Know How You Learning

In my research, I have discovered that there are six easy ways to access the genius mind. Number one, create quiet time, time to listen, time to observe, time to dream. Two, look at your learning or any area of life from different viewpoints. Pretend you are a friend of yourself; how would you see it? Or pretend that you are a tree. How would you see it? Observe. Number three, ask questions. Number four, pay attention to details, for it is details that make the whole. Number five, do things differently. And number six, take time to listen.

For to listen is to hear the singing of the birds, the wind running, dancing, skipping through the trees. It is to hear what people are really saying. It is to be in tune with universal knowledge, receiving each answer as we ask each question. It is all there, if we listen. But in order to listen, we need to still our conscious mind and tune in. Refine our mind so that we may pick up finer and finer frequencies.

The truths of life are given to those who know how to listen, for only the listeners have stilled their ego enough to turn it off and put their attention elsewhere, acknow1edging that they do not know all but that they need to listen in order to learn more.

Let’s consider that there are different learning styles. “Know thyself” was taught by Socrates and is always in order for anyone wishing to learn easily, grow more, and develop his or her potential. Knowing our learning style is invaluable, for it helps us to identify quickly what we may need to do in order to learn and remember the material at hand easily.

There are tests available to help identify our learning styles. These are great, for they help give us ideas about ourselves and see things about ourselves. They help us to know more about how we learn. But they can also be limiting if we accept that we only have a certain type of learning style and do not move beyond that. It is not the tests that are limiting, but people boxing themselves in and saying, “I’m that type of learner,” without any further attempt at expanding.

Most people are a combination of styles, different styles for different areas of life. To expand our potential, we can choose to work with a way of learning or thinking that is normally not our first preference. My first mode of learning was visual, linear, whole picture, and multiple tasks. Auditory was my last mode of learning. I always wished the material put on tapes would be in a book so I could access it easier. Yet, I wanted to learn what was on the tapes, so I continued listening to tapes. Plus, I continued using auditory in my own music learning techniques. I have felt my auditory growing, but just a week ago I became aware that I was looking forward to listening to tapes, that tapes were becoming their own books, in my mind. I realized that my auditory had expanded to a new level.

To go into great detail about all the different styles of learning is beyond the scope of this article, but asking questions of ourselves will help us understand our preferences. Here are some of the questions: Am I devoted to getting facts? Do I figure things out logically? Am I more involved in answers and actions than in questions and theories? Am I sensitive to moods, atmospheres, and attitudes? Do I have a strong interest in people and communication? Do I prefer to work alone? Do I prefer to picture things rather than verbalizing them? Do I thrive on tension and chaos? Do I enjoy many possibilities?

Am I strong on procedure and order? Do I need to see the whole picture first, or can I immediately begin with the details? Do I need structure, or do I learn easily in unstructured situations? Do I skim-read several books on the topic, or do I start one book and read it thoroughly? Can I handle many books at a time? Is visual my first choice of learning? Is auditory my first choice? Is kinesthetic, the hands-on approach, my first choice? Do I need to write, make graphs and tables, or can I picture it in another fashion?

We may want to have a name for our learning style, but if we listen and write down what we prefer first, we discover that our learning style is usually clamoring to be used. For example, “I just have to feel it. I don’t get it until I do.” “Wait! I have to write that down.” “No, I have to see the big picture first.” What we need to do is listen, observe, and write down what we feel, and our style will start to come into focus.

Consider these questions and you will begin to understand the type of learning that suits you best.

HCA Focusing Formular

Highly concentrated attention is exactly what it says it is: It’s a highly focused, deeply intensive mental state of attention. It’s like the state you see your children go into when they are playing video games. It’s also highly explosive. It gives your personal productivity an instant kick. Highly concentrated attention is a powerful productivity thruster.

Highly concentrated attention is high-powered thinking that produces high-powered results. When your brain is in highly concentrated attention mode, or HCA for short, you can blow past obstacles and cut through a task with razor-beam precision. When you concentrate, your personal productivity elevates rapidly. You can accomplish twice as much in the same amount of time or accomplish the same amount in half the time, or a combination of the two. Either way, you can’t go wrong. There are no negative side effects of HCA, no supreme price to pay. Highly concentrated attention is available to you any time you desire it, just for the asking.

Highly productive people use HCA often. It’s one of the secrets of their success. You can learn to do the same. You can know exactly how to kick your brain into highly concentrated attention whenever you like. And here’s what’s going to happen to you as a result.

First, you’ll get great ideas and solutions. The two basic tools of productivity, the hammer and screwdriver of accomplishment, are ideas and solutions. Ideas that enable you to exploit opportunities, and solutions that enable you to get past obstacles. When you’re in HCA mode, you’re going to think of good ideas and solutions; they’ll just come to you. Not only will you have more tools than ever before, and thereby accomplish more, but you’ll dazzle others who marvel at your resourcefulness.

Secondly, you’ll have more free time. Since you’ll be accomplishing in less time, you’ll have time remaining for other enjoyable activities. It’s like creating extra time in each day.

Thirdly, you’ll treat yourself to one of life’s natural pleasures. The brainpower you devote to highly concentrated attention is not exhausting; it’s exhilarating, invigorating, refreshing. It’s the mental equivalent of a physical workout, beneficial and pleasurable all the way.

Fourthly, you’ll advance your career. Most people don’t concentrate very often. Most people are moderately productive, turning in average performances. But as you spend regular amounts of time in HCA mode, your productivity will surpass that of others. Before long you’ll look like a miracle worker. Whom do you think the company’s going to promote?

These four benefits, thinking of ideas and solutions, more free time, exhilarating mental workout, and career advancement all result from your use of highly concentrated attention. HCA mode is the mental equivalent of physical exercise. Just as the human body is designed to engage in limited amounts of physical exertion, the brain is designed to engage in limited amounts of mental exertion.

People who engage in either physical or mental exertion regularly do so because their brain has discovered the exertion turns out to be enjoyable. When you engage in HCA regularly, you’re retraining your brain to like it. You’re developing a taste for it. That’s why there are two extremes, the people who physically or mentally exert themselves regularly, who have trained their brains to enjoy it, even crave it, and the people who avoid any physical or mental exertion, who have never gotten past their brain’s initial resistance to it.

When you first try to concentrate on something, you may find your attention wandering. You may find yourself gravitating toward other less mentally taxing activities. That’s your brain resisting HCA mode. Don’t let it happen. Force yourself to concentrate. Get past your brain’s gravitational pull. Once you do that, concentration becomes enjoyable. And your brain will gradually cease objecting to it.

Three Keys to the Highly Concentrated State

Here are the three key steps to getting yourself into highly concentrated attention whenever you desire. Step one, reduce distractions. Either alter your anything-can-happen (ACH) environment by turning off the phone, the television, or whatever distracts you, or leave your ACH environment for a more secluded spot. Notice this step calls for you to reduce distractions, not eliminate them. If you believe you must eliminate all distractions, you’ll end up concentrating more on the distractions than on your intended subject. On a remote island with nothing but you and nature, the birds or wind will become a distraction if you think you have to eliminate it. Incidentally, if you work in a hectic, distraction-rich environment that you can’t alter, you can still concentrate. I’m going to give you the secret to that in a few minutes.

Step two, allocate special time for HCA mode. It’s much easier to get into HCA mode if you dedicate special time for it. Time when you’re not doing anything else. Coming into work an hour or two early before everyone else shows up and the phone starts ringing is a great idea. You’ll probably get more done during that period than in the eight hours that follow.

Next, choose either step 3A or 3B. Here’s 3A: Put the object of your attention into motion. Motion commands attention. That’s how video games suck you into HCA mode so quickly. There’s constant motion on the screen with multiple things happening in rapid succession. If whatever you’re trying to concentrate on is moving, like a person walking by, a movie, an airborne baseball, or an assembly line, you’re in luck. But what if the object is inherently stationary, like a book? Then you should be moving. Move your eyes rapidly across the words. You’re not trying to speed read; you’re just warming up, getting yourself into HCA mode.

Motion doesn’t always involve sight. Sounds can be put into motion, too. Which is easier for children to remember, a random string of words or a nursery rhyme? When the words are in motion, like a poem or song, they attract deeper attention.

Step 3B, choose this step if the object of your desired attention isn’t something you can see or hear. Step 3B is, engage in physical movement. Sometimes you want to concentrate on thoughts. You want to contemplate the future or think about a relationship or come up with an idea or solution. To concentrate on something you can’t see, hear, or touch, put yourself into motion. I know a guy who races dirt bikes as a means of getting himself into HCA mode and making decisions. President Reagan said back when he was president he’d often go horseback riding to concentrate on difficult decisions he had to make. I often walk through the park or drive to nowhere to get myself into HCA mode.

Have you ever driven past your intended freeway exit and not realized that until later? You were probably in HCA mode, though it wasn’t your driving that you were concentrating on. You know, at the office I’ll start walking back and forth or in circles to get myself into HCA mode. It looks a little strange, but it does work.

What if you’re required to concentrate even though your environment is hectic and full of distractions? You can still concentrate no matter what’s going on. Here are three auxiliary steps to take in addition to those we just covered that will allow you to get into HCA mode in an ACH environment.

Auxiliary step one, keep your eyes focused on one small object. Air traffic controllers, for example, focus on that radar screen for the duration of their shift, rarely taking their eyes off it. Surgeons wear magnifying glasses and focus on one specific thing at a time.

Jerry Rice, the record-setting wide receiver for the San Francisco ’49ers, used to stare at the ball while it was sailing through the air. In fact, in one interview, he said he actually stares at the tip of the ball, an even smaller object. You can’t find a louder, faster, more hectic environment than a football game. But Jerry said while he’s running down the field, staring at the tip of the ball, he can’t hear the crowd; he can’t hear the footsteps. He tunes it all out. That’s HCA mode all right, and you can see how that aided Jerry’s productivity.

Auxiliary step two, create a wall of sound. Sounds will distract you if they’re erratic, like when it’s quiet for a minute or so and someone sneaks up behind you and says, “Hey!” But if the sounds are steady, rather than erratic, like the crowd at a baseball, basketball, or football game, you can tune them out. The steady drone of a particular sound can become a wall of sound that transforms itself into non-distractive background sound.

Ironically, you can reduce the distractiveness of sound by adding to the sound. Turning on the radio at work, for example, creates a steady wall of sound that negates sound distractions. Leaving the television on for long lengths of time turns it into wallpaper video, meaning it becomes background and negates other distractions that might appear erratically.

Auxiliary step three, become acclimated to your ACH environment. With people talking, phones ringing, and interruptions interrupting, is it any wonder you get any work done at all, right? You may quickly conclude that you just can’t concentrate in such a hectic environment. That conclusion, while understandable, may be incorrect. You can concentrate in an ACH environment if you give yourself time to acclimate to it.

I did just that back in the mid ’70s when I was a newscaster and a copywriter at a radio station. I had to write the commercials, and I had to concentrate to do that. I had no choice but to force myself to concentrate, despite the hectic environment. Before long, I got used to it, and writing in that ACH environment became easy. I ran into a guy about a year ago who told me he goes to a local restaurant on Sunday afternoons when it’s crowded and noisy to concentrate on things. He learned to concentrate in an ACH environment and became hooked on it. He actually found the people, the noise, the interruptions mentally stimulating. This happens to many people who learn—and it is a learned behavior—how to thrive on a hectic environment and be productive not in spite of it but because of it.

Force yourself to concentrate even when things are hectic and distractive. Don’t say, “I can’t concentrate in here. There’s too much noise.” In time you will acclimate, and you will get into HCA mode at will. And you’ll double your productivity regardless of the distractions.

Moving Through the Challenges of Life by Gregg Braden

Sometimes the events of life seem to push us to the very edge of who we believe we are. Sometimes we may even feel as though life has pushed us right over the edge. Many people describe this as a feeling of being tested, as though life is testing something within them. While that certainly may be possible, I’d like to offer another perspective. We live in a world where we’ve been conditioned to believe that our achievements in life may be measured. And in those measurements we’re either successful or we’ve failed. The belief that life tests us falls right in line with that either/or kind of thinking and allows us to succeed and fail many, many times in our lives.

What if the challenges of life are not tests at all? What if our greatest challenges are simply opportunities to demonstrate our mastery of a particular skill or relationship? In an opportunity, it is impossible to fail, or to succeed, for that matter. In an opportunity, all that we can do is to meet our challenge and become the best people that we can be in the presence of that challenge. To meet our challenge while honoring our personal principles of integrity and trust and in those around us.

So an opportunity from this perspective can feel very different from a test that we can pass or fail. There’s a mirror that shows us our greatest levels of personal mastery by presenting us with our deepest experience of personal fear. When we find ourselves in such a fear, the ancients called our experience "the dark night of the soul." And this mirror is a mirror that helps us to understand the mystery of the dark night of the soul and how it plays out in our lives.

Referencing from the lost gospel of Thomas, we’re reminded, "That all are born and must walk in the two spirits that the one has created in humankind, spirit of light and spirit of darkness." A second part of this quote goes on to say that "if you bring forth that which you have within you, it will save you. If, however, you do not bring forth that which you have within you, it can destroy you." And this is a reference to the power that lives within us, the power that must be expressed in some way in our lives.

If we reach into the deepest access of who we are and what we have available to us as people, it will carry us through what we see as the darkest experiences of our lives. And if we choose to retreat from that and we shy away from finding those portions of ourselves, many people have found in very direct ways that it destroys us, it destroys our trust and our ability to move forward in the process of life. This parable suggests that we each harbor within us a power, a force, if you will, that seeks to be shared and expressed. That’s a power that cannot be denied. To allow this force to be expressed is a life-affirming experience. And to stifle this power and deny its expression can be life-denying.

So what is this mysterious power? How does it show up in our lives? Well, through the story that follows we’ll answer those questions, and in doing so, we’ll lay the foundation this mirror of the dark night of our soul.

I had a client, as well as a friend, who is an engineer whom I worked with. We’ll call him Charles, although that’s not his real name. And Charles described his experience of working very long hours in a corporate environment, and he became very, very good at what he was doing. He was an engineer, a software developer. He knew his craft very well. He moved through the ranks within the corporation, and soon he found himself on the road showing others what it is that he had learned and developed. He found himself at tradeshows and conferences all over the world. He saw his family very little during this time. And what he began to find was that he actually knew the people that he worked with and the people that he traveled with better than he knew his own family. He spent long travel hours with them, they had meals together, and they talked about the events unfolding in the world around them.

And it wasn’t long before the inevitable happened, and he believed that he was in love with a female co-worker who was traveling the circuit and attending the conferences with him. And in this belief, he left his family, he left his home, he left his friends, and he was able to get a transfer in the same career to the city where this woman lived. Everything looked like it was really good in Charles’ life.

Not long after that, however, something began to happen, and everything began to unravel. And this is when I had my conversation with Charles. I hadn’t seen him for a while. We met and I asked him how things were going, and the story that he shared—after he had given everything away that he loved and held dear, after he had given away his family, his home, his friends, and a career, to move to a city with this woman and the new love of his life, and everything seemed just right—was that he came home one day and the woman simply said to him, "This is not what I thought it would be," and she left him. He was absolutely devastated.

He began to perform poorly in his job, and it wasn’t long after that, within just a couple of weeks, that he had a pink slip, and he was without a job, and consequently without family, without friends, and without a relationship. And this is the point where Charles called me and he said, "What just happened in my life? Everything looked so good and now it looks so bad." This is the red flag that comes up in our life and it seems that everything looks like it’s absolutely perfect, we’ve found balance in our lives and that balance is what promises that we will have the opportunity to demonstrate our mastery and what that balance is saying. But for Charles, he just entered what the ancients called the dark night of the soul.

In the dark night of the soul, we find ourselves in the position where we lose the things that we hold onto the tightest, the things that we cling to for fear of losing them. Our fear of losing them is the promise that we will find ourselves without them at some point in our lives. The distinction I’m making here and the key to this story and this mirror is to cherish what life has given us by appreciating those things without clinging onto them for fear of losing them. And whether we’re talking about financial security or our relationships to others, our husbands, wives, children, our job security, or our health, the principle is the same. I’m going to repeat this, the key is to find a way to appreciate and cherish the blessings that life has given to us without clinging onto them for fear of losing them.

The flip side of the kind of loss that Charles described—and I’m sure that we’ve all had experiences similar to this in our lives where we lost the things that we hold most dear—the flip side of this is that nature has a built-in safety mechanism; it’s a valve if you will, that promises we will never be given more hurt or more pain or more disappointment or loss in our lives than we can deal with at any given moment in time.

We know this through the words of every mother on the planet. Very simply in a single sentence, we’ve all heard, "God will never put more on your plate than you can handle." And I believe that is what this portion of the mirror is saying to us.

Kahlil Gibran, in his book The Prophet, simply said to us that "No man can reveal to you that which already lies half asleep in the dawning of your knowledge." I invite you to think about that statement. "No man can reveal to you that which already lies half asleep in the dawning of your knowledge."

I believe in this statement. Kahlil Gibran is speaking to us about this power in our lives. He’s saying that whatever happens in our life, nobody can give us the tools to find our way through the great challenges of life because they’re already there. No one can teach us something that we already know.

There is something very interesting I find when I’m discussing nature’s balance with live audiences. Everyone says he or she is seeking balance in life, but the truth is, in absolute balance, absolutely nothing happens. In absolute balance, there is no imbalance to trigger the system and move it forward. In balance, there is no movement. It is the striving toward balance that drives us forward in life.

So when we see this in mathematical equations, for example, there are mathematics that can be brilliantly, beautifully represented on the screen of a computer, as powerful patterns and symbols that are the result of the mathematic equation. And what we find is that when those patterns find their perfect balance, that is the signal for the pattern to begin to evolve and move on once again.

And in the same way it appears that that’s what happens in our lives. When we find ourselves in what we believe is that perfect balance, when everything looks as if it is just right, just where we want it, just as we had placed it, that appears to be the signal to nature that says, "Bring it on." Bring on the change because the balance has signaled the opportunity for change to come into our lives once again.

Many people find that when they go through a dark night of the soul, the first one is the most difficult. I know we’ve all experienced at some point in our lives a moment where we lost the things that we held most dear. The encouraging element of this mirror is the confidence that comes from surviving that first dark night of the soul; the confidence is immense. I know people who doubted their ability to come out of the other side of a tremendous challenge of health and a condition that may take their lives, or something devastatingly similar to that. And when they do, the confidence that is instilled within them is immeasurable. And I know some people who’ve actually said, "You know, I’ve survived my first dark night of the soul; I’m ready for the next ones. Bring them on." And they no longer fear those dark nights of the soul.

So the mirror of our dark night of the soul, the mirror shows us what we truly value in this world and leads us to understand that the deep appreciation for what we cherish is the way to continue experiencing it in our lives.

So I’ll ask you to look into your life at the things that you cherish and you hold most dear, your children, your family, your career, your health, whatever it is in your life, and ask yourself how you would feel if for some reason these things were to suddenly disappear from your life. Your answer to this is the signpost pointing to where your next dark night of the soul may come from.

At the same time, however, it’s also your personal guide to how you may honor the things that you cherish by appreciating them with gratitude rather than clinging to them for fear of losing them. By doing so, you’ve also honored the wisdom of this mirror. And without ever having to experience the loss and the suffering of the dark night of the soul, the mirror serves you and leads you to the last and what is perhaps the most subtle mirror of all, the mirror of self-acceptance.

STARTING A BUSINESS

for someone else and not following their natural entrepreneur instinct to think about becoming their own boss and start a business. Owning a business is something everybody wants and probably this is what you also want. However you can’t start a business without having a business idea first.

It is not as much about having the idea as much as having an idea that will surely sell and can actually work. Once you have this part taken care of you will have to figure out for yourself what business you want to start.

Trying to figure out what business to start might not be as easy as most people think and one thing that proves this is the fact that lots of people find themselves having no idea whatsoever about what business to start and even if they do most of the times they let the idea go because they have doubts about it. You will have to consider lots of things before thinking about starting your own business.

Firstly you will have to figure out what your areas of interests are because that’s what really matters in the beginning. Once you know your interests are things will become a little bit clearer and you will be able to make your business work much easier.

For example if you have lots of knowledge about computers and consider yourself skilled enough you could start a computer repair business. You could easily offer your services to those in need of computer assistance and you could even do it at home or in the client’s home.

Location is also vital when starting your own business because you would want it to be place in the exact are it is most needed and not too far from it. For example you should only think about selling soccer balls in places where this sport is popular.

If you want to start a fast food business you should look for hot locations where you can make sure lots of people will pass. You should place your fast food business in a location where people are most likely to look for it. Success for your business is very much influenced by relating the products or services you sell to the location so you have to be careful about how you do it.

The next thing you should be concerned about is also one of the most important aspects of starting a business is your budget and how much money you have at your disposal to invest in starting your business because this is what most people find most difficult at this stage.

If you really have a good business idea but don’t have the money you need to start it you might want to consider applying for a loan. Most financial institutions will have no trouble helping you to start your business and another option would be convincing a venture capitalist to take interest in your business and provide you with the capital you need to make your business work.

Any business comes with some risk taking and maybe this is one of the main reasons business in general is so appealing. Once you take the risk of starting your own business your already one step ahead of others who are still considering it. Once you have considered all the possibilities and you have made sure everything is covered taking this risk is a natural thing and will help you run your business the right way and achieve success.