Archive for October, 2011

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October 26, 2011

Hot Tips From an Old Hand for New and Struggling Entrepreneurs

Advice

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Have you plunged into the unpredictable, dizzying and wonderful world of entrepreneurship? Are you experiencing challenges, feeling alone and wondering if you are certifiably crazy for taking that big step? Even long-term entrepreneurs go through this cycle of self-inquiry and self-doubt. There are no established rules and proven processes for being a successful entrepreneur; if there were, it wouldn’t be an entrepreneurial pursuit.

I have been a passionate and proactive entrepreneur since 1979. I hope my experiences and lessons learned will keep you on your path and help you have more fun, get more accomplished, have more free time and experience more inner joy from living the life of your dreams.

Hot Tips for Entrepreneurs

  • Success is Never Final

The pathway of entrepreneurship is never ending. Learn to be happy with the process of walking the path rather than fixating on specific end-points as your sources of enjoyment. Happiness and joy are an “inside game” and can only be experienced in the present moment. New opportunities and ideas will always pop up from your imagination and from your interactions with people. Continuous learning and improvement is a practical neuroscience consequence of how entrepreneur’s brains are wired.

  • Identify Your Strengths and Limitations

A comprehensive inventory of your strengths and limitations is a best practice for successful entrepreneurs.  Consider enlisting a trusted advisor who will give you candid and honest feedback. Qualities to identify should include your values, core competencies, skills, knowledge, passion, and “hot buttons” (e.g. subjects and situations that bring the best and worst out of you). Determine how your brain is wired to learn and think. Statistically validated instruments are available online to provide reliable information.

  • Trusted Advisors Leapfrog You Forward

Trusted advisors share your values and vision. They are rarely as passionate as you are, so be grateful for their support and commitment. Establish the rewards (intrinsic and/or extrinsic)they receive from joining your team. Trusted advisors help you prioritize the most important ways to use your strengths; they help you get other essentials accomplished through their services and recommendations. Trusted advisors provide quality control and reality checks on a continuous basis. Your trusted advisors should have brain strengths, knowledge and skill sets different from yours.

Entrepreneurs often get so passionate about their dreams, they neglect getting rest, eating properly,  exercising and taking care of their overall well being. What’s the sense of creating a new enterprise if you get into the stress-distress-disease cycle? Having a spouse, friend or trusted advisor in the health field will help keep your mind-body-spirit in balance.

  • Make Relationships High Priority

Remind yourself of the importance of relationships with people you love and care about. Your focus and enthusiasm for your entrepreneurial dream can blind you to the misunderstandings and hurt caused by ignoring people you care about. An effective strategy is to include maintaining rich and deep relationships with your spouse, family and friends in your overall picture of success.

  • Be Honest With Yourself

From time to time, stop and reexamine your dream, passion (“fire in the belly”), goals and how you use your time. If your heart and mind are in alignment, you can trust what you’re doing. If in doubt, use your trusted advisors as a sounding board.

  • The Universe Works in Your Favor

I believe in the power of the human brain and the human heart; when connected with one another, only good things occur. The shared values and vision of your trusted advisor team, coupled with diverse knowledge and brainpower, forms the vital connections for creating new, valuable and sustainable enterprises. Your values, vision and work will attract millions of people who become your future customers.

In conclusion, the entrepreneurial spirit is essential to keep the world moving in a positive direction. Working in the realm of what’s possible through imagination and hard work is a challenging and rewarding endeavor. Believe in yourself, your trusted advisors and the good that comes when connecting brain and heart power for a common cause.

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October 19, 2011

Do You Have What It Takes To Be A Successful Entrepreneur?

Business Class

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Having been an active entrepreneur since 1979, I can look back and reflect on the driving forces that keep my internal GPS calibrated to live this roller coaster ride without a map or track. I can compare my entrepreneurial life with traditional work environments, as I spent 18 years with a major corporation prior to serving worldwide businesses with my skills and competencies as an entrepreneur. Naturally, I tend to hang out with other entrepreneurs like me, the “birds of a feather flock together” syndrome. I hope that my experience, insights and Ideas will nudge new entrepreneurs to launch into this crazy and wonderful field of endeavor.

Being an entrepreneur is not for everyone and certainly not for the faint hearted. It’s definitely not an easy, guaranteed path to success. The word “entrepreneur” makes me wonder if the “neur” (neuron) part deals with using your brainpower to form new enterprises. True entrepreneurs create products, services and businesses, characterized by something new, better, different or having higher value. By definition, the entrepreneur’s pathway is an experiment because the concepts, ideas and outcomes are unproven. The territory and domain of entrepreneurs is the unknown. They must have fortitude, faith and vision to follow this life pathway. True entrepreneurs know and understand the magnetism and exhilaration of exploration and discovery. They experience disappointment, setbacks, loss, risk and the full spectrum of human emotion, perhaps more than anyone else does. They can rarely explain to others why they do what they do; they just know they were born to be on this path.

Being a “me too,” or replicating what someone else has accomplished with a sustainable profit, is not, in my mind, being a true entrepreneur. I enthusiastically encourage and support launching small businesses using established and proven business models; franchises are a good example. Adding more locations or factories to meet market demand is also an example of replication. Small business is the true core and catalyst for economic growth and job opportunities. At one time, however, every successful small business began as the entrepreneurial dream and pursuit of someone wanting to break out of the norm and do something different. There are opportunities to use the “entrepreneurial spirit” to make continuous improvement in businesses of all sizes.

The following is a short list of characteristics of true entrepreneurs that I have observed in fellow compatriots and myself.

  • Passion to do something that they are unable to do working for someone else
  • Vision and “gut feel” for creating something new that has enduring value
  • Knowledge of their personal strengths and limitations without allowing limitations to limit them
  • Resiliency and determination in the face of adversity and failure
  • “Never, ever give up” attitude (A Winston Churchill quote)
  • Instinct for what to do and who to go to for help
  • “Ready, Fire, Aim” may be a way of life with increasingly better outcomes over time

In conclusion, entrepreneurs make the world a better place to live, learn, grow and prosper. They spawn small businesses that become the larger businesses that power our world economic engine. Entrepreneurs are the leading edge for change. Let’s honor, respect and support these brave men and women, who may appear foolish at times, but have a dream and dare to live it.

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October 12, 2011

X-Ray Vision? No, but Try These Tips to Strengthen Your Real Visual Pathway Powers

X-Ray Vision

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What would it be like if you could tap into and leverage your visual powers to improve performance in any area of your life, see what other people may miss and create innovative solutions to life challenges? This is not science fiction; it’s practical neuroscience that can be accomplished by anyone with an open and willing mind.

Your visual cortex is the largest, and perhaps the most underutilized, system in your brain. It’s responsible for processing and giving meaning to visual information. The primary visual cortex is located in the back of your brain in two hemispheres of the cerebral cortex. The left hemisphere visual cortex receives signals from your right eye and the right visual cortex from your left eye. Thinking visually, with your eyes closed, activates a kaleidoscope of imagery, color, symbols, pattern recognition and pictures to help you remember what was seen and to access your inner world of imagination. This basic practical neuroscience information frames the experiential exercises and ideas presented below.

“Eyes Open” Strategies

These ideas strengthen your visual acuity and give you enhanced perspective to catch information you may have been missing.

Strengthening Your Visual Powers:

  • Select something visually interesting – a photograph, magazine, ad or written material. Look at it intently for 30 seconds and lay it aside. Say aloud or write down everything you remember – message, color, images and details. Look at the material again and see how accurate you were. Repeat the process many times. After you experience improvement, ask some of your friends to engage in the exercise and discover if more improvement is possible.
    • Select a page of written text or something you find interesting. Rotate the page so that you are looking at it upside down. Focus on the images and words. Say aloud what you see. See how proficient you can be reading and looking at things upside down.

Balancing Your Hemispheres and Curing “Lazy Eye”

  • Point your right or left thumb upwards and make a large sweeping “figure 8” pattern. Follow the pattern with your eyes for about 7 to 11 rotations, then change rotation direction. This method will help balance your hemispheres and alleviate “lazy eye” that comes from staring or fixating on a visual pattern. It helps people read quicker and with greater ease.
  • Play or observe live rapid eye-hand coordination sports like table tennis, volley ball and badminton.

Improving Reading Focus and Retention

  • Try placing different colors of transparency films over what you are reading. Red may perk up your energy level; blue may calm you down. Experiment and discover the effects on focus, concentration and memory. This may be the break-through you are looking for if you have a child struggling with reading.

“Eyes Closed” Strategies

Accessing Your Hemisphere of Choice

Retina eye positions connect to different portions of your brain through the optic nerve. You can access and focus on your visual, auditory and kinesthetic pathways by controlling where you are looking, even when your eyes are closed. When you look upward, you are connecting with your visual cortex. The lateral, side-to-side direction connects with your ability to remember and recall or create something new and different. The methods below may need to be reversed for some left handed people or the small percentage of right handed people with reverse wiring.

  • Keeping your eyes closed, move them upwards and to the left as you are thinking about something you want to remember. (e.g. “What did I wear yesterday?” “What’s the answer to this test question?”) Ask yourself silently or aloud what it is that you want to remember and see on your internal screen.
  • Move your eyes upwards to the right as you create something new or when searching for a new perspective. (e.g. “Where do I see myself on my 2-week vacation?” “What does my ideal job look like?”) Ask yourself, silently or aloud, what you want to see as possibilities and options on your internal screen.

Attaining Performance Excellence

The brain does not know the difference between actually doing something in the physical world and practicing it     in your “mind’s eye.” This is a well known method used by world class athletes to practice their techniques and  sharpen their performance.

  • The first step is to observe and study role models of performance excellence. This can be in any field of endeavor that interests you, including sports, public speaking, teaching, parenting, leadership and hands-on professions like medicine.
  • The next step involves getting relaxed, comfortable and closing your eyes. Imagine doing what your role model does when performing. Imagine observing a movie screen with you acting out a performance in which you excel. Incorporate your role model’s state-of-mind, resoluteness, values and intention, as you know them. Practice sessions should last as long as you are comfortable and not straining. Be patient, as early sessions may only last a couple of minutes before you get tired.  Repetition builds and strengthens the neuro-patterns for the new behaviors. Strive for 30-40 sessions, or more, lasting 5-7 minutes each.
  • You will be amazed and delighted to see your outer-world performance improve as you implement this technique and practice in your inner-world. This can be a continuous, lifelong process to get you primed and prepared before public speaking, playing your favorite sport or performing your daily work.

In conclusion, your brain is truly the most miraculous mass of protoplasm in the known universe. Your visual cortex is the largest operating system in your brain and has potential to enhance your life experiences beyond your wildest dreams. You can utilize its powers with your eyes open or closed. The eyes-closed potential may be the most exciting because you are exploring the infinite realms of possibility instead of your immediate field of vision in the outer world.

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October 5, 2011

Why Kinesthetic and Global Kids Fall Between the Cracks

Kinesthetic Learning

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Do you know that the students most likely to struggle in traditional classroom settings are Kinesthetic, hands-on learners with Global, big-picture cognitive strengths? This is because their brain wiring is misaligned with how many subjects are taught. This frustrating learning challenge may begin in middle school and continue through high school, college and into adulthood. Without self-awareness of what’s going on, the individual is likely to develop a strong disdain for learning and experience low self-esteem that can carry over into their adult life.

I have personal experience with the “brain wiring” preference combination of Kinesthetic learning and Global thinking. I can claim 100% success for learning anything that interests me through practical neuroscience strategies that support how my brain is wired and what makes me tick.  I hope this knowledge helps millions of students and adults whose brains are wired similarly to mine. Anyone can take control of their learning success by knowing how to leverage their brain pathway strengths.

Kinesthetic Learner and Global Thinker Challenges

My sensory learning preferences are Kinesthetic followed by Visual and then Auditory. I need to have movement, touch and hands-on experiences to stay engaged and remember. Having to learn solely through listening and lecture, with a minimum of visual materials and an inability to move about, is my worst possible scenario. Highly Kinesthetic learners do well in lab courses, shop, drafting, graphics, field trips, and other hands-on, experiential learning environments. Having to sit still in one place, listen to a lecture and run the risk of getting reprimanded for fidgeting or moving about is a situation most Kinesthetic learners prefer to avoid.

The other half of the learning equation is how one prefers to process and think about stored and incoming sensory information. My cognitive strength is Global rather than Sequential. I like “big picture” subjects dealing with context, overarching concepts, possibilities and options. Subjects that stimulate my imagination and permit jumping about in non-logical steps are the ones that keep me interested and engaged. Unfortunately most subjects tend to be taught in a Sequential (e.g. logical, orderly, detail-oriented), step-by-step manner. This is a torturous scenario for a person with strong Global thinking strengths. This is because their Global brains are moving at a rapid-fire rate and get bored with staying on one aspect of a bigger concept longer than a couple of minutes. Global thinkers are equipped to understand the foundational principles of most traditionally Sequential subjects like mathematics, programming theory, thermodynamics, metallurgy, physics, electrochemistry and human anatomy; the problem lies with their attention span and the focus required to complete detailed assignments and pass tests requiring accuracy.

Hot Tips for Kinesthetic and Global Brains

Learning is a voluntary brain process. First, establish the strongest positive outcomes, value and benefits you will receive from learning your chosen subject. This hot tip applies to everyone, regardless of their brain pathway strengths.

  • Kinesthetic Strategies: Implementing movement and touch with your learning experience helps you stay engaged and remember. Closing your eyes occasionally helps you listen deeply during a lecture. Take notes and/or doodle while listening. When reviewing material, ask yourself, “what feels and looks important here?” Flash cards are a great aid for Kinesthetic learners.
  • Global Strategies: When detail and accuracy are required, do your studying in a formal environment with a moderately cool temperature to stay engaged and focused. Use snacks and refreshments as a reward during breaks and for completing chunks of work within 20-30 minute periods of time.

You can quickly, accurately and reliably determine how your brain is wired to learn, think, perform, solve problems, and make decisions with statistically validated preference instruments. Online results generate customized and comprehensive accelerated learning strategies for all brain pathway combinations.

In conclusion, your past learning challenges may have been due to your brain wiring being misaligned with the subject and how it was taught. Practical neuroscience is the unrecognized solution to quick, easy and fun learning.

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