Category: MRx 2016

@MindRheo: What a Difference a Year Makes!

I can’t quite believe that it’s the 30th of December 2016.  I’ve just brewed a pot of strong black coffee (a must-try for the dark roast drinker) and am contemplating mixing some coffee martinis for a few of my die-hard coffee friends at our New Year dinner.  I think I’ll replace the vanilla flavoured vodka with pure vanilla bean and either a measure of dry gin or some good grappa.  Still mulling on that one!

Getting back to the theme of this blog – what  a difference a year can make to your life! 

Last year we had a non-existent international profile.  This year we presented a couple of neuroscience-meets-design projects, here at home and abroad.

Last year we did a considerable amount of tentative stepping into new territory. This year we replaced this soul-destroying approach with our 12-month Focus Forward approach.  Life-changing.  More of that in the Jan 2017 blog.

Last year we behaved like orphans – going it alone!  This year we reached out to well-considered sources to partner and collaborate with – always focusing on what value we can add to their already amazing agenda.  Now we’re forming more and more fulfilling and like-minded partnerships that simply rock.

I promise that this is not a boast.  Nor it is an itemisation of our 2016 accomplishments. It’s just a way to bring home the point that a year can make such a difference in your life, and can even re-route and influence the rest of your life and experiences.

Never underestimate what you can accomplish in a year. And, try not to over-estimate what you can accomplish in a year.  Some changes and achievements simply need more time.  And remember, that there is power in collaboration and partnership.

You see, making every single day of every year matter takes more than steely determination, genius intelligence, and a grip-like focus.  Big life changes don’t happen overnight as much as we’d wish for them to.  You have to give yourself time and put in the planning and effort.  Right attitude is important.  Great partnerships are vital. Generous giving changes you from within.  And, adding value is the key to having your year shoot into another realm of accomplishment.   Keep at it.  It’ll make for a mind-blowing 12 months!

Here are some things I (Melanie) am thinking about as this year draws to its close.  Try them out for yourself.

2016 in Review: 

Best Aha moment:
4 April on a train to London:
Everything is in rheomode.  Nothing is static.  When you attempt to freeze or halt movement and momentum, the stress of such futility must result in systems breakdown, or wear and tear.  All breakdowns and wear and tear must give rise to a new order or repair of the old, or else sink into oblivion, because the natural state of all that is implicit and explicit,  is rheological in essence.

Whilst that might probably sound like a lot of gibberish to you, it has led me to reading new subject matter, researching systems complexity, and a whole lot of other things, which will in turn enrich our services to you.

Best Lesson Learned:
Slow-cook transformation is transformation for life.  Sorry if this sounds cheesy – the original version reads:  You can’t hurry transformation.

Most Satisfying Client Feedback:
…. the way the processes are designed helps me to acknowledge my resistances that have become a running theme in my life blocking me from achieving my true desires.  As I name each one and soften them by following the exercises, shifts become apparent.  Each one takes me on a slightly different path from the one that I was on.  Each shift takes me a step closer to actual achievement of my dream. (In relation to the 2017 Focus Forward Programme).

New People Who’ve Enriched My Life:
Astronaut Tim Peake. I’ve even added him to my twitter account!  Love his humility and no-pride conversations.

Best Books:
I’ve bought over 50 new books this year, and have read 24 of them in full.  I’ve discarded some after reading a couple of  pages or a chapter, and skimmed through the rest. But the two that I’ve really enjoyed and I have to admit, am reading for at least the third time are:
Blackfoot Physics by David Peat
Pale Blue Dot: a vision of the human future in space by Carl Sagan

Thank you texts and phone calls:
I’ve sent at least a 1000 over the last 12 months.  Whoa!  Humbling to realise that “this isn’t even the half of it.”   I have so much to be thankful for.

and it goes on …. best movie, 2017 plans and goals, etc..

Find your own end of year reflections and make sure they’re uplifting! 😉

A big thank you to every one of you and all good wishes for an awesome 2017!

Melanie and all at MindRheo

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Conundrums, Cognition and Wisdom

Here’s a conundrum that has the potential to help you do some cognitive stretching.  Its attributed to the Bhagavad Gita so I’m guessing that it’s been around for a few thousand years:

 

“It is never born. It never dies. Weapons cannot cut it, fire cannot burn it, water cannot wet it
and wind cannot dry it. It is immortal, imperishable.”
Bhagavad Gita: Ch 2: V.23.24

Contemplate that!

Let’s get this clear.  Contemplation is not navel-gazing.  Navel-gazing is for the lazy thinker.  Contemplation on the other hand,  is a satisfying cognitive practice.  It involves thinking with greater depth and thoroughness. These processes activate and nurture plasticity.

Contemplating a problem, brain-storming a solution, and studying  phenomena, are all cognitive processes that involve greater in-depth thinking than your average observe and report behaviours.  They evidence several neural aspects of contemplative cognition.

Conundrums such as the one above however, can help you develop contemplative cognition to a higher level.  There is no problem to solve.  There is no solution to find. And yet, it is a wonderful tool and ally of mind- training.

Through contemplating such conundrums (kōan in Zen practice) you open the door to a whole new world of self-knowledge and mind-training.  Inevitably, you begin to tame and transform reactive thinking.  With practice you develop the ability to transform and transcend old patterns of thought that are not exactly in your favour.

Could this foster wisdom?

Wisdom is tricky to define. Somewhere deep down within, you and I know that wisdom is more than the definition attempted in various dictionaries.  So, I’ll leave you with a quote rather than a conundrum that will help you contemplate and arrive at your own definition of wisdom:

 

 “We are not provided with wisdom, we must discover it for ourselves,
after a journey through the wilderness which no one else can take for us,
and effort which no one can spare us.”

 Marcel Proust

 

Happy weekend, happy mind-stretch!

 

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Being Decisive And Making Decisions

Derek’s @sivers tweet this morning made me smile! Now, I don’t know a thing about Gitlab or Github, except what Google tells me: they are web-based code repositories, and the rest.

 

Sivers Tweet

 

What really struck me though was Sivers’ RheoMode (flow-mode) mindset – made apparent by the tone of the tweet – by which the decision came about. Embedded and entangled within that sound byte were many markers of someone at the top of their game.

I cast no aspersions on Mr Siver’s knowlege, but a big marker of timely, confident and forward-moving decision making is not needing to know every single thing about the topic, and how things will pan out in the future. It’s about knowing some things well, some less so, and above all, knowing where, why and how this matches what you are looking for. These bits of knowledge go a long way in making both – balanced decisions, and risk-taking decisions. Both are success mindset components.

In the world of business, these traits are highly-sought after and rewarded – decisiveness followed by good (Vs poor) execution is a leader’s dream come true.

Success-nurturing people have big visions and dreams, but are also grounded enough to make decisions based on what works for now. This is a substrate of a plastic mind which, in its own wake, unfolds new momentum, direction, and smart strategies.

Confident decision makers understand continuity and appreciate that perpetual “unfinished-ness” is how visions are realised. They allow room in their mind for error and new learning. And most importantly, they appreciate that all things are temporary and will change, and new decisions can be made at any point in time.

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