How Do You Use Your Whole Brain?
Want to increase your creativity by 15%... Take your shoes
off....
Imagine for a moment , top executives with a major fortune 500
company huddled around a board room table brainstorming new
ideas for products and services. Now picture them with their
shoes off and wearing comfortable white tube socks.
You may think I pulling your leg but believe me, this really
does happen. Studies revealed that people who wore the socks
generated 13% more ideas than those who kept their shoes on. If
the feet are comfortable, the brain will be comfortable.
Another unorthodox but highly effective method of brainstorming
is through the use of lateral thinking. Adidas for example,used
lateral creative thinking to generate ideas for new basketball
shoes from looking at new car designs. Generals Mills uses it to
create new products as well.
Here's a sample of how it works. Lets take a paper clip as an
example. Everyone has to come up with as the many ways possible
that it can be used for. With paper clip in hand, you look to
other industries, products services or whatever and converge
with it. What this does is it makes you look at something from a
completely different perspective.
You'll get some crazy and ridiculous uses with this exercise but
you'll also may get that one amazing idea or application that
sets you in motion. This is how innovation is born. It's a
succession of thoughts and ideas that guide us to the end
result. It could be a new product or a completely new market for
an existing product.
Interesting facts about the human brain...
-Weighs about 3 pounds -It uses 20% of our energy -It has a
trillion cells -Its cells are capable of connecting with a
hundred thousand other cells -It contains 100 billion neurons
-There are more possible interconnections between these -neurons
than there are atoms in the universe -All the worlds telephone
connections would have to be recreated 1,349 times to equal the
total number of possible brain connections -It can record a
thousand new bits of information every second of our lives
While these are amazing facts about the brain, they pale in
comparison to the most alarming fact:
WE USE LESS THAN 10% OF OUR BRAINS CAPACITY! MANY OF US USE JUST
1% OR LESS!
How do you Use Your Whole Brain?
While at a seminar recently I was intrigued by a brain power
game that identifies and categorizes individuals based on
selecting cards that best describe their strengths and
personality traits. Each card is color coded and divided into 4
quadrants of the brain.
Blue = Investigator (mathematical, technical, analytical,
logical) Yellow = Creator, (creative, conceptual, synthesize,
holistic, artistic) Green = Evaluator (planner, controlled,
detail oriented)
Red = Activator. (action oriented, talkative, musical,
emotional, interpersonal)
The exercise serves several valuable purposes.