By using a Mind Map as a starting point for thinking, you can bypass the blockage and feeling of overwhelm caused by overly analytical thinking. The Mind Map allows you to see more than one thought at a glance, and in doing so helps clarify your thinking. It shows the way ideas are interrelated (or less related than you thought.) It allows more access to creative, non-linear parts of our brain.
How Can Grad Students and Professors Use Mind Maps?
At this point, you’re probably thinking, “How is it that Gina writes so brilliantly and clearly? How does she keep all her creative thoughts straight?” The secret is that I use Mind Maps to write my articles. So it’s not a high IQ but my Mind Mapping skills that got me where I am today.  Here are some helpful ways to make use of Mind Mapping.

1. Use it for brainstorming ideas for your proposal or new research project.
2. Make a Mind Map of your next chapter or the one you’re currently stuck on.
3. When planning your career, make a Mind Map to show the pros and cons of your available options.
4. Use a Mind Map to take notes.
5. Mind Mapping can help keep you awake and interested in your subject.
6. Prepare for an upcoming meeting with a Mind Map and use it to explain your ideas.
7. Use it in teaching, both to prepare classes and for handouts.
Play around with Mind Mapping. You’ll find it’s a refreshing break from the one-foot-in-front-of-the-other way that we approach many things in life.

Author:  Will Drapcho

Mind mapping is a great tool you can use to improve the flow of information in your life. It structures together information in a way that makes it easier for you to comprehend, analyze, and come up with new ideas and goals as well.

With mind mapping, concepts are graphically represented, allowing you to actually picture the ideas and goals. It’s a very simple method of organizing thoughts and ideas.

Mind Mapping 101?

To illustrate mind mapping, let’s start with a typical handwritten list of goals. Now add action steps to this list and draw lines to show how one action relates to another. All of a sudden your list mushrooms into a map and you need more paper to write on! That’s a basic mind map.

Mind maps work well with your brain because you’re using a structure that’s very close to the way your brain works. It includes artistic and analytical activity, getting your brain more involved in the information. You may even find mind mapping to be fun!

As you see how things on your list relate to each other through mind mapping, you will figure then be able to prioritize better.

Benefits of Mind Mapping

* Mind maps jog your brain’s creativity and make information easier to learn, remember, and work with.?
* Mind maps allow you to envision the big picture and how each part contributes to it.
* Mind maps help you focus on the important projects and tasks that are most beneficial for your business or career goals.

Various Uses for Mind Mapping

Mind maps are a new way of formulating a list of ideas into a visual plan. They’re excellent tools for brainstorming, whether it’s for personal, work, or educational purposes.

Mind maps are great for taking notes as well, making notes much easier for students to visualize and remember. Because of mind maps, your job or task can be easier and less time consuming due to memorization and studying information.

Problem solving and planning are simplified by mind maps. They work wonderfully for presenting information, from simple to complex. A mind map can be the perfect solution when trying to find a way to get your creative juices flowing.

You can gather information from different sources, and a mind map can help you consolidate the information.

* Mind maps come to life as you add in the details. They help you form action steps and timelines to reach your goals and bring you the success you desire.

How to Make a Mind Map

Making a mind map is easier than you may think. Have a large piece of blank paper, and something like a pen or pencil to write with. You’ll want to start out in the middle of your paper so that there’s room to expand in any direction.

Here are the steps to creating a mind map:

1. Draw or write down a specific idea.
2. Around the main idea, illustrate or write out different subtopics or tasks that relate to it.
3. Draw lines to connect your subtopics to the main idea.
4. For each subtopic, you can go on to develop more details and ideas, drawing lines to them as well, until everything is connected together.

There are also various mind map software tools freely available online. Once you start putting your ideas into a mind map, you’ll be able to see your projects with clarity and accomplish your goals with ease.

To be up there with the best strategic thinkers, you need to use the left and right sides of your brain, a skill which takes practice as well as confidence. Having the logic and creative sides to your skillset are of immense value.

Here are some skills that the very best strategic thinkers have, and use, every day.

They Have a Vision

They are great at both thinking with a strategic purpose as well as creating a Visioning process. They have both tools in their kit and they use both to complement each other. This form of supportive thinking and seeing the future, creates a way of thinking and evolving strategy that is focused and yet broad.

Make Time

In a busy businesses and organisations, be they small or large, making the time is vital. At the top of their game key strategic thinkers take time out. Maybe a retreat (maximum points!); maybe a day in a hotel foyer; maybe an afternoon somewhere/anywhere, with a blank sheet and a thinking hat on. Whatever works for them – but they do it.

Are Not Hasty

The clue is in the description, Strategic Thinking is not about today, tomorrow or next week. In close partnership with holding a clear vision for the business future, these two create the tomorrows of the future. But not tomorrow! This is shaping, coaxing, tuning for a quality business performance in the years to come. Great exponents take time to fine tune, revise and engineer quality futures!

Absorb and Notice

They are truly aware. In any business, there are clues, often subtle, both internal and external, to help guide future direction and realize opportunities. Great Strategic Thinkers take all of this in, so that as they set aside time to think, they have a full deck of information to guide them. Sometimes, it’s an ‘aha’ moment on vacation, when they observe something that resonates; it might be on a morning walk out in the country; it might be what someone says as they serve them coffee. Making links, however tenuous, is what makes this work so well.

Review Often

The best Strategic Thinkers check that their thinking has been validated. Is it going to work, against a world of regular, consistent and yet sometimes volatile change? This activity is a moving target, so to build a better understanding, snapshots; benchmarks and regular stocktaking are all very useful to confirm the quality of the thinking – and absorbed into the skillset for their and their organizations future.

Learn from Experience

Over time, these folk use their experiences, small and large, to think better on strategic issues. This makes their use of this time really efficient and particularly effective. There are learned short-cuts to the perhaps more formalized strategic planning process and experience is a huge, valuable added bonus.

Use a Team

By utilising more than just their own brain (though this is vital for some of the process!), those great at Strategic Thinking bounce ideas off others in the workplace and encourage their input above and beyond their delivery of the day job. The old adage that 1+1=3 in the input of thinking is hugely valid. And 5 people make a much more significant contribution than 2 – and so on!

Realism Rules (A Little!)

Although they create ideas very openly, key strategic thinkers have a sense of realism and honesty about what is achievable in the longer term. This is not to hold them back; more it is to deliver success. They underpromise and overdeliver, whilst also ensuring that the day to day business of the organization – the ‘now’ – is served adequately too. That’s what gets the business paid today, whilst building the future of tomorrow.

Have Clear Milestones

By creating checks in their thinking, to review progress, they have the opportunity to tweak. They have an innate ability to spot the twists and turns necessary. A 5,000 mile journey by a jet plane reaches the destination only by regular and consistent course checks and adjustments.

Are Non-Judgemental

Because the route to a successful future is not bounded by judging their, or others, thinking as they get creative – that is for elsewhere – better ideas flow. Open minds are encouraged and the detail tested later. Open minded thinking needs real checks and balances – but AFTER the openness has stimulated the breadth of imaginative ideas only such freedom can provide.

In the most successful organizations over the years and decades, where the test of time has shown them the excellent businesses they are, the Sony’s, Coca Colas, Nokias and Toyotas of this world think ahead and encourage great Strategic Thinking at least somewhere in their busness plans.

In a cut-throat today world of this year’s bonus and dividend, big business has a tendency to look short-term and manage that efficiently and well. A sustainable future needs more, whatever size your business is.

Do you ever suspect that you’re sitting in the driver’s seat of a high performance brain, but unfortunately it came without an owner’s manual?   You’re certainly not alone; most of us have the unshakable feeling that we are inherently capable of “much more” if only we could get our brains in gear! Folk wisdom has always alluded to how little of our brains we use, but until recent ground breaking scientific discoveries we had no way of really knowing.   The first neurologist to scientifically observe, “The brain indicates its powers are endless” was Australian Neurology Nobel Laureate Sir John Eccles. (Lecture: University of Colorado, July 31, 1974.)   Today Neuroscience has discovered more about the brain in the last decade than in all the years of previous human history combined, and the implications of the latest research are clear — the human brain is far more powerful, with the potential for immensely greater intelligence and higher achievement, than was ever before imagined.   British Pediatrics Professor, John Lorber, did autopsies on hydrocephalics, an illness that causes all but the 1/6th inch layer of brain tissue to be dissolved by acidic spinal fluid. He tested the IQ’s of patients before and during the disease and his findings showed that IQ remained constant up to death. Although over 90% of brain tissue was destroyed by the disease, it had no impact on what we consider to be normal intelligence.   Russian Neurosurgeon Alexandre Luria showed, by performing ablation experiments, that one third of our frontal lobes are dormant. His method was to give physiological and psychological tests prior to surgery, remove parts and whole frontal lobes, the re-test afterwards. His conclusion: removal of part or all of frontal lobes causes no major change in brain function, (however with some change in mood alteration). (Luria, A.R. “Frontal Lobes and the Regulation of Behavior.” Psychophysiology of the Frontal Lobes. 1973)   Finally, the human brain contains roughly 10 billion neurons, mostly in the outer layer of brain cortex. The function of these currently dominant brain-cells is fairly clear, but the brain also contains 120 billion glial cells. Aside from some secondary care and feeding of neurons, the primary function of the glia brain-cells is not clear. What miraculous discovery awaits mankind within these mysteries?   The wisdom of the persistent urban legend that says “we only use 10% our our brains, at best” has taken on an added dimension. John Eccles remarks on this saying he thinks that number is too high, after all “How can we calculate a percentage of infinity?”   The art and science of training our minds to tap into its greater potential is not new. Buddhism, for example, is an entire way of life based on the training of the mind. And in more modern times, mind training has become so widespead, that the same could be said for Olympic Athletes, or Professional Golfers, or Financial Market Traders, etc., where mind training is also an entire way of life.   However, given the inspiring advances in neuroscience, a vast shift in Mind Training has begun to happen, taking on new more personal dimensions and touching our lives in very direct and immediate ways. It is as though each new scientific discovery gives us our own personal key to unlocking our mind’s greater potential.   Personal mind training instruction abounds on every facet of personal development imaginable — health, wealth, happiness, relationships, physical fitness, income, sexual satisfaction, communication, just to name a few.   And sprinting in the lead is Professional Mind Training with its many diverse areas, such as:        Neurofeedback     Brain Hemisphere Syncronization     Bi-neural Stimulation     Autogenic Training     The Mozart Effect     Kinesiology     Brain Food     Neurolingistic Programming     Enriched Environment Neural Training     Biofeedback in all its numerous forms     Brainwave Entrainment in its many forms     and the list goes on and on!        Along with these types of technologically cutting edge mind training, ancient consciousness altering techniques are being retooled into such modern mind training modalities as Mind Altering Breathwork (Yoga), Vibrational Mind Medicine (Tibetan singing bowls), Sound Therapy (Mantras, Drum Beating, Chanting, etc). Even the more familiar, but still misunderstood, Self Hypnosis is experiencing a vast resurgance of popularity.   All of this is making mind training one of today’s most exciting and rapidly expanding fields. But the results it is generating in terms of ever and ever greater human achievements is even more astounding.   World sports records are now routinely being broken with each Olympic event. Sir Roger Bannister’s breaking of the 4 minute mile world record in 1954, a human threshold which was at the time believed to be impossible or at the very least ruinous to a runner’s health, is distant history now. Many runners have since beaten it and by the end of the century the one mile world record was 3:33.13 minutes. In a span of 93 years, 14 different athletes have been recognized as “the world’s fastest man” as world records fell one after another, but records fell lower after 1990 which is when coaching is acknowledged to have begun to include serious mind training.   Additionally, the more wide ranging records in the Guinness book of World Records are also now being broken with regularity. Even the book itself keeps breaking its own records, as the longest running best-selling copyrighted series of all-time!   Mind training has earned its stripes and as Victor Hugo said, “No army can withstand the power of an idea whose time has come.” Add to that John Eccles voice reminding us, “The brain indicates its powers are endless“, and the future of developing human potential — our personal greatness — has never looked more limitless!

Positive thinking is an avenue utilized by lots of individuals in the world over for many different reasons. It is a way of using the mind and its creative thinking to allow positive thoughts, dreams, ideas, goals and other notions to drift through your mind, allowing for a greater comprehension and acceptance of these things. By practicing higher order thinking skills, you are opening yourself up to experiencing good and beneficial results in your life. You will begin to see the good in situations instead of focusing on negative areas, you will not be confined on things that have brought you unhappiness – instead you will see it as a learning curve.

Not everybody believes in the power of positive thinking and they scoff at the idea of the subconscious mind playing a role in setting our goals. They do not believe that creative thinking can have any impact on their life whatsoever and that anything they acquire in life is all due to fate – it was meant to happen that way. This is a perfectly reasonable attitude to have but it does seem somewhat narrow minded to those who practice higher order thinking skills.

The subconscious mind plays a very essential part in the process of positive thinking, it is utilized to allow thoughts to enter a person’s consciousness and grow in a beneficial method. The law of attraction is also utilized  in creative thinking, this is the theory that if a person thinks with regards to achieving something in life for long enough it will happen. Just thinking about something however is not the way in which the law of attraction works – for instance you might dream about owning a mansion but that is as far as it goes.

The law of attraction works on a various intensity, when used in connection with positive thinking it is argued that a person will take subtle steps to obtaining what they desire. They might not be fully aware that they are doing this, and this is where the subconscious mind comes into its functions. A person may think about retraining for a career change, they may begin to engage in goal setting and start to behave in a different way. All of these things are small changes and they may take time but they are all working towards the acquisition of these goals.

Individuals who contract potentially fatal diseases such as cancer, usually turn to positive thinking, as a way of strengthening themselves from within. As a matter of fact, those who have used positive thinking when facing treatments have found that they have had beneficial outcomes. They face each day with a renewed positive attitude and with higher order thinking skills, which come from positive thinking and this can have an outstanding impact on their recovery. Their subconscious mind is feeding their body with positive energy and this boosts their total being, aiding recovery and invigorating them.

Positive thinking is what you make it and if you are able to allow your subconscious mind to help you with goal setting you will be on your way to attaining whatever you want to achieve in life.