Tuesday 28 December 2010

A Whole New Mind: the 6 skills to survive in the Conceptual Age



"People who lean on logic and philosophy and rational exposition end by starving the best part of the mind" W.B. Yeats 


Why this book? 
All books have the power to color the world around us in richer shades, but sometimes you come across a book that makes you see the world in a completely different light. A "Whole New Mind" by Daniel H. Pink is this kind of book. Deemed by many influential magazines one of the best Business Books in 2005, 5 years later it not only remains highly relevant, but it is even more significant as the changes the book predicted are now fully visible around us. 
This book is the roadmap to a new age in our history: the Conceptual age.
In this post you'll find an high-level summary of the book and a recap of the suggested readings that may help you develop each of the skills necessary to survive the Conceptual Age.

How to use this post: 

  1. Understand what is your key strenght: use the books suggested to hone this skill to perfection. Once you are confident with it you can move to the next step. 
  2. Focus on overcoming your key weakness: I am all for playing with your strenghts, all the same, every weakness that is highly relevant and can't be outsourced, like interpersonal skills, can't be ignored. In fact, all of this skills should be developed at least at a basic level and this brief guide will provide you with the tools to start this journey of personal growth and self-discovery.

The context: AAA ... Abundance, Automation, Asia
In this age of "knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing", a "Whole New Mind" shows us how Beauty and Emotion are the way to give meaning to products, services and ultimately our lives. We live in an age of Abundance where Automation and the Asian workforce are slowly but steadily replacing most left-brained knowledge workers in Europe and the US, forcing most of non-Asians to re-think their place in the world.

The fundamental questions we have to ask ourselves about our work are:
  1. Can someone overseas do it cheaper?
  2. Can a computer do it faster?
If the reply to one of this question is yes, developing creativity, intuition and social skills is no longer an option but a must.
Moreover, if you are offering a product or service you have to ask yourself: am I offering something that satisfies the nonmaterial, trascendent desires of an abundant age? The skills covered in this book will be the key enablers to be able to meet these emerging needs.

The 6 Aptitudes to survive in the Conceptual Age:

A "Whole New Mind" guides us in developing the 6 fundamental aptitudes that we need in order to be ready for the Conceptual age.

DESIGN: everything we create has to be both functional, beautiful AND emotionally engaging. No matter what we do each of us has a design component to his job be it a store window, a report, a ppt presentation or a meal; mastering this skill is therefore fundamental not only to be better at what we do, but also to improve the life of those we come in contact with because "Aesthetics matter, Attractive things work better" (Don Norman).

STORYTELLING: it's not what you now, it's how you tell it ... a compelling narrative is the key to persuasion, communication and self-understanding. Facts are a commodity, storytelling builds differentiation.

    SIMPHONY: Analysis was essential to survive in the Information Age, but as information based jobs will be automated by computers or outsourced to Asia,  synthesis will become the skill in greater demand. Symphony is the aptitude to put the pieces together, to extract the essence of a situation and to cross boundaries to combine the existing into something completely new, to identify opportunities and to make connections between them.
    "Creativity generally involves crossing the boundaries of domains" (Csikszentmihalyi)  and the most advanced at this skill will see relationship that the rest of us will never notice.

    EMPATHY: As pure logic becomes a commodity thanks to ubiquitous information and advanced analytic tools, empathy, to say the ability to understand and care for other people, will become the differentiator for successful leaders and innovators.
    PLAY: lightheartedness is good for your wellbeing AND your career. 
    As Einstein said "Games are the most elevated form of investigation" and the new breed of Nintendo DS mind training games show us how games are slowly becoming a way to extend our knowledge.
    Moreover, as Csikszentmihalyi points out "a playfully light attitude is characteristic of creative individuals". On top of this humour, being a sophisitcated form of human intelligence, can also be a strong cohesive force in an organization leading to greater creativity, productivity and collaboration.


    MEANING: abundance and ubiquitous technology are creating a "perfect storm of circumstances" that enables us to pursue the search for meaning on an unprecedented scale. Some call it "postmaterialism" others call it "The Fourth Great Awakening" but what is for sure is that meaning is becoming more and more a central aspect of how we live our work and free time.
    The key to embark in this journey is to give greater importance to happiness and spirituality.
    In sum, I think this is a great book to acquaint yourself with right-brained skills while approaching them methodically with a left-brain strategy. In fact the book offers a clear portfolio of actions to take to fully develop each skill.
    As we transition to 2011, a great New Year's resolution could be to work and develop one of this aptitudes in order to get ready for the new forces shaping our world.

    If you liked this article, please take 2 sec to share it on Twitter or Facebook and follow me on Twitter to receive bites of transformational reading!



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    Wednesday 15 December 2010

    3 steps to kick start transformational reading ... Flow!




    “By stretching skills, by reaching toward higher challenges, such a person becomes an increasingly extraordinary individual"

    M. Csikszentmihalyi



    Experienced and passionate readers know how addicting, pleasant and transformative reading can be, yet many people struggle to read a couple of books per year.


    The key to become passionate about reading and to get the most out of it is to transform reading into a flow experience.

    "Flow experiences" (M. Csikszentmihalyi) are those moments when we become one with what we are doing ... the truly best moments. Usually these moments occur when we challenge ourselves with activities that have clear goals, clear rules and require us to use our skills and our full concentration.

    Flow activities push us to a higher level of performance and lead to rapid personal growth ... in sum they transform us in "increasingly extraordinary individuals".

    I found the "Flow" book amazing and I keep coming back to it as a reference to truly make it part of how I live my life. I truly believe that what this book preaches is fundamental to become the best version of ourselves.

    So let's move our first steps into transformational reading:

    1)   Challenge yourself in a way that is stimulating. 

    The first step toward transformational reading is setting a goal which is stimulating, out of our comfort zone, but not so far from it that it becomes unattainable or scary. We have to challenge ourselves to keep the "fight or flight response" at bay.
    You can either aim at increasing the quality of the books you are reading or you can go for quantity by pushing yourself to read X% more than you normally would.
    For example, for sometimes I was stuck in the rut of reading numbing books. If you happen to be in a similar situation improving quality will be the most critical move toward transformational reading: a first step to break the habit could be to identify a couple of books from the "1001 books to read before you die" reading list.
    As you slowly increase the complexity of what you are reading, you will notice more and more layers of meaning and you will start to find delightful details or subjects that, once, you would have overlooked. The more I read Murakami, the more I appreciate his writing, but I have also started to appreciate more everything that makes me think of the details in his books, like slowly cooking a meal or listening to my favourite music.

    2)   Lose yourself in reading. 

    Once you find something that has an interesting level of complexity you will feel that your attention starts to concentrate more and more on it. You'll start to become so involved in what you're reading to gradually lose perception of what is around you or to be attracted to it again and again. The addictive effect of flow activities starts to build up. 
    All the same you can facilitate the emergence of this feeling by building a ritual around it, like finding a quiet comfortable armchair to read, preparing yourself a cup of tea or coffee or listening to your favourite music while on public transportation.
    The goal of this step is to be completely absorbed in the moment.

    3)   Have clear goals and reward yourself! 
    To reach the maximum of the involvement in an activity, goals should be extremely clear and feedback as immediate as possible. One way to do this is, for example, chunking or time boxing. Say you are attempting to read the "Count of Montecristo" which is thousand of pages long, one could be easily scared off by the immensity of the book. Trying to chunk it in 30 minutes' or 30 pages' reading sessions will help you set clear goals and prevent becoming intimidated by its hugeness.
    In this phase, keeping track of your progresses will provide even clearer feedback and will motivate you to compete against yourself.
    Moreover, if you get in the habit of rewarding yourself after you finish each reading session, you will enter a virtuous cycle. In fact when you reward yourself, your brain learns to associate positive feelings to the activity you are rewarding yourself for and this will create automatisms that will draw you to read more and more. A square of dark chocolate after some good reading will do the trick if you enjoy it! 
    For those who already enjoy reading, the feeling of continually expanding their own horizons becomes a reward in itself, so the more you'll lose yourself in reading, the more reading will become rewarding in itself.

    Personally I became a bookaholic when I was a kid and I haven't stopped since. All the same, the main challenge I faced was in the quality of the books I read and this strategy has helped me enormously to shift my focus toward truly transformational reading.

    Best quotes from "Flow" by M. Csikszentmihalyi
    "The best moments usually occur when a person's body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile. Optimal experience is thus something that we make happen."
    "Because optimal experience depends on the ability to control what happens in consciousness moment by moment, each person has to achieve in on the basis of his own individual efforts and creativity"
    "The optimal state of inner experience is one in which there is order in consciousness. This happens when psychic energy, or attention, is invested in realistic goals and when skills match the opportunity for action."
    "A person who has achieved control over psychic energy and has invested in consciously chosen goals cannot help but grow into a more complex being. By stretching skills, by reaching toward higher challenges, such a person becomes an increasingly extraordinary individual"
    " A mind with some stable content to it is much richer than one without. ... The consciousness of such a person [...] can always amuse herself and find meaning in the contents of her mind".  

    Related books:

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    Sunday 12 December 2010

    You are what you read

    Shakespeare & Co, Paris

    “Do not read, as children do, to amuse yourself, or like the ambitious, for the purpose of instruction. No, read in order to live.”
    Gustave Flaubert

    Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body and meditating to the spirit, it builds and strengthens you little by little.
    You become what you read and, you may not consciously realize it, but fragments of what you read in your infancy or as a teenager are now crystallized parts of your soul.
    In today's reading list there are the seeds of your future self.
    This blog is about creating and shaping your life, your mind and your soul through reading.
    Neuroscience shows that our thoughts are actually constantly molding our brain and therefore who we are. Reading reshapes our thougths and therefore we actually and physically are what we read.
    So we read ... in order to live!
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