When I worked as a school principal and later as a superintendent I would often see students on the bus line at the end of the day. I would regularly ask this question of them:
"What did you learn today that you didn't already know?"
Too frequently they could not think of anything. Which led to a short conversation about learning.
It's not a bad question to ask of ourselves, regardless of age, at the end of the day....
What did I learn today that I didn't already know?
I have observed a lot of leaders over the last five decades. Some do an OK job of "staying open and staying legal." The literature aptly describes this as "satisficing." Good enough is good enough.
A few of the leaders I have observed, however, are masterful at their work. For them, good enough is NOT good enough. Part of the skill set of those folks includes their ability to see and seize opportunities that present themselves.
From watching those Opportunity Maestros, here are some of the things they do in that regard:
Look at the horizon. What see you?
What we choose to chase in life has both implications and consequences:
When we choose to chase...
MONEY or STATUS or PRESTIGE or FAME
It almost always comes at a cost.
To quote a line from the popular Randy Travis song: "It's not what you take when you leave this world behind you, it's what you leave behind you when you go."
We choose what we chase..........daily.
Patience and persistence go hand in hand. That is especially the case when improved performance (whether personal or organizational) is our goal.
A common misstep in the path toward improvement is when we choose to harm -- or destroy -- a relationship in the interest of hastening our progress.
That choice almost always works against our goals, and more often than not, hinders the pace for which we pine. Funny how often inordinate pushing, pressing, demands, and expectations land us in a ditch.
PULL seems a better deployment mechanism than PUSH.
Most of us look at ourselves in the mirror each day. Probably many times each day. A quick look at pictures of ourselves over the years irrefutably documents that what we look like today is NOT what we looked like 10 or 20 or 50 years ago.
Our beingness -- who we are -- has also changed similarly over the years. The work we do or don't do or have done or haven't done with regard to our physical appearance cannot be ignored, nor denied.
The same goes for the work we choose to do on who we are becoming as a person. Arguably, attention to our beingness is even more important than our physical appearance.
Step 1: We think intentionally about who we aspire to be.
Step 2: We go to work shaping that person we envision.
Just as in the physical domain, it will most certainly mean abandoning some habits and acquiring some different ones.
Today is a good day to start. The only day, really. The footprint we leave on the planet matters.
I recently read Mind to Matter: The Astonishing Science of How Your Brain Creates Material Reality by Dawson Church (2018).
I love it when books make me think, take me to places I hadn’t considered or even considered possible. This one did.
My top takeaways:
Ø Experience enriches brain circuitry. Novel events/learning enrich that experience.
Ø Per recent scientific research, matter looks more and more like pure energy.
Ø Our consciousness affects the material reality around us.
Ø As with building muscle, neural circuits grow with exercise.
Ø Consciousness can be controlled and point in a discrete direction.
Ø The nocebo effect is opposite of the placebo effect.
Ø Change the field and you change the matter.
Ø Our individual energy field is just as unique as our fingerprints.
Ø Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) uses acupoints to impact psychological state.
Ø Our cells, organs, bodies, social networks, and the planet have fields; those fields can be changed with intention.
Ø Mystics point to the direct experience of oneness.
Ø Emotions are contagious.
Ø Emotional contagion shapes the world.
Ø Each second, over 810,000 of our cells are being replaced.
Ø Every cell in our skin is replaced each month.
Ø There are five brain “waves,” each of which implicates different states of consciousness, and functionality, within us.
Ø MIND CHANGE = FIELD CHANGE = CELL CHANGE
Ø High cortisol (stress hormone) levels are driven up by negative thinking. Persistent high cortisol levels are debilitating.
Ø HEALTH is physical and mental and emotional-spiritual. They are interconnected and interdependent.
Ø A coherent brain trumps physical strength and coordination.
Ø The four fundamental forces in physics: gravity, electromagnetism, the strong nuclear force, and the weak nuclear force.
Ø Scientists affect what they’re studying, through their minds. Many times and in many ways, the scientist influences the outcomes.
Ø In the quantum world, all possibilities exist simultaneously, then condense into probabilities. The resulting reality is the “collapse” of those possibilities into one observed outcome.
Ø We live and function in five life areas: Work, Love, Money, Health, and Spirituality.
My favorite quotes:
“And as you’ll learn in this wonderful book, recent studies show that just an hour of focused concentration on any one subject doubles the number of connections in your brain related to that subject. The same research tells us that if you don’t repeat, review, or think about what you’ve learned, those circuits prune apart within hours or days. Thus, if learning is making new synaptic connections, remembering is maintaining those connections.” (p. xi)
“When an electric current is passed through a conductor, it produces a magnetic field. This is true whether the conductor is a power cord or a neuron.” (p. 11)
Biologist James Oschman states, “Energy is the currency in which all transactions in nature are conducted” (Oschman, 2015). (p. 11)
“Genius inventor Nikola Tesla is often quoted as saying, “If you wish to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency, and vibration.”” (p. 15)
“When our stress levels drop, biological resources are freed up for cell repair, immunity, and other beneficial functions.” (p. 78)
“Prior research has shown that brains synchronize when sharing information. When one person speaks while another listens, the brain regions active in the speaker light up in the listener too.” (p. 97)
“The lining of your digestive tract also undergoes rapid turnover. It’s replaced every four days. Your lung tissue? Every eight days. Even the densest of tissues, your bones, are constantly regenerating, with 10 percent of your skeleton being replaced each year.” (p. 112)
“Our bodies are programmed to heal. Healing is not something we get from a prescription, a doctor, an herb, or an alternative therapist. Healing is what our bodies do naturally and normally every second of every day. The deeper our understanding of the healing process, the better equipped we are to turn mind to matter.” (p. 114)
“When every one of those 810,000 new cells that your body creates each second is born in an energetic environment of kindness and love, it shapes their development.” (p. 118)
“The big picture, however, is that our bodies are sensitive to the frequencies generated by our brains, from the slowest waves of delta to the fastest waves of gamma, and that by understanding these links, we can use our brain waves to heal our cells.” (p. 134)
“There are two basic survival questions: Can I eat it? Will it eat me? … The very skill that kept our ancestors alive—looking for the bad stuff and ignoring the good stuff—is killing us today. Our minds have become a major threat to our survival. Caveman brain is a fatal condition.” (p. 156)
“We can’t think straight when the blood and oxygen flow to our brains is reduced as a result of being stressed. The caveman doesn’t have to be able to do long division in his head; he just needs to be able to escape from the tiger.” (p. 167)
“In science, that something is happening is usually observed before we understand how something is happening.” (p. 183)
“Science is not, in fact, the objective measurement of matter. It’s a dance between the inner consciousness, or mind, of the scientist and the material world of matter. Change mind, and matter changes right along with it.” (p. 197)
“As philosopher C. S. Lewis exclaimed, “Miracles are a retelling in small letters of the very same story which is written across the whole world in letters too large for some of us to see” (Lewis, 1970).” (p. 209)
“Einstein said, “The distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion” (as cited in Calaprice, 2011).” (p. 223)
“He even shows how waves of movement propagate through flocks of birds and schools of fish. There’s no leader, master plan, or supercomputer coordinating these millions of intricate movements. Organization arises spontaneously from within the flock, herd, or cell, synchronized by nature.” (p. 238)
“Einstein said: “Everyone who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that some spirit is manifest in the laws of the universe, one that is vastly superior to that of man” (as cited in Calaprice, 2002).” (p. 246)
“Sir John Eccles, who earned a Nobel Prize for his work on the brain’s neural synapses, says that “We have to recognize that we are spiritual beings with souls existing in a spiritual world as well as material beings with bodies and brains existing in a material world” (Popper & Eccles, 2012).” (p. 262)
“The field of love we create opposes no one. We don’t judge, condemn, or complain. We simply love.” (p. 287)
This book pushed my thinking. Across domains. Across application possibilities.
Read it if you don’t mind having your thinking challenged.
