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Further reading
The author would like to thank Hannah Murphy, Hannah Harris, Sara James and Roger Manser for their help and advice.
Unlock the potential of your mind
The mind in each one of us has the incredible capacity for thinking, understanding and decision making. This book explores how you can release the potential that is already within you.
In my working life, I’ve had to make many strategic decisions about which direction to take. Some decisions have been easy; others have come about only through much concentrated effort and creative problem solving. Some of the ways in which my work has developed have also arisen out of discoveries that have been made, it seems, by ‘chance’: being in the right time and the right place and having the right experience. Further, in the many presentations that I have given, I have had to expand my memory to remember, not only broad facts and important details, but also people’s names. So, in a way, I wish that I had had this book in my hands years ago – it would have helped me greatly!
I wish you all the best as you personally undertake one of life’s greatest journeys, to explore and use the resources of your mind. This book consists of 50 secrets, set out in seven chapters:
• Understand how your mind works. Knowing what kind of person you are is an important first step to challenging yourself and developing the full use of your mind.
• Read and listen more effectively. Improving your skills in the key perceptive areas of reading and listening will help you keep ahead of your competitors.
• Think strategically. It’s all too easy for your thinking to go round and round in circles and not make progress, so here are some practical tips to kick-start your thinking processes.
• Solve problems well. Here we apply various mindpower techniques to help you develop a wider range of ways for dealing with difficulties and making decisions.
• Develop your memory. Here is useful guidance to help you deal with the difficulties we all have in remembering information, names and numbers.
• Focus your mind. To work effectively in today’s business environment, you need to be focused, giving the tasks in hand your full attention and cultivating a positive outlook and attitude towards any problems that you face.
• Inspire your mind. You need to stimulate and nurture your mind to be able to manage – and if possible reduce – stress levels and become successful as you work with colleagues and manage your time effectively.
If you follow these seven secrets, you will be well on your way to making the best use of the vast resources that are already at your disposal in your mind.
This book will help you unlock the vast resources of your mind.
Understand how your mind works
First off, it is vital to know how your mind works best, so that you can decide which learning styles are best suited to you. In this chapter, we’ll address this, before exploring how you can develop methods for using your mind creatively for common tasks such as taking notes and researching a subject. It is all too easy to follow established ways of thinking, so you need to be challenged to change and develop as a whole person.
1.1 Know how your brain functions
If you are aware of the contrasting activities of the two sides of your brain – broadly, creative on the right, logical on the left – you will be able to work more effectively. Further, if you are working with colleagues in a team, make sure that the members’ skills complement one another.
Activities in the brain are commonly attributed to either the right side or the left, depending on their nature in the creative/logical divide. In some people, one side of the brain is more dominant than the other.
People whose left side is more dominant:
• Process information in a linear sequence easily, taking different elements and arranging them logically.
• Process words and numbers relatively easily.
• Enjoy analysing details and making lists.
People whose right side is more dominant:
• Process information as a whole more easily. First of all they see the big picture, and then look at the details.
one minute wonder Think about yourself: which side of your brain is more dominant? If you know this, it will help you realize that you may need to develop the unused potential of your less dominant side (see the next two Secrets for more on this).
• Process information creatively and intuitively, using their imagination relatively easily.
• Are aware of spatial dimensions.
• Enjoy learning that involves doing, feeling, touching objects and drawing illustrations in colour.
We tend to have one side of the brain that is more dominant than the other, though great scientists tend to be very well-balanced in these terms. Einstein, for exampled, enjoyed activities such as sailing, art and playing the violin.
The significance of this is:
• If you are undeveloped on one side of the brain, work at strengthening and nurturing the unused potential of the less dominant side, so that it becomes more effective. If you do this, you will find that, rather than being weakened in the area in which you are currently stronger, you will actually become stronger in both areas, and the overall performance of your mind will be improved.
• Make sure that a team of colleagues working together has a balance of those who enjoy logical, analytical thinking and those whose style is more intuitive and creative.
Work at developing your brain’s unused potential.
1.2 Strengthen the right side of your brain
If the left side of your brain is more dominant, then it’s time to strengthen the right side so that you become more balanced.
There are many ways in which you could strengthen the right side of your brain. They include:
• Dream dreams. Remove yourself from your cold analysis and use your imagination. You could even write down your dreams.
• See the big picture. Go beyond the details in which you are immersed and see the widest possible dimensions.
case study By personality, the left side of my brain is more dominant. After leading