LESSON FIVE: THINKING IN DIFFERENT WORLDS

When you imagine comparisons and similarities between dissimilar subjects and events in different worlds, your mind looks for cues and suggestions to make the comparison meaningful. For example, you want to improve the common flashlight and decide to look in another world for ideas. You look in the world of "automobiles" and choose the specific act of changing a tire. Then, you look for cues in the specific act of changing a tire that will help you improve a flashlight. You describe what is involved in replacing a tire: Read the manual on how to replace the tire. Because there is no external power source, you have to manually crank the jack. Eureka! A flashlight could have a crank mechanism to recharge the battery! You used an unconventional way to think about a problem. You used an analogy with changing a tire to improve a flashlight. This is what is meant by looking in different worlds. Thomas Edison invented the phonograph after developing an analogy with a toy funnel and sound vibrations. The way buzzards kept their balance in flight served as an analogy for the Wright brothers when they were developing an airplane. Your thinking technique will improve if you learn to use similarities and comparisons with things in other worlds! Keep an open mind and practice this new way to think. You can have great ideas to improve your life.

LESSON FOUR: A NEW WAY TO THINK

If you always think the way you've always thought, you'll always get what you've always got. The same old ideas. You only have the ability to create ideas based on your existing patterns of thinking_on the way you have been taught to think. You need some means of producing variations in your ideas. Here are a few ways to generate variations in your ideas:

• Combine things in novel ways
• Using random stimuli in connecting the unconnected
• Thinking in opposites
• Thinking metaphorically and analogically in other worlds
• Actively seeking the accidental discovery  and finding what you are not looking for

These strategies liberate your creativity by breaking up your conventional thinking patterns. Think about substitution, combine, adapt, magnify, modify, put to other uses, rearrange, reverse. Everything new is some addition or modification of something that already exists. You take a subject and turn it into something else. Example: Natural gas becomes polyethylene becomes milk jugs. French artists Seurat and Cezanne realized that color was not continuous transitions  in nature. They broke down the discrete experiences of colors into "dots" and grouped them in various ways to act on each other and create stunning new artistic experiences that revolutionized the way artists perceived the world. OK, try these ideas to think of something brilliant! Keep an open mind but don't let your brains fall out. Keep on thinking.

LESSON 3 ABOUT THINKING (RELATIONSHIPS)

First of all, I appologize for being late. I have been posting my blog every Wednesday but missed last Wednesday because of being on vacation.
Today, we are going to think about your relationships with people. Whether it is a friend, a co-worker, your supervisor at work, or your neighbor, relationships can be dangerous. You need to be able to identify the people who can make your life miserable and avoid them like the plague. Who are these people and how do we recognize them? Psychologists call these people, sociopaths. One in 25 ordinary Americans is one. They secretly have no conscience and can do anything at all without feeling guilty. They have no feelings of guilt or remorse no matter what they do to you, no limiting sense of concern for the well-being of friends, family, or strangers. They lie with impunity and only care about themselves. The bad news is, they are difficult to identify. They are masters of deception. The most reliable sign of a sociopath is that they appeal to your sympathy. They want other people to feel sorry for them; Then, they can take advantage of you. When considering a new relationship, practice "the rule of threes". Three lies, three broken promises, or three neglected responsibilities, means trouble! Do not give your money, your work, or your secrets, or your affection to a three-timer.
Until next time, keep an open mind and keep on thinking.

BRILLIANT DEDUCTION, SHERLOCK! THINKING LESSON # TWO.

Think about thinking. It is your most important skill. Learn how to evaluate ideas and decide if they are reasonable. Deductive reasoning is what Sherlock Homes used to solve all those mysteries. This method of thinking starts with a general principle and then explains an individual point by reference to the general principle. It is only one of many ways to think. Sometimes, it can lead you down a wrong path. Example: If people from Poland are called Poles, then people from Holland are called Holes. Are you a backward thinker? Maybe you should be! With conventional thinking, you move forward one step at a time. Each step arises directly from the preceding step in a straight line. With "backward" thinking, the steps are not sequential. You jump ahead to the conclusion and fill in the gaps afterward. Visualize and imagine where you want to end up. Then work backwards from your goal. Nikola Tesla, the genius who ushered in the age of electricity, would think of something as a given and work backward to the question. He imagined a turbine and ran it in thought. Later, a real turbine was built like his imaginary one. His ability to imagine the future helped him to create astonishing devices. Tesla's discovery of rotating magnetic fields is the basis of alternating current. This made it possible to distribute electric power. Imagine a perfect solution and then list the factors that would make it possible. Then make a graph to find out where you are at present and what you need in order to make your solution a reality. That is how a genius thinks; you can do it, too. Just takes some work and some practice. Until next Wednesday, keep an open mind and keep on thinking!