When we hear the term "mind" we often think of the brain, but the mind is much more than the brain. The brain is the hardware while the mind is the software it runs. When you are dead, your brain will still be there (for a while), but your mind will not.So just what is the mind? If we are going to get any use out of the mind, we need a definition that is useful. Although the word "mind" leads us to believe the mind is a thing, it is not. The mind is label we have given to an active and dynamic process of thinking, perceiving and experiencing. The term "mind" refers to a never-ending flow of information processing. The mind is never static. It is a constant stream of sensory input, thoughts, ideas and perceptions. It's a continuous dance of information, a ceaseless stream of awareness in which almost anything can be swept up.
What exactly goes on in this stream of awareness? From moment to moment you receive vast amounts of information from the outside world through your senses. Your awareness jumps from point to point in your external experience, sorting for what is important to you as your minds engages in the process of interpreting and evaluating the incoming data. External information is filtered through beliefs, attitudes and memories and associations are activated. Emotions arise and generate responses; speech, actions and behavior.On the screen of your mind you flash images, snapshots and run movies. You hear sounds and voices and often narrate the film with your own voice. The pictures and sounds of your mind occur all in sequence, one after the other, which results in an ever changing flux of experience which changes from moment to moment.
It is a well-known fact that if we ask twenty persons to describe an incident that just happened, we'll get twenty different versions of the same incidence. The reason for that is that our reality is highly skewed by our internal bank of references.
Brain functions can be broken down even further into what does each side of the brain to task wise. So let's take a look at what the left side does.The left side of your brain deals with tasks like being logical, sequential, analytical, objective, focus and details, and numbers. So if you happen to be bad in math, blame the left side of your brain - or the right for not governing the numbers part of you. The right side of your brain deals with tasks like being intuitive. Trust your hunches. They're usually based on facts filed away just below the conscious level. It also deals with colors, rhythm, and the overall picture, pictures and is random.
For hundreds of years the field of psychology tried to find a way to change emotions and behavior. The methods devised made great theories, but never really resulted in much change. Some of the theories made a lot of sense, but practice didn't seem to yield any results. The advocates of different psychological theories over the past hundred years spent more time arguing over theories than trying to find something that really worked. It took up until the late 1970s before a model that was actually useful and practical was devised.
Throughout our lives we have fought with our emotions and struggled to change habits and behaviours with little or no success. We have been attempting to change the symptom of some cause without getting to the source. Trying to change with willpower alone is like trying to weed a garden without getting at the roots and wondering why the weeds keep growing back. We wonder why change is so difficult, but it's not that change is difficult, it's that we've been going about it the wrong way. Trying to shovel the snow of your driveway with a rake isn't going to work very well, so why not trying something else? To change emotions and behaviours we need to step behind the scenes and peek into our internal experience to see what is going on behind our emotions and behaviours. We need to look beyond the surface and find the source.
OK now you have a pretty fair idea of how the mind works. Let's go just one more step further. You already know about the language of the brain being pictures, sounds, feelings, tastes, and smells - in other words input from your senses that is your imagination when it is processed. Your brain can only work with positive information that it receives from your five senses. Your brain can't work with inputs you haven't experienced or otherwise called negative information.Here is a very important point to remember when thinking about your customers. They can't reflect and act at the same time. They need to be focused on one thing or another (reading your website copy, email etc) and thinking about it or taking action and buying something. Trick is to be able to switch them from one to the other quickly and effortlessly. Good thing you know about Neuro Linguistic Programming and how the mind works.
Although you never go anywhere without your mind, most of what goes on in the mind remains a mystery to you. Why? Because much of what occurs in your mind is out of awareness. Our mental programs operate behind the scenes, out of consciousness, and it is those aspects of our functioning that operate out of awareness that lead to emotions and behaviours. To put on a great show and produce the results we need to navigate in the world, there is a whole crew of things going on backstage. All we see is the final performance.
And here is why you want to know what they do for a living. A manager would be a left brain person (appeal to his/her logic and love of analysis). A leader would be right brain (appeal to his/her emotions and imagination). A producer - that would depend on the kind of work done. If the work done is verbal, logical, and analytical - that is left brain. If the work is intuitive, emotional, and creative - that is right brain. Can you be a combination? Yes, but usually one is more predominant that the other.
[How The Mind Works]
What exactly goes on in this stream of awareness? From moment to moment you receive vast amounts of information from the outside world through your senses. Your awareness jumps from point to point in your external experience, sorting for what is important to you as your minds engages in the process of interpreting and evaluating the incoming data. External information is filtered through beliefs, attitudes and memories and associations are activated. Emotions arise and generate responses; speech, actions and behavior.On the screen of your mind you flash images, snapshots and run movies. You hear sounds and voices and often narrate the film with your own voice. The pictures and sounds of your mind occur all in sequence, one after the other, which results in an ever changing flux of experience which changes from moment to moment.
It is a well-known fact that if we ask twenty persons to describe an incident that just happened, we'll get twenty different versions of the same incidence. The reason for that is that our reality is highly skewed by our internal bank of references.
Brain functions can be broken down even further into what does each side of the brain to task wise. So let's take a look at what the left side does.The left side of your brain deals with tasks like being logical, sequential, analytical, objective, focus and details, and numbers. So if you happen to be bad in math, blame the left side of your brain - or the right for not governing the numbers part of you. The right side of your brain deals with tasks like being intuitive. Trust your hunches. They're usually based on facts filed away just below the conscious level. It also deals with colors, rhythm, and the overall picture, pictures and is random.
For hundreds of years the field of psychology tried to find a way to change emotions and behavior. The methods devised made great theories, but never really resulted in much change. Some of the theories made a lot of sense, but practice didn't seem to yield any results. The advocates of different psychological theories over the past hundred years spent more time arguing over theories than trying to find something that really worked. It took up until the late 1970s before a model that was actually useful and practical was devised.
Throughout our lives we have fought with our emotions and struggled to change habits and behaviours with little or no success. We have been attempting to change the symptom of some cause without getting to the source. Trying to change with willpower alone is like trying to weed a garden without getting at the roots and wondering why the weeds keep growing back. We wonder why change is so difficult, but it's not that change is difficult, it's that we've been going about it the wrong way. Trying to shovel the snow of your driveway with a rake isn't going to work very well, so why not trying something else? To change emotions and behaviours we need to step behind the scenes and peek into our internal experience to see what is going on behind our emotions and behaviours. We need to look beyond the surface and find the source.
OK now you have a pretty fair idea of how the mind works. Let's go just one more step further. You already know about the language of the brain being pictures, sounds, feelings, tastes, and smells - in other words input from your senses that is your imagination when it is processed. Your brain can only work with positive information that it receives from your five senses. Your brain can't work with inputs you haven't experienced or otherwise called negative information.Here is a very important point to remember when thinking about your customers. They can't reflect and act at the same time. They need to be focused on one thing or another (reading your website copy, email etc) and thinking about it or taking action and buying something. Trick is to be able to switch them from one to the other quickly and effortlessly. Good thing you know about Neuro Linguistic Programming and how the mind works.
Although you never go anywhere without your mind, most of what goes on in the mind remains a mystery to you. Why? Because much of what occurs in your mind is out of awareness. Our mental programs operate behind the scenes, out of consciousness, and it is those aspects of our functioning that operate out of awareness that lead to emotions and behaviours. To put on a great show and produce the results we need to navigate in the world, there is a whole crew of things going on backstage. All we see is the final performance.
And here is why you want to know what they do for a living. A manager would be a left brain person (appeal to his/her logic and love of analysis). A leader would be right brain (appeal to his/her emotions and imagination). A producer - that would depend on the kind of work done. If the work done is verbal, logical, and analytical - that is left brain. If the work is intuitive, emotional, and creative - that is right brain. Can you be a combination? Yes, but usually one is more predominant that the other.
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