Hello friends and colleagues!
Please join me over at wonderfully motivating community led by Huffington Post writer, Gail Goodwin, on Monday, January 18th, 2010 at InspireMeToday.com!
On Monday, the 18th I’ll share invited insights from my experiences in an exclusive 500-word article – Act Like a Genius – on the best things learned in life full [...]
Canadian Alanna Mitchell, this year’s winner of the Atkinson Fellowship in public policy named brains as the secret to better schools. Not all agree.
Mitchell recalled a Minister of Education who asked a neuroscientist: “The brain? What does the brain have to do with education?” In my renewal work across many countries I heard similar [...]
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 [...]
School prepared many of us for jobs that no longer exist, and now life prepares some of us for jobs we’ll invent.
Feel unqualified for work you hope to do in the coming year? No reason to fret if you consider your choices. Why not factor in the art of learning, for instance, and transform your [...]
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 [...]
Imagine a climate of peace, with humility that inspires, and people who recognize talents, and you’ve just begun to awaken intrapersonal intelligence. Build healthy relationships that shape character, and your brain cultivates new neuron pathways toward spirit and highest values such as caring in your character and in others. Or trust that turned LA’s most [...]
Yesterday, on a walk in the woods with a gifted young leader, I once again saw his ethics, openness and willingness to become vulnerable in order to learn new skills. Without notice a mountain biker appeared on our winding path and startled my friend’s dog Jack, who in return snapped at the bikers feet. The [...]
When Gandhi taught, In a gentle way you can shake the world, he highlighted tone missing today in communications across cultures. Do your tone skills show gentle as a strength to shake a world?
Scholar Kent Nerbum’s words, “Remember to be gentle with yourself and others,” highlight intelligences that cultivate tools to live calmly under [...]
New York burns while Albany fiddles. News of political infighting, stalemates, accusations and posturing flood us daily, while opportunities for greatness fade for NY. A closer look, though, shows bureaucracy working against ethical brainpower. How so?
Neuro discoveries uncover organizational problems and possibilities.
1. Secondary schools and universities in crisis continue to downsize rather than reconfigure [...]
Have you experienced mental power that bubbles over in circles where no brain is left behind? Interactive sessions where creativity trumps criticism, and diversity’s the handmaiden of dignity and innovative virtue?
If so, would you agree that brilliant solutions tend to flow from pools just outside of the prevailing thought – where:
1. No Brain Left [...]
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 [...]
It’s now believed that you have both angel and devil brain parts and these two forces stay in consistent battle for your actions. Do you agree? Researchers looked at activity in the brain for healthy and unhealthy food choices and what they found may surprise you.
Angel brain parts help people to consider abstract decisions such [...]
Surprisingly, human brains tend to outperform themselves in reverse, rather than in forward motion. Comfortable traditions or routines can cause your brain to default to ruts, that only reverse brainpower can surpass. How so?
Let’s say you wake up out of sorts – discouraged about a hectic schedule or a disorganized workplace. Take an active [...]
Have you every compared the differences between brains honed to disagree well, and those who generate cynicism when they differ. Contrast the difference between an olive branch offered to enemies, and a weapon poised for war? Cynicis criticized President Obama’s reach of peace to Chavez, while peacemakers saw an olive branch like a US charm’s [...]
