A Whole New Mind

Instant Inspiration, the weekly capsules of inspiration

Brain is the most powerful organ in a human body. Every single idea and every single invention on earth has originated from the human mind. James Allen in his masterpiece ‘As a Man Thinketh’ has said “Mind is the master power that molds and makes, and Man is mind, and ever more he takes the Tool of Thought, and shaping what he wills, brings forth a thousand joys, thousand ills-He thinks in secret and it comes to pass; Environment is but his looking glass.” Deeply profound. Just re-read his words if you didn’t feel the same in your first reading 🙂

Our mind has infinite potential. I was watching this YouTube video ‘The Amazing Power of Your Mind’ which says, an average computer can store over 250,000 pictures, 20,000 songs and hundreds of full length movies where as our mind can perform 10 Quadrillion (10 to the power 15) operations per second without we knowing it. Amazing! Albert Einstein, the Greatest Scientist of 20^thcentury is said to have used about 20% of his mind. It is a sad fact that most of us die without using even 1% of our mind.

Success in our personal and professional ventures depends a lot on how we train our mind and what we feed our mind with. Shifting gears, this Sunday, I share with you the correlation of our mind with the success in future. I wrote this letter to the Employees on Tuesday, May 13, 2014 I hope you will like it. 🙂

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A very Good Morning to one and all,

I hope you have started your week most enthusiastically. In his book, the seven habits of highly effective people, Steven Covey writes “We see the world, not as it is, but as we are──or, as we are conditioned to see it.” That is to say we perceive outer experiences through a filter made of our beliefs, rules, values and ways of being. For instance, whatever I write is my perception of the world. It may or may not be fully correct. While I never aim for perfection, Excellence is what I strive for. A feedback on how I can improve (as a team person, as a writer, importantly as a Leader) is most welcome. A treat guaranteed when we meet in person.

Today, I want to share insights from Daniel Pink’s book ‘A whole new mind’. The book suggests the future belongs to the Right Brainers i.e. the people with Right handed mindset – viz the creators, artists, empathizers, pattern recognizers, and meaning makers. The left brainers who are more of a logical and linear thinker will be left behind. If I have to illustrate in terms of Profession, in the new age the Artists will dominate over the MBAs, CAs, and Engineers for often these are the people who create new things which do not exist earlier than the heavy Degree holders who work as directed or who at most leverage the existing things. Richard Branson, Steve Jobs, and Oprah Winfrey are all said to be right brain dominant.

Before I dig further, Let me briefly explain the dynamics of the most important organ of our body, the Brain. Our brain has two parts: the left hemisphere and the right hemisphere. Each side of the brain controls different types of thinking. Additionally, people are said to prefer one type of thinking over the other. For example, a person who is “left-brained” is often said to be more logical, analytical, and objective, while a person who is “right-brained” is said to be more intuitive, thoughtful, and subjective. Some of the abilities that are popularly associated with the right side of the brain are Creativity, Imagination, Holistic thinking, intuition, arts, rhythm, feelings, visualization, tune of songs, and day dreaming While some of the abilities of left side of the brain are logical and analytical thinking, sequencing, linear, mathematics, language, facts, and so on.

Good news is the right brain muscles can be built upon practice. Daniel Pink believes that while we need to maintain out L-directed skills we should master six essential right directed aptitudes namely: Design, Story, Symphony, Empathy, Play and Meaning. With the description of these six senses the writer has tapped into the subtle shifts that will shape our future. Let me present to you these six aptitudes briefly. The idea is to consider each of these ‘senses’ one at a time per day and think how you can improve in that particular area and try to apply it into your work and personal life. Further, remember having an idea but not implementing is as good as not having the idea as noted author and speaker Robin Sharma says ideation without execution leads to delusion.

Design: Good design is essential to good products and R-directed thinking allows us to understand how people use products in order to make products better. As a Tester or Developer, How you can improve in your piece of design. It may be say designing architecture, presenting solutions, Test Planning, Report preparation, anything. Think about it.

Story: Pink describes story as “context enriched by emotion”. Story is how information has traditionally been passed from one generation to another. Even though facts are now available instantly and virtually for free, story will remain important because of the emotional Impact. It’s the emotional element that makes Information stick. Think of ways how you can present your story at work and in personal life.

Symphony: As Pink says, “Symphony is largely about relationships.” The Conceptual Age will reward those who can see connections between seemingly unrelated areas for example someone who applies their knowledge of say arts to business concepts.

Empathy: The concept of being able to enter someone else’s “shoes” has always been considered an essential leadership attribute, but this ability will be in even higher demand in the future. Empathy is simply Going beyond logic and engaging emotion and intuition.

Play: In simple terms I would say do you find fun in your work? If not, think of ways how you can make your work more interesting? Work on ways to bring humor and light-heartedness to your work.

Meaning: The purpose is the journey, give meaning to life from inside yourself. Ask yourself what am I here for, what is my Purpose on Earth?

I hope this email has helped you to think of ways to strengthen your right-brain and there by prepare yourself for the Challenge of future. All the Best!

All of you have a Productive Week ahead!

1000 Thank you’s and Best Wishes,

Narendra Gupta

The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled. – Plutarch

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