Summary/notes on the book A Whole New Mind by Daniel H. Pink # Some truth about the two hemispheres 1. The left hemisphere controls the right side of the body; the right hemisphere controls the left side of the body. 2. The left hemisphere is sequential; the right hemisphere is simultaneous. 3. The left hemisphere specializes in text ; the right hemisphere specializes in context. Arabic and Hebrew are often only written in consonants, the reader figures out the vowel. Languages that require the reader to supply vowel from the context are usually written from right to left. And moving eyes in that direction requires the brain right hemisphere. 4. The left hemisphere analyzes the details; the right hemisphere synthesizes the big picture. #Chapter - Abundance, Asia and Automation. We are in an era of "knowledge workers" (apply theoretical and analytical knowledge) as opposed to "manual workers". This requires L(left)-directed thinking. Today we are moving towards an era of R-directed thinking ("creators and empathizer") because of: Abundance, Asia and Automation. - Abundance: we have a lot of stuff, things are getting super cheap (and then design becomes important, and also accessible). Abundance over satisfies our needs and boosted the significance of beauty, emotion, and search for meaning. - The self-storage industry (17 billion annual) is larger than the motion picture industry in the US. - The united states spends more on trash bags than 90 other countries spends on everything (nearly half of the number of countries in the wold)! - Asia: e.g. India, Philippines, China have lots of engineers and software engineers in particular. Those workers abroad can do things for way less money. So others should focus on: - forging relationships rather than executing transactions, - tackling novel challenges instead of routine problems, - synthesizing the big picture than than analysing a single component - Automation: Illustrated by a past and new character: - Iconic American symbol/legend: John Henry, black stell-driving man with a hammer, working to build railway after the Civil War. Fightinh against a robot, winning but dying at the end - Garry Kasparov, chess master, beaten by a computer in 1997 against IBM Deep Blue. # Chapter: high concept, high touch: High concept: ability to create artistic and emotional beauty, detect patterns and opportunities, craft a satisfying narrative, and combine seemingly unrelated ideas into a novel invention High touch: ability to empathize, to understand human interactions, find joy in one's self and to elicit it in others, to stretch beyond the quotidian in pursuit of purpose of meaning. - In the US, graphic designers outnumber chemical engineers by 4 to 1. Master of Fine Arts may become more important than MBA. - Most effective leaders are funny. - IQ accounts for about 4 to 10 percent of success. > We mush perform work that overseas knowledge workers can't do cheaper, that computers can't do faster , and that satisfies the aesthetic, emotional, and spiritual demands of a prosperous time. More concretely, we need to focus on the following six senses: - Design - story - symphony - empathy - play - meaning # Design - Frank Nuovo, a world famous designer, worked for Nokia. - Design has become democratized (we can all distinguish some famous Fonts) - For every percent of sales invested in product design, the sales and profits raise by about 3-4percent - Improving school physical environment could increase test scores by as much as 11 percent Practical approach > note and observe design around you, annoyances as well, and think of improvements > Karimanifesto - Don't specialize - Learn history of a field, and forget everything about it when you design something new - Never say "I could have done that", you didn't - Consume experiences, not things > use your own handwritting to create your own font: fontifer.com > CRAPify your visual design (Robin Williams book): - Contrast: if elements are not the same, they should be VERY different - Repetition - Alignment: no arbitrary placing of elements - Proximity: related items should be together # Story - "Humans are not ideally set up to understand logic, they are ideally se up to understand stories". Roger Shank - We compress experience, thoughts and emotion into stories that we tell and convey to others and one's self - Stories are easier to understand and remember. - (Power,Sex Suicide book: "Stories help explain themselves; if you know how something happened, you begin to understand why it happened" Felipe Fernandex-Armesto) - (Also, Harari mention stories in Homo Deus and Sapeins) - We are the authors of our own lives Practical approach: > Write mini-sagas (extremely short stories of 50 words) > StoryCorps. storycorps.org. They give a list of meaningful questions for getting to know someone: https://storycorps.org/participate/great-questions/ > "One Story" subscribe yourself or a friend: about one story per month. one-story.com > Play "Photo Finish": create a tale out of a picture, wha'ts happening in the picture but also the back-story. > Similarly, do the same with people, guess their lives, play with others and compare. # Symphony - Symphony is the ability to put together the pieces, synthesize rather than analyse - "Drawing is largely about relationships" Brian Bomeisler - We are usually drawing remembered symbols from childhood, not what we see (e.g. lips). The eyes are actually located at the middle of the face (chin bottom to top of the head). - FedEx symbol as an arrow in it - Seeing relationships by: - crossing boundaries. Good for creativity. Creative and talented girls are more dominant and tough. Creative boys are more sensitive and less aggressive. "Great minds are androgynous". - Inventing. Sometimes powerful ideas come from combining existing ideas in new ways. - Metaphors: "Human though process are largely metaphorical" - Lakoff. Metaphors, analogies, relating unrelated things, good for the creative process. Metaphors are slaking the thirst for meaning. The material comfort matters less than the metaphors you live in (e.g. thinking of life as a journey or a treadmill). "A large part of self-understanding is the search of the appropriate personal metaphors that make sense of our lives" - Lakoff - See the big picture. Successive executives rely more on intuitive than deductive (if-then). Many of us are stuck by too many choices, a solution is to look at the big picture to see what really matters and what merely annoys. That's essential for the search of meaning. Practical approach: > Newsstand: select publications you would never buy/read > Draw > Random sites, follow links. E.g. URoulette.com > Real brainstorming: - Go for quantity, set a goal, say 100 ideas - Encourage wild ideas - Be visual - Defer judgement - One conversation at a time # Empathy - Darwin wrote another book after "On the Origin of Species", "The expression of the Emotions in man and Animals", stating controversially that all mammals have emotions and they convey them through facial expressions. - Studies across humans cultures revealed that facial expressions are universal. - Emotions are primary read by the right hemisphere. Women cradle babies on their left side, irrespectively if they are left-handed or right-handed, helping to read the babies emotion. - Genuine smile: involves the zygomatic muscles (lift the corner of the mouth), the outer part of the obicularis oculi muscle (pulls down the eyebrows and the skin below it, and pulling up the skin below the eye and raising the cheek) - Fake smile: only zygomatic - Women are generally better are reading facial expressions and detecting lies, even at age 3. - Empathizing requires some degree of attachment (R-directed), unlike systematizing which requires detachment (L-directed). Practical approaches: > test yourself: empathy quotient Simon Baron-Cohen's: tinyurl.com/dbsd8 , 7taj8 . Spot the fake smile: BBC, Paul Ekman. 2u7sh. Expression from eyes, ckrj3. > Understand/know your coworkers: How did you get there? > Take acting classes > Volunteer. Combine volunteering with vacations (global Volunteers, Cross Cultural Solutions) # Play - "America's Army", game created by the US army to increase enrollments. - Games are a growing industry. Electronic Arts is now part of Standards & Poors 500 index. Mario games earned double the all the Star Wars movies. - Research has shown that video games an sharpen many skills vital in the Conceptual Age, e.g. visual perception. Doctors playing a bit of video game, perform less mistakes in surgery, and 25% faster. Playing video games at work can increase productivity and job satisfaction. - "Games are the literature of the 21st century" - Chris Swain - Effective executive employ humour - "A natural facility with humour is intertwined with higher emotional intelligence" (good for managing) - Laugh therapy. Laughing prevents you from thinking, like meditation. There are laughter clubs for free everywhere in the world. - Happiness is conditional, joyfulness is unconditional. - Laughing can decrease stress hormones and boost the immune system. It has aerobic benefits, activates the cardiovascular system, increase the hear rate, pumps more bloods to internal organs. Practical approach: > Take a humor scale test: tinyurl.com/6t7ff > Go back to school: staff retreat in a school. Check out children's museums. > Dissect some jokes > Right-brain gaimes: Tecmo's Right brain Game. also, Right Brain Paradise. # Meaning - Frankl's book "Man search for meaning", logotherapy. "Man's main concern is not to gain pleasure or to avoid pain (or have material things), but rather to see meaning in his life". The main drive for humans is the pursuit of meaning. "Happiness cannot be pursued it be ensue". - Eric Lander. Out capacity for faith may be hard wired into our brains. They designed a gold Helmet, that makes you feel the presence of god. - People who pray have lower blood pressure. People attending religious services less likely to have heart disease, suicide and some cancers, live longer. - Happiness contributors: satisfying work, avoid negative events and emotions, being married, rich social network, gratitude, forgivenesses and optimism. - Moral of the story "Who moved my cheese": if somethings happens, do not wail or whine, but suck it up and deal with it. - Mazes are different than labyrinths. Mazes have dead ends, you can get lost (engage the left brain). Labyrinth is a spiral walking course (right brain), bath to prayer, introspection and emotional healing. - Life is not the fear-fueled pursuit of cheese, but the purpose is the journey itself like walking a labyrinth. Practical approach: > Make a gratitude list at every birthday, one item per year. Bring sense of satisfaction and sooth the anxiety of time's passage > The 20-10 test. Look at your life. If you had 20 million more now, or 10 more years to live, would you continue what you are doing now. > test your spirit: Piedmont, test, STSR. evergreen.loyola.edy/~rpiedmont/STSR.htm, or Kass INSPIRIT test. tinyurl.com/5sz7u > Exchange "But" by "and", to move from excuse to problem solving. > Take a Sabbath. E.g. choose an act in your daily life, and use it to take a pause. > Visit a labyrinth > Dedicate your work. To someone you admire or matters in your life. Infuse your work with purpose and meaning when you think of it as a gift.