HUMOUR IS SERIOUS BUSINESS: Wisdom from Children through the Medium of Jokes

[continued from the Last Post.]




[to be continued in the Next Post. Excerpted from 'Unleashing Genius with the World's Most Powerful Learning Systems', by Dilip Mukerjea.]

HUMOUR IS SERIOUS BUSINESS: Wisdom from Children through the Medium of Jokes

[continued from the Last Post]




[to be continued in the Next Post. Excerpted from 'Unleashing Genius with the World's Most Powerful Learning Systems', by Dilip Mukerjea.]

HUMOUR IS SERIOUS BUSINESS: Wisdom from Children through the Medium of Jokes

[continued from the Last Post]




[to be continued in the Next Post. Excerpted from 'Unleashing Genius with the World's Most Powerful Learning Systems', by Dilip Mukerjea.]

HUMOUR IS SERIOUS BUSINESS

I always reckon - likewise, Dilip Mukerjea shares my sentiment - that clever jokes often present unexpected solutions & juxtapose ideas or concepts that normally would not go together.

The best jokes are like good thinking ~ often end up with an unexpected punchline.

So, sit back & reeeeee...lax! Medicine may not be a good joke, but good jokes are certainly welcome medicine!

Enjoy what follows!





[To be continued in the Next Post. Excerpted from 'Unleashing Genius with the World's Most Powerful Learning Systems', by Dilip Mukerjea.]

A RELOOK AT THE TAPESTRY OF CONTENTS: UNLEASHING GENIUS

Amidst all the wonderful books within 'The Creative Brain Series' [the other titles comprises 'Building Brainpower', 'Brain Symphony', 'Surfing the Intellect', & 'Taleblazers'], 'Unleashing Genius' is the only one that actually straddles both the educational as well as the corporate domain.

As a result, Dilip Mukerjea says this is a book that has been written for ages 5 to 105.

It has a light-hearted intellectual intensity, & yet it addresses the inherent brilliance of school-going children.

To paraphrase the author, the first wonder of the world is the mind of a child!

More interestingly, it also puts forward sophisticated and formidable skill sets within the grasp of business executives from any discipine.

The primary focus of the book is on anyone learning the fundamentals of brain skills for immediate application: with The World’s Most Powerful Learning Systems... uniquely designed to provide the reader with a panoramic experience of genius in action.

These are basic brain skills that address the needs of anyone wishing to survive and thrive in The Learning Economy.

School-going children and professional adults can learn how to process information with joy and rapidity, once they have learned how to use the excellent material in this book.

Designed in full colour, with fine hand-crafted, computer-enhanced graphic illustrations, and engineered to draw out your personal brilliance, this book is, unquestionably, the only book of its type in the world.



['Unleashing Genius' as well as other titles in 'The Creative Brain Series' is readily available at most of the Kinokuniya Bookstores.]

COME ON, GENIUSES! LET'S MOVE ON AND DO THE "I Like To Move It, Move It..."

If you had enjoyed watching the two 'MADAGASCAR' movies from DreamWorks SKG like I did - not once, but many times -, you will recall the fabulous dance routine with the hip song 'I Like to Move It, Move It!'.


[Readers can go to this link to watch the movie clip of the fabulous dance routine in the first 'MAGADASCAR' movie, & listen to the hip song.

For the fabulous dance/hip song routine - with a different twist to "I Like to move it, move it..." - in the second movie, 'MADAGASCAR: ESCAPE 2 AFRICA, please go to this link.]

By a stroke of creative juxtaposition, at least from the visual perspective, I thought that the above ragtag group of cartoon characters [originally illustrated in 'Unleashing Genius with the World Most Powerful Learning Systems'] by Dilip Mukerjea would just fit as an appropriate parody.

Nonetheless, as a gentle reminder - in fact Dilip Mukerjea has often asserted in his writings -, 'Movement is Essential to Efficient Brain Usage'.

GOETHENTICITY

This is the beautiful and apt epilogue to the wonderful book, 'Unleashing Genius with the World's Most Powerful Learning Systems', by Dilip Mukerjea.


"Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation) there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans; that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too.

All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issue from the decision, raising in one's favour all manner of unforeseen incidents, and meetings, and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would come his way.

Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it.
Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.
Begin it NOW!"

~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832), 'The Prince of the Mind', German poet, novelist, playwright, courtier, and natural philosopher, and one of the greatest figures in Western literature.

The LEARNING ERA is here!

Your womb-to-tomb journey is no longer predictable. Leading through learning is what it's all about.

The quality of your life depends upon the choices you make. Let them be such that you emerge as victor, and not victim.

LIVE passionately
LOVE ardently
LEARN feverishly
LAUGH joyously

and help others along the way!

If you live your life with integrity, open your heart to love, and reach into your soul to offer the world the truth that is you, then how can life refuse you its wonders?

Never say it can't be done,
For that's the way you miss the fun!
So commit to your commitments and enjoy the magic of 'Goethenticity'.

Say Keng's personal reflections on & responses to what Dilip has penned so eloquently: [actual hand-written marginalia from the two pages]

Our true identity is in our moment-to-moment experiences!

Living in the NOW is the finest path to joy, happiness and enlightenment.

I am always reminded of the following wonderful quote from internationally renowned peak performance coach Anthony Robbins, also author of 'Unlimited Power' & 'Awaken the Giant Within':

"It is in your moment of decision that your destiny is shaped."

There are only two primary choices in life:

1) accept all the conditions as they exist;

2) accept full responsibility for changing some if not all of them;

I like to leave the following wonderful quote from Austrian psychologist Viktor Frankl, also author of the classic, 'Man's Search for Meaning', as P2P (Point to Ponder):

"Everything can be taken away from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedom - to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way."

[Interested readers who are keen to explore 'How to Leave Masterly Marginalia', please proceed to this link ~ 'The Little Guide to Your Well-Read Life', by Steve Leveen.]

LET'S PLAY & CREATE FUN

In his book, 'Unleashing Genius, with the World's Most Powerful Learning Systems', Dilip Mukerjea writes:

"The ancient Greeks had a word for the concept of 'education' ~ it was paideia.

One letter short, their concept for 'play' was paidia.

When play is infused into education, learning becomes fun and natural."

Dilip & I believe that when play is infused into the corporate landscape, learning becomes fun & natural too.

Interestingly, we have come across that 'play' often ignites creative sparks in the corporate landscape.

However, since our left-brained corporate culture frowns upon 'play' in the workplace, the big boys have coined an apt term, 'Serious Games', for it.

According to IBM, "one study found that a great lecture can improve learning by 17%, but serious games can improve learning by 108%!"

Read the following belated report, 'Playful Innovation' from Philips Design.

A BANK OF EXERCISES: GATHERING, EXTRACTING & GENERATING INSIGHTS

I have created a bank of exercises to illustrate the importance of gathering, extracting & generating insights, using the book, 'Unleashing Genius, with the World's Most Powerful Learning Systems', by Dilip Mukerjea, as an intellectual platform in a personal coaching assignment.

The ultimate purpose of the assignment is creating concrete deliverables from the insights, such as a plan of action for building personal effectiveness & enhancing peak performance.

Any reader who has a copy of the foregoing book can make use of the exercises for his or her personal as well as professional development.

1. Read, if not skim & scan, ‘Unleashing Genius’. Pay particular attention to the 3 sections, namely, ‘01: The Brain’; ‘04: Reading Dynamics’ & ‘06: Creativity’.

2. What do you think are the significant ideas of the book mentioned in (1)?

Additionally, can you provide some highlights in terms of salient aspects, pertaining to each significant idea? You can use a mind-map to illustrate your response.

3. How can you relate your personal insights from ‘01: The Brain’ with the concept of developing personal effectiveness & enhancing peak performance?

4. What do you understand by the following phrases mentioned in the book:

(a) ‘Reading on the lines’;

(b) ‘Reading between the lines’;

(c) ‘Reading beyond the lines’;

(d) ‘Reading beyond the page’ (or what I like to term as ‘Reading outside the lines’)?

From the standpoint of building strategic agility & operational versatility in a rapidly- changing, chaotic world of ours, I would consider (c) & (d) as very vital, as one needs to constantly come up with new & novel ideas, & also putting them to work (i.e. 'translating ideas to ca$h', as Dilip likes to put it!).

Do you agree? If so, what are your personal thoughts with regard to practical lessons you can draw upon?

5. Given a choice, how can you synthesise & factor in the key insights from (3) to build a long-term personal efficiency program for your own self?

6. Dilip has a favourite catchphrase: ‘Are You Busy Living or Busy Dying?’ in the book. What comes to your mind when you read it?

How best can you draw practical lessons from your understanding, within the context of your own personal & professional development?

7. In ‘06: Creativity’, Dilip starts off with the statement: “Elements of ‘Braindancing’ to help you kick-start your journey towards entrepreneurial excellence”.

Firstly, what is ‘Braindancing’ to you? What do you think is its association with ‘Creativity’?
Now, how can you synthesise these intellectual deliberations with what you had already completed earlier, in (3)?

8. On page 363 of the book, Dilip has outlined a simple exercise: “Convert these empty circles into meaningful images.”

Now, take out a blank sheet of A4-sized paper & replicate the page. Do the exercise as instructed.

How about doing a variation of the exercise: instead of ‘circles’, use ‘squares’ this time? What is your new outcome, when compared to the earlier exercise, with ‘circles’?

[We will debrief/discuss the outcome of this exercise to help you draw valuable lessons.]

9. On the inside back-page of the book, Dilip has created a mnemonic ‘CATSEYE’.
Think about its application possibilities, & share your personal thoughts, using yourself as a personal test case.

10. In association with key insights from (9), & combining them with the pictorial ’12-spoke wheel’ illustrating the “stunning array of learning miracles” on the back-cover of the book, explore how you can draw up a tentative implementation schedule, say for the next 90 days, as far as your own personal & professional development is concerned.

REQUISITE MATERIALS:

‘Unleashing Genius’, by Dilip Mukerjea;
One Drawing Block, preferably A3-sized;
One Lecture Note-pad;
Colour Markers;

THE WISDOM OF O SENSEI (1883-1969)

"The true martial art is love."

"Surrounded by a forest of enemy spears, enter deeply, and learn to use your mind as a shield."

"Depending on the circumstance, you should be hard as a diamond, flexible as a willow, smooth-flowing like water, or as empty as space."

"Those who are enlightened never stop forging themselves... the most perfect actions echo the patterns found in nature."

[Excerpted from 'Unleashing Genius, with the World's Most Powerful Systems', by Dilip Mukerjea;]

Say Keng's personal comments:

I am no martial artist. In contrast, Dilip is a dedicated Aikido enthusiast, & goes for his regular disciplined practices almost every Friday evening.

However, I love to watch martial artists doing their fancy routines in the cable television documentaries, as well as in the movies.

My favourite martial-artists-turned-action-stars include the legendary Bruce Lee, Jet Li, Sho Kosugi, Sonny Chiba, Chuck Norris, Jean-Claude van Damme, Wesley Snipes, & Steven Seagal.

In the early years, especially during my teenaged years, I was often mesmerised by the antics of the Shaolin monks, the Japanese samurais, ronins & ninjas, & not forgetting Wong Fei Hung & the Blind Swordsman.

All I know about true martial arts is that they have a lot to do with mental toughness training, governed by a disciplined soft-focused mind, which flows fluidly into the physical prowess & bodily agility of the practitioners.

The true spirit of martial arts has nothing to do with beating your opponent into a pulp, as often depicted in the movies, although I must admit I have always enjoyed watching Chuck Norris or Steven Seagal whacking the bad guys in the movies.

If you ever had the chance to meet up with Dilip in person, he will tell you a lot of wonderful stories about his personal encounters with real masters of the craft.

Point to Ponder:

"I don't study martial arts to learn to fight. I study martial arts so that I won't have to."

(Source Unknown)

PRAGMATIC ADVICE FROM THE WISE

"Critical thinking, without creative and intuitive insights, without the search for new patterns, is sterile and doomed. To solve complex problems requires the activity of both cerebral hemispheres; the path to the future lies through the corpus callosum."

~ Carl Sagan, (1934-1996), American astronomer, astrochemist & astrophysicist;

Hip, Hip, Hurray!

As Dilip Mukerjea has so eloquently put it in his book, 'Unleashing Genius, with the World Most Powerful Learning Systems':

"Genius is unleashed when both the 'left' and the 'right' attributes of the brain are working in harmony with one another."

This is how Dilip & I envision it:

LOGIC + IMAGINATION

REASONING + INTUITION

DETAILS + BIG PICTURE

ORDER + CHAOS OR CHAORDIC!

CONVERGENT + DIVERGENT OR SYNVERGENT!

ALGORITHMIC + "FUZZY WOOLY FEEL"

THINKING + DAYDREAMING

COOL HEAD + GUT FEEL

HARD-NOSE + SOFT-FOCUS

FORECASTS WITH NUMBERS + SCENARIOS WITH STORIES

SERIOUSNESS + FUN

WORK + PLAY OR PLORK!

SCANNING THE HORIZON + GROKKING THE FUTURE

ANALYSIS OVER TIME + SYNTHESIS OVER SPACE

TRAVERSING THE MAINSTREAM + STRADDLING THE FRINGES

LINEAR EXTRAPOLATION + RANDOM JUXTAPOSTION

ABSTRACT CONCEPTUALISATION + RAPID PROTOTYPING

ONE-TRACK, STOP-START MOTION + MULTI-DIMENSIONAL,OMNI-DIRECTIONAL PERPETUAL MOTION

INSIDE THE CIRCLE + OUTSIDE THE CIRCLE

TO BE OR NOT TO BE... THE CHOICE IS YOURS!

As one opens up the visually captivating, high-content, information-rich book, 'Unleashing Genius, with the World's Most Powerful Learning Systems', by Dilip Mukerjea, you will find his 'Foreword' as follows:

"THANK YOU FOR COMING THIS WAY!

Leading through learning depends upon a special kind of ignorance... that of never knowing what you can't do! Develop this quality; it will be a faithful companion in your quest for the best.

To know about is never enough; you must be! Be a seeker, not a blind believer. Search, enquire, experiment, and march forth bodly into the future.

Mistakes, mishaps, and misfortines will come your way; treat them as opportunities for discovering who you are. They are a gift from the Universe, designed to help you grow.

This book offers you some raw materials to enhance your life. I am grateful that the magic within has come my way. With great pleasure, I now pass it on to you, dear Reader! Enjoy, and Unleash Your Genius!"

I must say that 'A Book on Learning Miracles for Children of all Ages' as shown on the front cover is certainly an apt secondary title.

This is the only book in Dilip's evolving portfolio that truly transcends both the enducational & the corporate domain.

To put it more explicitly, this is one book that can be read - easy to follow, so to speak - by students, teachers, parents, home-schoolers, managers, professionals & entrepreneurs as well as senior citizens.

As Dilip puts it, "by the time you finish the book, you will have become a Certified Learning FUN-atic! This means that you and your brain will have:

- become incredibly more creative;

- a powerful memory;

- a top class capability to read fast and to remember more;

- escalated your skills in the English Language;

- acquired expertise in Mind Mapping and other ways to process information at top speed;

- activated the art & science of 'power learning';

- had fun with the world's most powerful learning systems!

[As a matter of fact, a pictorial 12-spoke wheel on the back over illustrates the stunning array of learning miracles! - appropriate for building intellectual capital & strategic agility!]

In other words, you will have been unleashing your genius!

BRAIN POWER HAS REPLACED HORSEPOWER

There is a New World to be won; NOW! The choice is yours:

Creativity or Catastrophe!

It is about your ability to generate streams of ideas and to translate these ideas into business items.

The pages that follow are meant to design your destiny. The people whose neurons fire quickest and best are the ones that will forge ahead!

The future belongs to the children of today. Let the journey begins... "

What follows is a tapestry of the selected "raw materials" in the wonderful book.


Just click on the foregoing 'Lotus Blossom Map' to get a sneak preview via close-up view of the key pages!

The book is already available at Kinokuniya Bookstores.

Alternatively, you can preview &/or order it from the author's corporate website.

LOTUS BLOSSOM MAP OF 'UNLEASHING GENIUS' in high resolution, vibrant colours!

This is a 'Lotus Blossom Map' of Dilip Mukerjea's earlier book, 'Unleashing Genius with the World's Most Powerful Learning Systems', targetted at students of all ages, including parents, teachers, entrepreneurs, managers, & professionals.

The book's principal focus is building intellectual capital & strategic agility.

Together with the forthcoming trilogy of learning books, comprising 'BrainChildren', 'Primary Genius' & 'Brain Force', it will serve as a complete compendium for learning in the 21st Century.


Just click on the 'Lotus Blossom Map' to get a sneak preview via close-up view of the key pages!

The book is already available at Kinokuniya Bookstores.

Alternatively, you can preview &/or order it from the author's corporate website.