In today’s rapidly changing business environment, leaders and entrepreneurs are required to be more adaptive, responsive, and innovative than ever before. Assessing situations quickly, and developing novel solutions have become a requirement. Differentiating your self, your product or your organization is essential–and requires creative thinking.
If you approach a new situation with the your habitual thinking, it’s impossible to generate new ideas, visions or solutions. Your thought patterns will travel down the same neural pathways in your brain the same way they always do–and the outcome will be the same ideas you typically have. Thinking in novel ways requires new connections within the brain. New thinking requires pattern breaking. Research shows that by actively engaging the brain’s capacities from both hemispheres, you have a larger “playing field” from which to create – there is more cross fertilization between neural synapses which leads to original ideas and “A-ha” moments.
The “left brain” organizes what already exists and thinks linearly. There is a sequential, analytical process toward a specific outcome. The often overlooked (but not less important) “right brain” imagines what can be and thinks in nonlinear interconnections. It has immediate access to insights and novel connections. Cultivating the use of both sides leads to breakthrough leaps and the ability to think on your feet under pressure.
I developed a simple Whole Brain Brain Dimensions chart to help you better understand your dominant thinking style. The words in the left hand column are typically associated with the “left brain thinking,” and the words in the right hand column are typically associated with “right brain thinking.” These are simple generalizations, designed to get you thinking about the habitual thinking patterns you use to approach your work. The more integrated your brain hemispheres are – accessing and using the elements associated with both sides of this list – the more effective you will be at generating elegant solutions and developing new solutions. Most individuals and most organizational cultures lean more toward one side or the other. Which are you? Which is your organization? Which is your culture?
Quickly scan the list for the words that apply to you in your work. Don’t think about it—go by initial instinct. Keep track of how many words in each column describe you. You don’t have to choose between the 2 columns – just check off each word that speaks to you as part of your own process, even if they seem opposite. For example, you may find you already use both detailed and big picture thinking in your work. If so, check both. Whole Brain Dimensions Chart
Add up the totals on each side to become aware of your dominant thinking approach. What are your dominant thinking patterns? Where is there room for skill development for more whole brain thinking?
Whole Brain Integration Techniques
The flowing are some quick and simple exercises you can use at your desk to begin to integrate the hemispheres and strengthen your less dominant side.
1. Opposite functions – Spend some time doing everything with your non-dominant hand. Every time you break a dominance habit, you create new neural pathways and give the brain more options. It become easier to think in new ways throughout your day, and easier to adapt, respond and create in high pressure environments.
2. Color and No Lines – Instead of using lined legal paper and a pen in meetings, brainstorming sessions or any other work related functions, try use unlined paper and colored markers. Lines have a subconscious effect on us which keep the brain locked in habitual thought patterns. By removing the lines, the brain is more free to think visually and instead of just in words. Using colored markers has a stimulating effect on the brain because the right brain thinks in color.
3. Sensory Immersion – engage all of your senses in your ideation process. Instead of coming to a situation from analytical thinking alone:
> Visualize it > Use different types of music to stimulate thinking > Use 3-dimentional objects to move around on your desk as your are brainstorming > Talk about it out loud (left brain) as you are seeing it (right brain) > Develop mindmaps with both images and words > Use body nonlinearly, i.e., have the right and left arms doing 2 different tasks at the same time. > Try Crossover Movements – cross the left hand over the right, or touch the left know with the right hand and vice versa for a couple minutes.
The more senses you use simultaneously, the more the brain sides work in harmony and the information you receive.
4. Embodiment – become the project, problem, vision, product and act from its point of view. New ideas will flood your mind. This is easy to prove. First, try imagining new features to add to any product in a certain time period, i.e., 5 minutes. You will come up with a number of features. Then, pretend you actually are the product – become the product -and start talking as the product, again for 5 minutes. You will learn exponentially more about what additional features it “needs.” The act of becoming a product or concept will give you new insights and awareness’ into the product, and therefore, potential new features, that you cannot get from just thinking about it.
Innovation has become one of the top business values today, and thinking creatively is requisite for sustainable innovation. Whole brain thinking is the one of the most effective – and accessible – approaches to break out of limited thinking and develop consistently fresh thinking patterns. Once you access your brain’s creative wellspring, business challenges can become innovative opportunities.
Creativity catalyst and coach Michelle James, CEO of The Center for Creative Emergence has worked with thousands of people – from individuals to large corporations – to help them unlock and focus their creativity for the business bottom line. Using principles of emergence with whole-brain creative process, she developed the Creative Emergence Process
Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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Your dreams can reveal many truths about your life. They can provide extraordinary intuitive insights, give you information that can help your health, love life and career. You’d be surprised at the straightforward advice that your dreams give, either spontaneously or on request.
You are in partnership with your dreams. Initiate an ongoing dialogue with them. It’s like consulting the wisest old-time family doctor you can imagine who knows you inside out. You can ask your dreams anything-even what seems most impossible. No question is trivial if it is meaningful to you. Expect answers. Some will be direct. Others may require interpretation.
Dreams can keep you well. Dreams provide answers. But first you must retrieve them. Here are my four strategies to remember your dreams
• Keep a journal and pen by your bed.
• Write a question on a piece of paper before you go to sleep. Formalize your request. Place it on a table beside your bed or under your pillow.
• In the morning do not wake up too fast. Stay under the covers for at least a few minutes remembering your dream. Luxuriate in a peaceful feeling between sleep and waking, what scientists call the hypnagogic state. Those initial moments provide a doorway.
• Open your eyes. Write down your dream immediately; otherwise it will evaporate. You may recall a face, object, color, or scenario, feel an emotion. It doesn’t matter if it makes perfect sense-or if you retrieve a single image or many. Record everything you remember.
When you’re finished, refocus on the question you asked the previous night. See how your dream applies. One, two, or more impressions about the who/what/where of your solution may have surfaced. Get in the habit of recording your dreams regularly. Be assured I’ve never met anyone who can’t be taught how to remember. Keep at it. Remember to practice. Soon it will become second nature to you!
In addition to the practical aspects of remembering dreams, there’s an intuitive level to understanding dreams. Reliable intuitive information stands out in very specific ways. Watch for these clues:
• Statements that simply convey information
• Neutral segments that evoke or convey no emotion
• A detached feeling, like you’re a witness watching a scene
• A voice or person counseling you, as if you’re taking dictation from an outside source
• Conversations with people you never met before who give instructions.
I’ve found that my most dead-on intuitions either come across as compassionate or have no emotion at all. Develop a careful eye as you practice separating the content of your dreams from your reactions to it. Soon you’ll be able to tell what is reliable guidance and what is not.
Be aware that your dreams go by different rules than your waking life. Get ready for a mind shift. Physical laws no longer apply. Gravity changes. In dreams you can fly!
Please join me for “Dr. Orloff’s Living Room Series” to find out more about the special method I recommend to remember your dreams and other topic that will help you build the power within. Stop by http://www.youtube.com/judithorloffmd anytime.
Judith Orloff, M.D is a board certified psychiatrist, energy and intuition expert, and author of the bestselling books “Positive Energy,” “Guide to Intuitive Healing” and “Second Sight.” She is also an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at UCLA with a private practice in Los Angeles. Known for her ability to synthesize the pearls of traditional medicine with cutting edge knowledge of intuition and energy, she passionately believes that the future of medicine involves integrating all this wisdom to achieve emotional freedom and total wellness. Subscribe to her free E-newsletter at www.drjudithorloff.com. FREE VIDEO MINI COURSES ON YOUTUBE: She recently launched ?Dr. Orloff?s Living Room Series,? a yearlong series of FREE video mini-courses on youtube.com based on the materials in her bestselling books.
Step into her living room at http://www.youtube.com/judithorloffmd. The series will be composed of many easy to follow, inspiring, short video classes designed to help you build the power within, and to offer expert information and inspiration you can immediately put to use in your life! The first course is “The Art of Remembering and Interpreting Dreams” in which Dr. Orloff guides you through the special method she recommends to remember your dreams. You can also learn how to ?Tap Into Your Intuition? and discover the ?Sacredness of Energy.?
Mammoth Memory, Power Thinking And Lazy Learning Are 3 Powerful Courses (70 000 + Words) That Are Packed With Critical Information, Memory Techniques, Thinking Tools And Exercises To Help Maximise Your Brain Skills.