SIMPLE ACTIVITIES TO GALVANISE YOUR GENIUS!

Writing in the 'Kinderblossoms' edition of The InGenius Series of bookazines, Dilip Mukerjea shares the following simple activities to galvanise your genius:

1) Leaves & Flowers: Feel the textures, smell the fragrances, then draw what you sense;

2) Emotions: What does "happy", "sad", or "angry" look like? Mimic these emotions in a mirror and draw what you see. Then try a range of other emotions;

3) Name Designs: Project your personality to the planet! Create some fabulous designs, based on your own name. Use colour, images, and symbols to craft your masterpieces;

4) Your Life So Far: Draw the key points in your life; use a range of emotions to flavour your work;

5) Making Personal Flags: Design a personal flag that descrbes your nobility!

6) Storyboarding: Draw the events of a story on a storyboard, and get a friend to make up the text;

7) Detailed Observation: Look closely at something (any object) and see if you can come up with at least ten features that are particular to that object;

8) Talking Textiles: Use drawing and clothing as a way of expressing historical stories, involving links to Science, Language, Cultures, and Geography;

[For annual subscriptions to the bookazines, please proceed to this link under 'Learning Miracles'. ]

Say Keng's personal comments:

The suggested activities may seem mundane, but I can assure readers that they are designed to enable you to perceive the world in differing as well as interesting ways.

In a nut shell, they can heighten your perceptual sensitivity as well as sensory acuity to the world around you, which, to me, are the essential prerequisites to personal creativity.

You will be really inspired, and not only that, you will never be the same again in looking at the world around you.

THE WISDOM OF NEURONS

The epicentre of high performance comes from neurons acting in concert with one another.

This interplay is reflected in the marketspace, between players, platforms, processes, partnerships, and products born out of emerging high-tech high-touch systems.

From concept to customer, what guides todays’s business rapids are high velocity, low viscosity, fluent and flexible thinking processes.

Today’s executives need to be Perpetual Learning Organisms. Through continual skill-building in the domains of intellectual and emotional competences, a new generation of learning leaders will emerge. None of this can happen without awakened neurons.

Let us consider the metaphor of a stadium where the individual spectators are akin to individual neurons. In a passive mode, the spectators, or neurons, remain incommunicado.

Nothing seems to touch or exhilarate their centres of consciousness. In essence, they are leading unadventured lives.

“The space between two neurons, a synaptic junction, is a small liquid space, as in the air between two whispering lovers; yet so much life happens there.”

~ Diane Ackerman;

But the awakened brain, like a stadium come to life, stimulates an organization of symbols, ineffably perhaps, but by which the energies of aspiration are evoked and gathered toward a focus. Suddenly there is a message that expresses the union and unity of neurons at play.

This is the stuff of genius, of divinity in motion, of humanity expressing itself with eloquence.

None of this happens because of one neuron; it comes from the synergy of each neuron harmonising with its companions, all exhibiting an awareness of their embedded destinies.

A continual quest for the best, in all domains, is what can halt the accelerating disintegration of human consciousness. Learning leaders can guarantee excellence when they are guided by the wisdom of neurons! It calls for a shift in position, from e-go to we-go!

“I have known strong minds, with imposing, undoubting, Cobbett-like manners; but I have never met a great mind of this sort. The truth is, a great mind must be androgynous.”

~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge


[Excerpted from the 'Leadership, Learning & Laughter' edition of The Braindancer Series of bookazines by Dilip Mukerjea. All the images in this post are the intellectual property of Dilip Mukerjea.]

Say Keng's personal comments:

In a nut shell, learning as well as creativity are the performance results of electrical impulses & chemical activity in the brain.

That's to say, your intellectual brainpower is a function of the inter-connectivity as well as the richness of the connectivity of your neurons in the brain.

So, the old adage "Use More of It or Lose It" rings very true!

No wonder marketing maverick & creativity guru Doug Hall once puts it very eloquently in his book, 'Jump Start Your Brain':

"The secret of geniuses' accomplishments does not lie in what they have, but in how they use their brains!"

BOOK REVIEW: 'BREAKPOINT & BEYOND: MASTERING THE FUTURE TODAY', by George Land

[Extracted from the 'Optimum Performance Technologies' weblog.]

In anticipating the future, three things generally fascinate & intrigue me, & they are: Change, Complexity & Competition.

Hence, I am always seeking better understanding - & appreciation - of these critical areas of concern.

In the search of books & resources, I have come across many excellent authors or masters. I have already featured a few in my earlier posts.

In this post, I would like to review one original, thought provoking book, written with warm, passion & clarity as well as mastery of content.

Actually, I had read 'Breakpoint & Beyond' during the mid-nineties, when it was first published. At that time, I had just embarked on a journey to play a better game in the second half of my life.

Oftentimes, I have returned to the book to read certain earmarked pages. In a nut shell, it weaved a compelling story about change by focusing a new & penetrating lens on the master teacher of change, Mother Nature herself.

The authors asserted that understanding the invisible forces of natural change would uncover the hidden patterns that could unlock our potential as individuals & organisations.

The authors also showed that natural growth was characterised by long periods of stability, punctuated by "breakpoints" - bursts of explosive change & showed how we could take advantage of the tremendous opportunities that would arise during these exciting periods.

Amidst the somewhat lofty rhetoric - the book was rather heavy to read - I would like to single out one principle from the book - the Principle of Future Pull.

According to the authors, every single cell in a tree, in a caterpillar, or in a human being would grow & develop not based on its history but by being pulled toward in its internal picture of the possible future. That future was inscribed in the DNA, the genes that reside in the nucleus of every cell. That way, every part of the system could pull together toward the common future.

In human terms, this would translate into living with a powerful vision of the future. A compelling vision could pull individuals & organisations to their desired future.

Let me share some of the authors' ideas of doing it.

Know your purpose & vision:

Purpose can be defined as how an individual & organisation makes the world a better place. A vision is a compelling image or picture of the purpose having been achieved.

The book gave this example:

Landing a man on the moon in a decade was the vision that President John Kennedy held out as an inspiring magnet pulling an entire nation to develop the technological capability for manned space flights.

Purpose & vision are as important for individuals as they are for organisations.

A compelling purpose energises life. Without a compelling purpose, we live life as a fairly haphazard experience, being easily swayed by the latest fad, temporary pressures, or the most recent advice on what others think we ought to be doing with our lives.

Commit to achieve your vision & purpose:

When an organisation lacks a compelling purpose, its people cannot helped but be uninspired.

The book gave an example of the late Anita Roddick & the Body Shop, whose concerns for the environment & the people still infuse the enterprise.

Abundance is Mother Nature's state:

Abundance comes to those who have the courage to follow their dreams. This brings not only material abundance but connection with the opportunities that are vital to the full expression of one's talents.

Today thousands of people are doing what they love to do in the most unlikely occupations & making an excellent living.

No one with a compelling purpose & a great vision knows exactly how it will be achieved. You have to be willing to follow an unknown path, allowing the road to take you where it will. Surprise, serendipity, uncertainty, & the unexpected are guaranteed on the way to the future.

Make the world a better place by living according to shared values:

Values are often thought of as soft stuff of an organisation, something that goes on a bronze plaque in the lobby. Somehow the values get separated from how the business really runs.

Inevitably, employees & customers know it. The purpose & values are the heart of the vision that will pull organisations into their future. These ingredients provide the essential elements of successful self-creation: the picture of that future whole. It is the internal guidance system, the DNA that allows everything to work together.

The purpose, vision & values furnish the internal reference point for making choices & connections in a complex & rapidly changing world. They endow the individual & organisation with direction to be pulled into the future.

With a little bit of hindsight, I am very glad I had made full use of many of the authors' ideas in my own life.

If you are concerned about your own personal change & renewal, you must read this book. It will help you to think about your life -& to stay vital all your life.

BECOMING A CREATIVE GENIUS, by Dilip Mukerjea

Creativity is your prerogative.

For an organisation to transform itself into one that can flow with the pace of change, it will need to transform its thinking. This equates directly with mining our potential now. It is usage, not age, that determines the creative output from our brains.

It will be better still if these brains communicate with each other, for whilst magic does happen in one mind lost in reverie, it becomes dynamic when several illuminated minds meet within a sparkling shower of intellectual enthusiasm.

George Land, in his masterwork 'Grow or Die: The Unifying Principle of Transformation', conveys the basic law of human nature: the most fundamental drive of human nature is growth.

A more down-to-earth version of this sentiment emerged from Ray Kroc, the founder of McDonald’s: “When you’re green you’re growing, when you’re ripe, you rot.”

In referring to the work of George Land, Joyce Wycoff focuses brilliantly on this theme, where three types of growth have been identified: Expanding – Extending – Evolving.

Expanding is about growing to our genetically determined size – physically and mentally. This could happen for example, to plants, animals and us humans.

Extending refers to an organism reproducing or merging and joining others of a similar type.

Once again, plant or animal life for instance, will grow to a finite size and then start producing “babies” that replicate them. This is the raison d’être for survival where all organisms evolve to a point where they are able to biologically reproduce themselves.

In another sense, we humans extend ourselves through our connections with others, be they family, friends, colleagues and even strangers – the need for contact is a fundamental drive in the average human being.

Evolving refers to the progressive change over time towards a more complex and better-adapted form. The time factor varies with the particular life form, but the evolution is certain.

Stimulation through interaction with other organisms and the environment, will instigate change at a faster pace.

Creativity involves all three stages of growth. It is up to us as unique individuals, to light the fires in our moments of darkness.

As James Higgins states,

“The message for the organisation is innovate or evaporate; for the individual, innovate or stagnate; for society, innovate or degenerate.”

In order to encourage creativity and innovation within an organisation, we need to recognise some factors of paramount importance; these deal with the human and humane elements within an organisation: Respect, Trust, Commitment and Recognition.

The biggest barrier to creativity is fear, which would be eliminated by absorbing the ethics of the four qualities just mentioned.

Fear leads to stress, which leads to distress.

Consultants, specialists, psychoanalysts, experts in various denominations of dysfunction, all proliferate in a society where fear has been allowed to prevail. Organisations fragment and crumble, educational institutions get enveloped in a fog of myopia, families communicate only virtually, and governments lead by misleading.

The recent spate of Fortune 500 corporate mega-scandals has led to the loss of millions of jobs, and done nothing to inspire hope: casualties of greed via creative accounting.

What a start to the New Millennium! It is the thinking-feeling individual that will transform society into one where humanity can prosper, by rediscovering a fresh consciousness of spiritual awareness.

We realise more of our divinity as we become more creative. The more creative we become, the more our spirits soar. When our creativity reaches a climax, when our lives radiate with creativity, we live in God (whatever our concept of Him or Her may be).

When we love what we do, creativity emerges as a fragrance from the blossom that lives within us. The value is intrinsic. Creative acts are love-affairs of the human spirit. No matter how small an experience may seem, it becomes great by the touch of love and delight.

[Excerpted from the 'Ideas on Ideas' edition of The Braindancer Series of bookazines by Dilip Mukerjea. All the images in this post are the intellectual property of Dilip Mukerjea.

From Say Keng:

In the light of Dilip's exposition, it is obvious that creativity obeys Mother Nature's command to grow or die, which is her single mandate. As a matter of fact, as George Land had articulated so beautifully, growth is the most basic & universal of drives, through which all biological, physical, chemical, psychological, & cultural processes are intrinsically equivalent.

Please read my personal review of George Land's more or less follow-up book, 'Breakpoint & Beyond: Mastering the Future Today'.]