“We don’t see everything there is to see; we see only what we are conditioned to see.  We’re only getting a glimpse of what’s really happening around us.”  John Assaraf

When did you last find yourself disagreeing with someone about what you both just saw?

Yet the LORD has not given you a heart to perceive and eyes to see and ears to hear, to this very day.  (Deut. 29:4; NKJ)

Earlier in the week, I said that I was going to do an extended series of DGs on the human brain.  If you missed that introduction, I encourage you to take a couple of minutes and go back and read that introductory material.  (Access that DG by clicking here.) 

Today, I would like to focus on the portion of the brain that most of us are most familiar with–the conscious mind.  There is so much we could look at here, but I’m just going to hit one or two items of special interest.  The conscious mind has six intellectual functions, your ability to reason (think, evaluate, make decisions, etc.); your will (mental toughness and resolve); your memory (ability to recall); your perception (what we see and how we interpret it); your imagination (ability to visualize, envision); and your intuition (awareness of intangible feelings).

Any one of those six would be fun to explore further, but today I’d like to focus on perception.  As kind of a fun experiment, I’d like you to click on today’s link and look at the FedEx logo, something that you’ve undoubtedly seen hundreds of times.  Go ahead…click on it now and examine it carefully.  Then come back to this. 

Did you see the arrow in the logo?  I’m sure some of you did (if you’ve had it pointed out to you before), but I also bet that the large majority of you didn’t.  What arrow?  Look carefully at the space between the “E” and the “X.”  See the arrow?  If not, get somebody to help you.  Once you see it, you will never not see it again.  The point is, that arrow has been there all the time.  Every time you looked at the logo in the past, you saw the arrow, but you may not have perceived it.  Seeing is not the same as perceiving.  Actually, your brain “saw” the arrow, but dropped it from your consciousness because it was not familiar to you, i.e., not important.  This proves that we only see what we’re conditioned to see.

Do you begin to see the implications of this?  We don’t see the way things really are, we see the way we really are.  Two people with different experiences and beliefs can see the same thing and yet perceive what they see totally differently.  Our brain filters information based on our experiences and beliefs.  That means that we have blind spots to information that could potentially take us to new performance levels, or relationship levels, or whatever.  But since we have no experience at those levels or worse yet, perhaps believe that we are incapable of getting to those new levels, significant information is being filtered out.  One of the brain’s functions is to make sure that our outside world matches up with our inside world.

Once we recognize that this is how the brain works, we have the ability to change and effectively create what are in effect software programs that will let us change what we see (perceive) and change how we behave (effectively changing our inside world.)  People once thought that our brains were hardwired and that you couldn’t “teach old dogs new tricks.”  This has been conclusively proven to be incorrect.  It’s never too late to re-wire some of our brain’s programs.  It starts by recognizing why we would want to make the effort and that it is possible to do. 

Hopefully, you can see from today’s DG that remaining open to seeing without judgment will always serve us well.  Understanding that our point of view is only one several possibilities allows us to be open to other ideas.  Other ideas are exactly what we should always be looking for because if we keep doing what we’ve always been doing we will continue to get what we’ve always been getting.

Prayer Power
Lord, open our eyes to see things without judging them.  Help us to keep an open mind and always be open to new and different viewpoints.

Link of the Day
FedEx Logo

Blessings on you as you practice seeing without judgment.
 

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“The non-conscious mind is absolutely amazing, yet few people even know how it works, let alone teach it others to use it.  Because it is metaphorically hidden from you most of the time, it receives little or no attention or explanation as you grow up, especially not in schools.  It rarely gets any attention when you’re an adult, either.”  John Assaraf

What would be your best guess as to how much of your waking day is regulated by your habits?

And the LORD said to them, “Now listen to me! Even with prophets, I the LORD communicate by visions and dreams. (Num. 12:6; NLT)

Earlier in the week, I said that I was going to do an extended series of DGs on the human brain.  If you missed that introduction, I encourage you to take a couple of minutes and go back and read that introductory material.  (Access that DG by clicking here.) 

When we think of our brain, we hardly ever think about the side of our brain that is called the non-conscious or subconscious brain.  Too many people aren’t sure that subconscious is something we should even be looking at since, by nature, it sounds kind of “woo-woo.”  (To many, anything that can’t be observed by one or more of our five senses, is automatically suspect and arbitrarily labeled “woo-woo.”)

Well, woo-woo or not, the non-conscious mind is very real.  In fact, of the 100% of our brain mass, only 17% is our conscious mind.  The other 83% is our non-conscious mind.  We’ll spend more time with the non-conscious mind another day, but for now, suffice it to say that one of it’s functions is to store our beliefs, memories, and habits.  You do things from habit without thinking about them.  You actually have to think hard to do the opposite.  Most of the time when you’re driving your car, you’re driving from your non-conscious mind.  Frankly, our conscious mind is incapable of processing information fast enough to effectively allow us to drive safely.  I’ve read that more than 95% of our behavior comes from our subconscious or non-conscious mind.  More about that later.

Your brain is effectively an electrical broadcasting and receiving device.  It is constantly emitting and receiving electrical waves in one of four frequency ranges.  As a metaphor, think of those four frequencies as gears on a high performance automobile.  Most of us drive around all day every day of our lives using only two of the four gears…first and fourth.  I believe you can see that performance will be severely restricted by the non-use of second and third gears.  After all, they were designed in by the manufacturer for a purpose.

The four frequencies are beta, fastest of the waves and where we spend most, if not all, of our waking moments.  (This is first gear.)  Second is alpha.  Alpha is that pre-sleep state and is actually far more conducive to focus, to learning, to intuition, and to a number of other desirable benefits.  This state is also accessible by prayer or meditation.  Most people never see this state except just before they fall asleep–and they’re often so exhausted that they zip through it without realizing any of the benefits.

Third gear is Theta.  This state is naturally experienced during sleep, specifically REM or rapid eye-movement sleep.  Creativity and retention are just two of the many benefits of time in this state.  Many “geniuses” have learned how to spend significant amounts of time in this state.  Finally, fourth gear is Delta or dream less sleep or deep sleep.  Again, most of us spend most of our lives alternating between Beta and Delta.

Why is this significant?  Let’s look at goal setting as an example.  Setting a goal is very much a conscious activity, properly done when wide awake functioning in Beta (1st gear).  However, the changes in our behavior necessary to achieve that goal don’t occur in our conscious mind.  Those changes must occur in our non-conscious mind in order to become new habits.  Access to our non-conscious mind is gained while in Alpha and Theta states (2nd and 3rd gears).

If our lifestyles never allow us to enter those states, can you begin to see the disconnect?  Is it any wonder that so many of us struggle with goals?  We’ve never been taught.  We’ve never had the training necessary to effectively operate this magnificent vehicle we’ve been blessed with while in our “earth suits.”  Keep in mind, however, that a lot of this is relatively new information.  Doesn’t it make you want to learn more?

Prayer Power
Lord, open our minds to be able to ponder new discoveries regarding how our brain and physical body operates and learn to apply that insight to facilitate our destiny.

Link of the Day
Who Switched off My Brain?: Controlling Toxic Thoughts and Emotions

Blessings on you as you begin to reach out for more information on how the brain really works.
 

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“Toxic waste generated by toxic thoughts causes the following illnesses: diabetes, cancer, asthma, skin problems, and allergies to name just a few.”  Dr. Caroline Leaf.

How much do you know about your brain which is responsible for just about everything in your life?

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.  (Psa. 139:14; NIV)

Over the last several years, my reading has taken me in many fascinating directions–some spiritual, some physical, some business focused, and some into some pretty esoteric areas like quantum physics, energy medicine/psychology and the like.  I’m never able to go too deep.  Instead, I prefer to be a casual reader across a broad spectrum rather than diving into one topic very deep.  Actually, there has been a thread of continuity through all of those areas, and I suppose I would define that as an interest in what makes us the way we are and how we can make some basic “home improvements.”

One of the most fascinating areas has been studying some of what emerges from the latest discoveries and research surrounding the human brain.  This is a very dynamic field as 95%+ of what we now know has been learned only during the last decade.  And we thought we were so smart.  Isn’t it amazing how science keeps changing the definition of truth every couple of years?  Anyway, I have been wanting to do an extended series of DGs on the brain.  I know, I know…b-o-r-i-n-g!!!  Well, maybe so, but let me use an illustration by John Assaraf to help put this into perspective.

One of mankind’s most sophisticated creations is the F-16 Fighter Jet that costs somewhere around $50M per copy to build.  The pilots that fly that incredible device have to know that machine inside and out in order to survive.  He (She) has to know how every button works, under every condition while flying at Mach 2.  How does it operate in hail, sleet, snow, rain, day, night, fall, winter, spring, and summer.  Obviously, no effort is spared to train those who sit in the cockpit of that amazing creation. 

Contrast that to how much you and I know about our incredibly powerful brain.  The human brain has over 100 billion neurons and is capable of 10,000 trillion operations per second.  Makes the F-16 look like a paper airplane.  We all have an amazing array of “controls” at our disposal that we now understand would allow us to perceive the world differently and therefore behave differently than we do right now.  We have the ability to attain higher and higher levels of performance if we only knew how to use those controls that are immediately accessible to us.  Instead, most of us make no attempt to understand our brain and the results, not surprisingly, are much like what happens to an untrained fighter jet pilot–crash and burn.

According to Dr. Caroline Leaf, “Just on the physical level, research shows that around 87% of illnesses can be attributed to our thought life, and approximately 13% to diet, genetics, and environment.  Studies conclusively link more chronic diseases to an epidemic of toxic emotions in our culture.  According to the American Institute of Stress, between 75-90% of visits to primary-care physicians result from stress-related disorders.  Your thoughts can de-stress you, making you more clever, calm, and in control of your emotions, or they can do just the opposite!  The choice is yours.”

So, over the next several days, I would like to share some of what I have learned about our amazing brain.  I may interrupt the flow every now and again if something significant “pops up,” but there are at least five major sub-sections of the brain I would like to explore and some may take more than one DG to cover.  I hope you’ll bear with me and become as eager as I have become to receive the training necessary to be a successful operator of that amazing machine God designed for us to keep us out of trouble.

Prayer Power
Lord, the smarter we get, the more we realize how little we really know about this magnificent vehicle you gave us to navigate our brief time on earth.  You long ago anticipated our every need and made provisions accordingly.  Forgive us for the way we have recklessly been handling this incredible piece of precision machinery.

Link of the Day
Who Switched off My Brain?: Controlling Toxic Thoughts and Emotions

Blessings on you as you purpose to apply some of the tips and techniques that have been uncovered and verified by the latest brain research.
 

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“When you compare, you despair!”  Gregory Dickow

How are you doing at avoiding the “comparison trap?”

We do not dare to classify or compare ourselves with some who commend themselves. When they measure themselves by themselves and compare themselves with themselves, they are not wise.  (2 Cor. 10:12; NIV)

I’m sure you’ve heard the thought many times that you don’t really learn something until you teach it.  Sometimes I wonder if the topics I’m led to write on in these DGs are more for me than they are for you readers.  Am I being led to write on a topic because I need to learn it better?  I expect there’s a good bit of truth in that.  When I get an urge to write on a particular topic, I usually check the old DGs to see if I wrote on it before and if so, what I said.  Sometimes I’m surprised to see that I’ve written multiple DGs that touch on that particular topic.

For instance, I noticed that last year I wrote repeatedly on gratitude.  Most recently, I’m wondering if I’m beginning to sound like a broken record on the topic of comparison.  (By the way, some of you may be too young to identify with the “broken record” expression…forgive me.)  So now I find myself wondering if my repetition is an indication that I still haven’t quite got it myself.  Sounds like a thought designed to discourage rather than edify, doesn’t it?  So I’m not going to dwell on it.  If you’ve got this comparison thing down pat, just indicate that by hitting the delete key.

Anyway, today’s musings on comparison were prompted by the little “catch phrase” Greg Dickow wrote that I quoted in today’s Pearl of Wisdom–”When you compare, you despair!”  I was just letting that roll around to see how it played with the Law of Comparison (or Relativity) that I wrote about back in August (8/22/08 DG).  That law, if you’ll remember, tells us that nothing can be considered good or bad, fast or slow, etc., without a reference point or point of comparison.  And of course, the reference point that you use is entirely up to you.  It’s always your choice.  If you choose it wisely, you can virtually eliminate bad things from happening to you.  It’s an attitude thing.

But back to Dickow, he made the point that we often find ourselves thinking (or saying), “My life is not as good as others.”  Or, “I’m not as well off, pretty, or successful.”  Or, “My life is not as easy or fun.”  And on and on.  Dickow points out that this is a “deadly” way of thinking because the same people that you think are better off than you, may look at you the same way.  He goes on, “You have no idea what goes on on the inside of others.”

Our culture literally trains us to compare ourselves to one another.  Just watch the a couple of commercials on TV and see for yourself.  The church is not immune to it either.  Who hasn’t heard people say or write about the best worship, the best Sunday School, the best children’s program, etc.  The verse of the day says that comparing ourselves with others is “not wise.”  It could just as easily say, is “without understanding.”  When we’re comparing, we’re comparing to a reference point that we have arbitrarily chosen.  A different reference point would turn the comparison completely around.  Who’s to say which reference point is correct?  Is there even a correct reference point?

Just to wrap this up…recognize that much of our ego-driven comparisons have their root in thinking about what we don’t have.  Dickow calls that backward thinking.  There are so many things that we do have, that we shouldn’t even have time to consider what we don’t have.  Or when a “don’t have” thought slips in, we should quickly recognize and push it aside with any of a million “do have” thoughts that are available for our use.

By George!  I think I finally have it!!!  But don’t hold me to it.  I may have to come around this mountain again.  Make it a great weekend!

Prayer Power
Lord, we have so much to be grateful for, including the wise admonition to not play the comparison game.  Increase our sensitivity to those times when we fall into that trap, and grant us the grace to quickly dismiss and replace it with how blessed we truly are.

Link of the Day
The Dangers of Comparison

Blessings on you as you purpose to become more adept at avoiding the comparison trap.
 

If you’re sincere, praise is effective. If you’re insincere, it’s manipulative.”  Zig Ziglar

How are you at being a “good-finder?”

Or do you despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance? (Rom. 2:4; NKJV)

One of the classic business books that was written over 25 years ago has sold close to 10,000,000 copies and is still every bit as relevant today as it was when it was first written.  It’s a very short book with large print and can easily be devoured in a single sitting of a couple of hours.  In fact, it’s written as a story, and is actually pretty hard to put down once you get started.  When you get right down to it, there’s really very little excuse to not read this classic. 

Some of you have probably already figured out that the book I’m describing is Kenneth Blanchard and Spencer Johnson’s The One Minute Manager.  The subtitle is “Increase Productivity, Profits, and Your Own Prosperity.”  Quoting from the book’s dust cover, “The book is brief, the language is simple, and the method works.  The publisher believes so firmly in the value of The One Minute Manager that we are offering an unprecedented money-back guarantee.”  Now, I doubt that they would still honor that guarantee some 25 years later, but so what…the book is less than $15 new from Amazon (less than half that if you get it in paperback ).  Or get it from your local library…it should be there…after all, it’s a classic.

The One Minute Manager presents three very practical management techniques, one of which I want to highlight in this DG.  That technique is simply “Help people reach their full potential…catch them doing something right.”  How’s that for a twist?  (It was a twist in thinking 25 years ago as well.)  Most managers are watching for things that are wrong and are quick to bring them to the attention of the offender.  The idea here is to put the accent on the positive.  (Just as an aside, match that thought with the verse of the day above.)

This technique works especially well on new employees.  Simply explain to the new employee that you are going to let them know in no uncertain terms when he or she is doing well and when he or she is doing poorly; and then watch them closely.  Anytime you can catch them doing something right, simply invest a minute of your time to go over and give that employee a one minute praising.  Keep it short–it doesn’t need to be very long.  The point is praise them immediately–not several hours or days later.

Be specific and tell them what they did right.  Tell them how good you feel about what they did right and how it helps the organization and their co-workers.  Stop for a moment of silence to let them “feel” how good you feel.  Encourage them to do more of the same, and then shake hands or touch them in a way that makes it clear that you support them.

That’s it!  Reflect on the “tone” that a manager would create in their organization if they routinely offered one minute praises to their new employees as they were learning their jobs.  I’m sure that you recognize the underlying principle here–give focus and attention to what you want, not to what you don’t want.  Simply put, what you focus on grows.

prayer Power
Lord, help us to make the paradigm shift to focus on the good rather than the bad.  Make us all “good-finders.”

Link of the Day
The One Minute Manager from Amazon

 Blessings on you as you purpose to be a good-finder today…and tomorrow…and the day after that…etc.
 

“The conflict between the men who make and the men who report the news is as old as time. News may be true, but it is not truth, and reporters and officials seldom see it the same way. In the old days, the reporters or couriers of bad news were often put to the gallows; now they are given the Pulitzer Prize, but the conflict goes on.”  James Reston

How much time do your spend in an average week watching, listening to, or reading the news?

Men of Issachar, who understood the times and knew what Israel should do.  (I Chron. 12:32a; NLT)

As we’ve been discussing for the last couple of weeks, you don’t have to look very far to find bad news.  Today I’m going to show you that there is an alternative that you can choose.

Remember that it’s just human nature that makes us define the news as limited to those things that are not good.  Bad news sells and good news doesn’t.  That’s really unfortunate, because a steady state of bad news tends to drag us down and fills our minds with negativity.  There is good news going on out there, but you won’t find it picked up by the major media simply due to economic reasons.

I’m not suggesting that you stick your head in the sand and ignore what’s going on, but I am suggesting that you need to seek out places to offset the deleterious effects of just watching or reading the mainstream news.  Where can you turn?

Well happily, I would love to call your attention to Good News Broadcast.  Their tag line reads, “We are offering a new media concept for news and entertainment about people making a positive, constructive impact on society, no matter what the obstacles are.”  How’s that for a refreshing change?

Today’s link will take you to GNB’s website.  I’ll warn you, it takes a bit of getting used to.  Poke around a little bit.  Especially read the “About Good News Broadcast” page.  (I’ve also noticed that each page is fairly slow loading–perhaps because of the massive amount of content that each page contains.  So be a little patient when clicking from page to page.)

Prayer Power
Lord, help us to walk that fine line between being informed so as to understand the times and being so immersed that we become drowning victims to the ever growing cesspool of doom and gloom that is so pervasive and contagious.

Link of the Day
Good News Broadcast

Blessings on you as you explore Good News Broadcast.
 

“Our actions are like perfectly obedient boomerangs: whatever we send out will return to us, by law.”  Leslie Householder

How do you deal with annoying and difficult people?

Don’t be misled. Remember that you can’t ignore God and get away with it. You will always reap what you sow!  (Gal. 6:7; NLT)

In my reading recently, I was reminded of a fascinating thought which I would like to propose could become a fascinating experiment for us (note that I’m including myself).  Who among us don’t have someone (or maybe even several someone’s) in our lives whom we would quickly label as an annoying or a difficult person?  It could be someone you encounter once every once-in-a-while, or maybe on a weekly basis, or (bless you) on a daily basis.  It might be someone at your workplace–maybe your supervisor.  It could even be your spouse, or more specifically, a particular behavior of your spouse that bugs you.

I’m also sure you’ve heard somewhere along the line that a nemesis such as that is usually in our life for specific reason.  Usually that reason is to motivate us to make a change of some sort.  The nature of my proposed experiment is to learn to use another one of those irrefutable laws in a manner that makes it work for you instead of against you.  Today I want to focus your attention on the Law of Seed and Harvest (aka cause and effect) as described back in the 8/8/08 DG. 

The experiment asks you to change your thinking by looking at each and every one of these people whom you consider to be a nemesis as if they are acting in whatever way they are especially to SERVE you, that is, to pressure you to make that long needed change. They’re doing whatever they do just to give you the lessons and opportunities you need. Be grateful to them for these gifts.

Grateful?  Yes, grateful!  Think thoughts of gratitude and blessing toward them every time you think of them or see them.  It that possible?  Yes it is!  It is hard?  Yes it is hard.  Does it pay dividends?  Absolutely!  Immeasurable dividends!  How long will it take?  Do thoughts have an effect?  Try the experiment and see for yourself.

BTW, I have proposed this experiment to coaching clients on two occasions, and on both occasions saw remarkable results.  So, I fully expect this to work for you and I as well.

Prayer Power
Lord, this is hard.  We ask you to fill us with the grace necessary to make this possible.  For some, this will be pushing Your command to “love one another” way out of their comfort zone.  Lord, reward them for their efforts in a fashion that quickly and undeniably verifies the cause/effect relationship that is involved with this.

Link of the Day
Gratitude at Work

Blessings on you as you choose to be grateful rather than hateful to someone this week.