Posts under ‘basal ganglia’

Government Funds Promote Failing Secondary Schools
People say stimulus money simply creates new layers of bureaucracy that prolong broken secondary school programs. My question is: How will the White House Campaign to Promote Science and Math Education support teens to climb new mental  peaks?  Will successful schools proliferate through fast growing charters?
President [...]

Ever notice how Thanksgiving and Christmas tend to bring out blues in some and blessings in others? Or how lonely people see vast spaces between themselves and others – even at festive  holiday tables?
First glances  show people blessed with close family and  friends feel blessed over holidays while those alone feel abandoned. Not so. Loneliness [...]

Great news from GE leaders today,  according to WSJ’s Paul Glader.  Any organization willing to change and grow, after a fall,  also holds potential to create a prototype for global change and growth.  Both qualities urgently needed in the broader business community. Bravo!
Let’s get behind GE’s  initiative and begin to move in new directions as [...]

Written By Ellen Weber, PhD and Robyn McMaster, PhD
Higher Education and Brain Based Benefits

Challenges of Change
Renewal is to the university community today what Renaissance was to the Middle Ages. Both encompass a resurgence of learning. Both tap into more potential from the human brain. To reconfigure university teaching for a rebirth [...]

Have you every thought of practicing to be a genius at anything? Several gurus in intelligence, claim that endurance and hard work get higher grades than raw intelligence scores from IQ tests. Do you agree?  Einstein claimed he was no more intelligent than others – but he stayed with problems longer. You?
Ericsson calls this the [...]

Heaven or Havoc?

Which of these characters work with or in you?

Serotonin Sam:

“Feelin’ good – hey guys you’re welcome to share, anytime.”

Cortisol Carol
“Touch my stuff and you die!”

Plasticity Patty:
“Glad to know I can still nail this new knack at any age.”

Amygdala Arnie:
“They keep changing the freakin’ formulas so I it [...]

When you rev up mental equipment daily to either sink or swim, you discover how creativity and curiosity will trump criticism and intimidation. How then can you experience mental power in settings where no brain is left behind?
One friend and fellow leader Dave Caiazza, put it this way:

Work against the dangerous twins of jealousy and [...]

On each new day your brain offers equipment to lose or win. The choice is yours, and brain activity can now be observed to show how winning or losing selections work, in spite of external conditions.
So why do some people pick winning equipment while others settle for the loser’s pick where the chips go down?
Here [...]

Broken systems all around us, offer unprecedented opportunities to learn and lead transformational innovations for a new era. Science shows how even a small band of like minded birds can create a revolution and sway the direction of an entire flock. Why then do some people cling to tiny places on sinking ships?
If you find [...]

Take advantage of recent neuro-discoveries and that illusive growth you’re looking for tends to follow far faster. Have you seen it happen?

Brainpower-tools create new landscapes -from mental resources immune to recession:

With a little help from you – an amygdala offers calm under pressure, even when old socks buck change or when few folks tend to [...]

Each step to renew your workplace ethically and with the brain in mind – casts lights on mental barriers that prevent change in stagnant organizations. How so?
To rethink old approaches is also to take a stand against Hebbian hardwired thought that defaults back to ruts and routines.
To upgrade motivation and achievement at secondary or higher [...]

Conflict grows perilous for those who lack brainpowered tools, yet disagreement’s add linchpins of growth for those equipped with sharp mental tactics. 
Watch warfare where you work and you’ll likely see 1 of 10 instigators:
1. Angry folks show few skills to tame their amygdala.
2. Stubborn people often lack mental ability to let it go.
3. Fearful [...]

Slavery works, cried dominant voices, while for centuries brilliant minority voices, with finer insights at times, could have led a richer way.  Had they been engaged, silenced voices could have broken chains that still bind most of us today. Did you know human brains build new neuron pathways with every jaded act, ruts for more [...]

Only after you hit unethical walls raised by scorn from the cynic, do you value freedom flights toward its opposite – the curious mind. I’m speaking of that chronically negative person, who expresses disdain for innovative ideas, where stressed brains rely on habit and distrust reigns.
For Russel Lynes, cynicism’s the pseudo-intellectual’s substitute for intelligence. For [...]

Ever wonder why boredom strikes when people talk at you?  Wasting time at meetings or lectures? You’ll be interested in research from the National Training Laboratories in Bethel, Maine – and quoted in Geoff Petty’s Teaching Today shows that people retain far more when they when actively involved.
Lectures are the best way to get information [...]

In spite of great books about memory and the brain’s amazing ability to remember, we still search frantically for keys as we fly out the door. It doesn’t have to be that way.

Books such as, How to Develop a Perfect Memory, by Dominic O’Brien, work well for those interested in remembering things like an entire deck of [...]

Most people hope at some time or another to move from where they stand at that moment, into a better place for their future. Especially if following predictable schedules is holding back personal progress.
Yet have you noticed that strong traditions rarely yield to finer approaches in many workplaces, even when rejuvenated practices prove superior? Or [...]

Have you felt bombarded as waves of financial failures intensify? It’s hard not to be drawn into the swells that wash away chunks of security with each ebb and flow. Newscasts splash doom across our TV screens while  anchors toss human fears into darker waters daily, with chilling predictions of harsher storms to come.
In the [...]

On first glance, mental poverty appears less destructive than physical forms of poverty. Look again though,  at  toxic wastelands in the human mind at work, and you’ll often spot poverty’s deadly marks.
While it’s true that all forms of deficiency leave people emaciated, it’s also true that mental poverty sneaks in unnoticed, stalks in silence, and [...]

It’s both brainpower for mastery of ethical practices and at times your slave master to cynical opposites.  Unless you understand the brain’s equipment at work, you can easily fall into a basal ganglia’s propensity for ruts and miss its zest for rejuvenation. How so?
Your brain’s basal ganglia opens wonderful windows of solidarity and reliability [...]