How to make the Brain your friend, to Succeed?

Introduction

Forbes in January 2022 wrote The Human Brain-Scale AI Supercomputer Is Coming. The?Brain is a fascinating organ. Not just because of its remarkable capacity, but also because building an understanding of how the brain works will help us create more powerful AI systems.

There is a lot of processing that happens in the human brain at a subconscious level, at speeds that are beyond our observational capacity. When I work with teams through the Innovation LifeCycle I also ask them to practice mindfulness in some form, so that the active but relaxed mind can do more and more correlations and inferences.

In today’s edition let's go through the ?“Human Brain” & the way it helps you improve creativity & health. Let's also explore “Can your brain help you create a stronger you?

The Human Brain

The?Brain is a fascinating organ. The human brain is even more fascinating, clearly distinguishing us from all other species on this planet, enabling us to create fundamentally unique constructs like Mathematics ( yes we can argue that Mathematics is a discovery or a construct, but that is another discussion), Philosophy, democracy, ethics?on one hand and enable creating complex stuff like Rockets, telescopes, Machinery of all kinds, etc.

So to say, the brain is not just a computer, it's also the part of us that gives us personality, uniqueness in how we address our day-to-day actions, problems, how we hypothesize, and how we solve problems differently.

It is also the seat of consciousness, although we as yet do not really understand how consciousness emerges in the human brain.

I would love to know your thoughts on the human brain & its potential.

In fact, we do not fully understand how the human brain functions. There are currently several projects happening around the world that are focused on understanding the human brain.

CREATIVITY

Let's answer a Question- Is everyone Creative and how can one be more creative?

Each brain comes with its own unique set of environmental influences, exposure, learning, and its own unique mechanism of assimilation. So there is inherent creativity already.

Since every individual has a certain set way of looking at things, we can?examine the ways in which the set way of thinking can be altered.

If we can consciously alter the approach to thinking we may be able to come up with new ideas. The stimulus to think differently can be created artificially.

Some of the techniques used are given below

• ?Visualization techniques that help you imagine new designs, new possibilities, and new ways of living, ?working, etc resulting in radical and creative products /platforms or services
• Discussions Or Brainstorming. Discussions help move our minds from a fixed state to possibilities that we did not consider before.
• Use of special techniques - that allows you to see every point of view associated with the problem. “What if Analysis “and Six Thinking Hats by Edward De Bono are some good techniques for the same
• Forcing your brain to correlate - This can be done by picking up a "random word" and systematically correlating it to your problem statement till it starts making sense. Sounds absurd. You have to try this technique out to realize the power and potential of the same
• Getting a multidisciplinary team working on the same problem.?

You can use any of these techniques in groups and if you want to learn more reach out to me at: [email protected]

Better Health

Mindfulness is becoming really popular these days because it shows a window to us to take charge of the brain's tendency to wander, thus enabling better focus. However very?few people realize that better focus is better health- both mental and then overall health. There is an opportunity to create a very positive virtuous health cycle by being mindful.

Mindful people are more productive because of the better focus. However, mindful people also tend to be more innovative, because for new high quality ideas to emerge the brain needs to be in a calm and active mode.

?I am starting a Sunday morning Mindfulness Session from 28th February Live on Youtube and LinkedIn. This is free, I will be just sharing my own mindfulness practice. Please feel free to join at Reena Dayal @Benzaiten Advisors - YouTube

Resilience

When we are mindful we have the capacity to focus on the present, taking our focus away from ruminating about the past and worrying about the future. When people face difficult situations, the best way to deal with those situations is to not endlessly ruminate about them, but focus on finding a way forward or a solution or if no solution is possible, by letting go.

?Thus mindfulness also helps in building resilience and better capacity of dealing with shocks

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Creativity, Health and Resilience and important traits to be built up for high-performance teams. Organizations today invest a lot of energy and money in the areas of Innovation and even Mindfulness.

What is missing today is the skillful interweaving of these techniques so that the Organizational Culture and teams can be impacted positively as a part of a larger program across teams or across organizations.

@Benzaiten Advisors has been helping Organizations on this front.

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Board Tech Tips -

1.?????Innovation Management is about Managing Innovation Portfolios, Innovation risks, and Setting the tone for an Innovation Culture within the Organization. The Board needs to emphasize the Culture aspect and the HRO should be considered an important stakeholder for Bottom-up Innovation.

?2.?????Interventions that help build High-Performance teams can play a big role in creating a larger ??group of Innovators within the Organization, who work together for success

?3.?????Building a Culture of Innovation also requires working closely with the Learning and Development Department of the Organizations to ensure that best practices are percolated across different teams and an environment that promotes collaboration is nurtured.?

I would love to know where you are on the journey of being more resilient and creative. Please share in the comments....

About the Author

Reena Dayal is a global thought leader on Emerging Tech & Science. She is a board advisor & CXOs coach for New Tech & its impact on Business, Industry, and Society. She loves to examine the latest developments in New Tech & brings this in the form of monthly briefings to Senior Leaders. Her agency “Benzaiten Advisors” provides customized reports, updates & solutions for organizations that care about the impact of emerging tech on their business growth. She can be contacted through a DM on LinkedIn or via?e-mail?or?website