Making Your Gray Matter

January 2009

Contents This Month

· Mirror, Mirror, in the Brain

· P.P.C.OC.

· Resolutions = Behaviors

· Quotations

· Update Your Email Address

· Refer Madness

Mirror, Mirror, in the Brain

I used to attend a creativity conference every year and I always made sure that I attended at least one session led by Jon Pearson. Even though I had heard Jon’s content many times before (he did change it enough to keep it fresh), I made a point of attending his sessions because of how I felt during and after the session.

Jon’s style is very high energy and very high humor. He constantly laughs and smiles and it’s only a matter of minutes before everyone in the room is doing the same. It turns out that there are some neurons responsible for this “infection.”

“Mirror neurons” are widely dispersed in the brain and they enable us to identify someone else’s emotions and reproduce them in ourselves. In fact, when these neurons are really “fired up,” we have a physical vicarious experience. The existence of these neurons was discovered accidentally.

Italian neuroscientists were observing a particular cell in a monkey’s brain that only engaged when the monkey raised it’s own arm. When a lab assistant lifted an ice cream cone to his own mouth in view of the monkey, that same brain cell in the monkey fired! The monkey’s brain was acting as if it had raised its own arm.

When they say, “Attitudes are contagious, is yours worth catching?” there’s neurological research to back them up!

P.P.C.OC.

A good friend of mine proposed an idea to me a couple months ago. It was an idea that was very different from the way I have previously worked. My initial reaction was something like, “That’ll never work.” However, my friend seemed to have a lot of energy around the idea and I value her and her friendship too much to dismiss her. Instead of going with my initial “Reptilian Response” (must kill threatening idea), I chose to use a technique I’ve used and taught before. It’s called P.P.C.OC. That stands for Pluses, Potentials, Concerns, and Overcoming Concerns. Here’s how it works:

1. Pluses – Generate as many pluses to the idea as you can. It’s critical that this is the first step, otherwise you may start down the path of Reptilian Response. Think about the pluses in as many ways as you can – people pluses (break it down to individuals too if you want), social pluses, non-people pluses.

2. Potentials – These are like the pluses, but are things that you aren’t sure of. In other words, you think they will be pluses but aren’t positive. These will require more research.

3. Concerns – I like this better than a model I’ve used before that calls these “Minuses.” Concerns can be overcome, Minuses seem to be “final.”

4. Overcoming Concerns – Generate as many strategies as you can to overcome concerns. This can mean eliminating them, reducing them, or strengthening the Pluses enough that the Concerns aren’t an issue.

Try this model when someone comes to you with an idea s/he is really interested in. Even if the idea doesn’t work out, at least that person will bring more ideas to you later. You may want to try the idea yourself when you are pitching an idea.

Resolutions = Behaviors

About 45% of us made a New Year’s Resolution. At this point in January, many of us are already struggling with keeping it. Here are a couple of tips that I’ve recently read that will help you in your resolve.

· Make it more specific. In the book Influencer; The Power to Change Anything, the authors tell us to focus on “Vital Behaviors.” If you want to save more money, do some research on people who have had success doing so and what behaviors they apply to make it happen. Incorporate those behaviors into your resolution. Too often we make the resolution a result and we flounder with how to get to the result. For example, “I want to lose weight.” That’s a result, what are the behaviors that make that happen. The authors of the book have some research around that topic at http://www.influencerbook.com/influencer/blog

· Make it more general. Find a word or two that encapsulates the change you want to make. Use that word or phrase to motivate you each day. You can find more about this approach at http://www.steveshapiro.com/2008/12/11/interesting-new-years-resolution-statistics/

Quotations

“All progress is precarious, and the solution of one problem brings us face to face with another problem.” – Martin Luther King

“Creative minds always have been known to survive any kind of bad training.” – Anna Freud (Austrian psychiatrist)

Update Your Email Address

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Refer Madness

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