I am logical. No, I am creative. No, I am logical. No, I am creative. Do you ever feel like you are pulled between these two sides of your brain? Some days, you feel a little more logical – spreadsheets and word docs make you happy, while the thought of having to draw a happy face makes you frown.
Well, Daniel Pink, author of A Whole New Mind, invites you to re-think the sides of the brain. He takes you on a journey through research and brain MRI’s that show how you respond to certain stimuli. The book is a fascinating look at the way our brain functions, responds to events, triggers memories and pulls the pieces of situations into a coherent picture that we understand.
The design industry uses the right brain to help create new art pieces, new furniture and who knows what else. The left brain is our logic side – calculations and critical thinking are found here. However, Daniel identifies and stipulates, that the best individual is one who can pull the right information from the appropriate side of the brain and put it together to fit the situation. Sometimes we need more logic and less creativity and vice versa.
He explains that when someone has a stroke on the right side of the brain it affects their left side and vice versa. Sometimes we encounter people who appear to not understand what we are saying – that might actually be because that person doesn’t have full use of that particular part of the brain. I could be jesting about something and the person may take me literally.
Daniel suggests that we need to develop “a whole new mind” to evaluate situations and events that utilize both sides of the brain in equal amounts. This book focuses on the idea that right brain thinking will be depended on heavily in the future as we grow and change the way we interact.
This book was fantastic! If you are a research junkie, you will not be disappointed. If you work in a logical business (engineering for example), I would highly suggest that you challenge your staff or leaders to read this book and begin implementing an alternative way of thinking. Pick it up today.
Other books by Daniel Pink – Drive, Free Agent Nation and The Adventures of Johnny Bunko
As part of my elder journey at ABF, one of the things that I want to be is available and accessible. So many times, leadership whether in business or community or ministry related, are detached from the groups they work with and serve.
Leadership is not only about effectively guiding, casting vision, listening and speaking into situations, but it is also about SERVING. I am a huge fan of serving in areas where you are gifted. Marcus Buckingham has made the “strengths” revolution famous for helping people work and serve where they are gifted and possess strengths. John Maxwell believes that people should work and serve in their gift zone. He says that when we take people out of their gift zone then we hurt their ability lead – this is different than pulling someone out of their comfort zone.
I want people to know that I am available in many different forms, if they want to connect. I enjoy a good meal, a cup of coffee, an iChat, a Facebook connect, Twitter interaction, linking in, blogging or riding a bike. Leadership is a process and I will be the first to admit that I am not always perfect at leading, but I am trying.
Lets Connect!!
John Maxwell, leadership guru and innovative thinker, is known for always having a quote handy. His books are filled to the brim with quotes from anyone and everyone. My favorite, which I have used often is,
Leadership is influence – nothing more, nothing less
I really would love to write a book, but just capturing my thoughts (which are often as diverse as my reading) hasn’t been happening. . .so I decided that I would change my pattern.
After work, I pack up my laptop (Apple, of course) and head to Starbucks and write for an hour or two before heading home. My goal is to write at least four or five days a week so that I can get used to pulling my thoughts into some organized fashion. The product of this endeavor is a lot more blog posts and hopefully some more readership as well as the ability to succintly capture thoughts.
John Maxwell says,
If you want to be a writer, you need to write
Well, that is what I am doing – I hope you will come along for the ride.
Working in the Facilities Management field, there are many times when we, as designers, need to work with the end user to layout the area. Many times we provide a print out (scaled or unscaled) and the end user gives us back the “paper doll” layout as they would like it & then we translate it into AutoCAD.
As planners, we use AutoCAD or Revit to organize the space and provide them the layout and that works great when they can dedicate time to spend with us, but many times they need to kick around with their team & that is not feasible for us to sit with them. If an app could be provided that let you drag & drop them into location that took the actual pieces & put them into place, then this would speed up the process of getting layouts done.
Just an idea. . .with the advent of the iPhone & iPod Touch these apps seem closer to existing then not existing.
If you want to check out the memorial service for Carol Marshall, you can watch via McLean Bible Church’s Internet Campus.
It seems that lately I have been in my biography & memoir reading/listening phase. Recent memoir reads include Beautiful Boy, Tweak and Live Through This — each with its own unique twist on family & life, but one underlying tone is that they all involved divorced which led to some form of addiction.
Loose Girl by Kerry Cohen is not the exception to the above statement; however, it is sad tale of a life that was in search of one thing – LOVE – that seemed ever allusive, but drew her deeper into insecurity and doubt over what that really looked like.
Kerry tells the story of a girl that at age eleven was experimenting with experiences with boys that should best be left for marriage. Sometimes you wonder why she is so open with her body, quickly opening herself up to be hurt, touched, groped and in some cases borderline raped. As I listened to these experiences, I wondered why the rebellious streak that was so evident, really needed to be there.
She tells of her parents being divorced and how her father attached himself to each girlfriend with a longing to be with them, but shredding commitment. Her father would also sit with her friends and smoke dope or drink with her and her friends – so much for the role model.
Her accounts of her mother were of abandonment, and a sister who was very reclusive and eventually who married and then divorced. Alas, she comes to a realization point and begins to shun the idea of openly releasing her body to the first guy she sees at the bar. She longs for a real relationship, one based on love that would span time. Occasionally through her journey, she happened upon a longer relationship, but eventually would push them away for various reasons. In the end, she did marry and settle down, but only after a long journey of giving herself away in many different ways.
This book was a fascinating listen and I wonder how many more girls are like Kerry, just wanting attention and love and seeking it in all the wrong places. It is a rough and coarse book with vivid descriptions, in some cases, of her experiences. I think it is a good read or listen because it can provide valuable insight into the ideology of girls that struggle with these issues. Enjoy the read, it was worth picking it up.
How many times do we sit in our car and wonder when is the light going to change? Why won’t this guy drive faster? We shift lines at the grocery store looking for the quickest lane. Sitting at Starbucks, I am struck by how many times I think about why I don’t type faster, why I don’t write better or faster, have better blogging ideas, why I don’t spend more time with the things that matter most or the people who matter most.
If life was meant to be lived at the speed of sound, we all would have been wired for that speed; however, the truth is we weren’t wired for that type of speed. I think that God intends for us to slow down, to pull up a chair and spend time with Him in a relaxed, easy-going way with lots of time for relaxation and meditation.
As you go about your week, spend time resting in Him and with Him. I know I need to slow down, but sometimes it is just so hard. Enjoy the slowdown!
Live Through This by Debra Gwartney was not a book I might normally pick up at a book store or listen to, but I was searching through the biography/memoir section of audible.com and came across it. I picked it up because of my recent fascination with memoirs and addictive personality type books.
Once I got into the book, I was pleasantly surprised. As Debra recounts the experience of packing up her four children, divorcing from their dad and heading west to Oregon – she realized that maybe all of these experiences lead to the idea of her two oldest children (Amanda & Stephanie) packing it in, jumping a train, heading to who know’s where for experience that no teenagers should experience.
She was quick to point the finger at her ex-husband for all of his mistakes while taking a backseat view of her own lack of involvement or lack of parenting. Several times throughout the book she launches into more of a third-person viewpoint of an experience which indicated her separation from the experience. She acknowledges that, in some cases, she wasn’t prepared for her daughters to return from whatever misadventure they were on, because she finally had moments of peace.
As a new romance was beginning, her life with her daughters was crumbling. The daughters who were in and out of some form of rehab or wilderness experience, were always planning some quick getaway. The daughters had an unhealthy codependent need for each other until one day, Amanda overdosed on heroine & Stephanie took off.
After an experience in a new type of charter school out of state, Stephanie who was allusive for so long had been near the top of her class and really thrived under the right environment. Once again, my heart hurt for this family – split apart by divorce, seemed to trigger the runaway behavior, was another example that every family is not perfect.
If you are a memoir reader and want to read an experience of runaway, redemption, and healing – you will enjoy this book.
A little while ago, I posted about marriage – I talked about how it was ironic that a single guy would be commenting on that subject. This past weekend, my father attended a memorial service for a young man who I worked with for a summer and who’s father we worked with for many years (I continue to do so).
The tragedy of the day – a sky-diving accident – hit home even further when it was coupled with the fact that he was 32 years old (2 yrs younger than me) and he had been married for three weeks.
On Saturday, I re-watched Fireproof (movie about marriage) and I was struck that in “sickness and health” you can see when someone is getting sick, but when someone dies – “till death separates us” – you think that it means 30, 40, 50 years later, not three weeks.
As we heard testimony from his wife, his family and his close friends it was hard to imagine that just three short weeks is all they had together as husband and wife. For those of you who are married, may you love on your wives or husbands a little more today in the coming week – time is precious, spend it wisely.
