Doodling as an Asset

Posted on March 30, 2012 by ray

Doodling

I read that Doodling during a meeting helps to increase retention up to 30%.  The article I read said that the study was done by Jackie Andrade, who is a psychology professor at the University of Plymouth in England. The study appears online in Applied Cognitive Psychology.

Doodling, they say in the article about the study, actually helps us to focus and pay attention.  I would like to take it another step and say that it also helps us to not think as much.  Our active brains are always going on and on about something. When we write, or Doodle, it is often just enough of “doing” to get a break from our “thinking” and allow our natural intuition to kick in. So Doodle away as you focus better and along with that often comes a free gift of a new insight, idea or possibility.

Doodling is listed in the dictionary as “absentminded” scribbling.  There is kind of a negative tone with absentminded, forgetful, distracted, daydreaming are the words that come to mind.  Let’s add that it also can be a means of connecting to our intuitive self and that being a very positive event on most days.

Next time you Doodle, save your artwork to look over and review. Once in a while you may get a very pleasant surprise in the form of an idea. On another level Doodling is like making it OK to play. So keeping a pad and pencil near, even if you type in all your notes, is a good idea.

My first journal book give to me by my good friend Beth (MutualChoices.com) turned out to be a Doodling experience for me. Back then I thought journaling was a “Dear Diary” experience and I was not interested in writing so the whole book became page after page of Doodling. I still have it and one friend, Michele Blood (Musivation.com) suggested that I have it printed as a book. It is loaded with interesting Doodles, thoughts and yes some interesting possibilities.

© 2012 rayjustice.com

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Collaboration

Posted on June 12, 2011 by ray

. . .when two smart people vehemently disagree, the answer is almost never to fight it out until one idea prevails, but rather to vigilantly search for a third, better way. That doesn’t mean a compromise, but rather a recognition that when two smart collaborators can’t agree, there’s probably something not quite right in either of their solutions.

These few lines are from an article from FastCompany.com. The article speaks for itself so no further words needed here.

For the full article from Fast Company here is the link
http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/1MJjm5/www.fastcompany.com/1758577/what-ive-learned-about-collaboration-from-my-daughters     Collaboration _ FastCompany.com

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Connection from the Universe

Posted on May 14, 2011 by ray

“It’s one of the things I like about this field - the biggest things and the smallest things in the Universe are neatly tied together in surprising ways.” – Steven Ritz, deputy principal investigator for Fermi-Lat. (Space telescope capturing views of Gamma Rays)

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OraBrush Super Commercial

Posted on April 29, 2011 by ray

“From what I heard he did one thing.
Made a YouTube video and then another and then another”.

But, oh what a fun video

Below are two links.
First is a commercial off YouTube,
the second is a short story on how it happened.

The rough story is ( I may be off a bit as I heard it 3rd party)
A doctor invented OraBrush to clean your tongue. He could not sell it  through stores, online or other means.
He was broke so he went to a local college (Utah, I think) and asked the marketing class if they would help.

They decided not to as 92% surveyed were not interested. One student said that he would take it on because the other 8% was a lot of people.
From what I heard he did one thing.
Made a YouTube video and then another and then another.

Something like $5 million in sales the first year and $2,5 the first quarter of this year.
The college student is now a partner (I heard)
What I am impressed with is the cleverness, how well done the commercial is and the YouTube exposure.

It made me think that most of us “could” do something like this.
It is very cool and very successful.

Here is the commercial

http://www.orabrush.com/?gclid=CK2U2-qjwqgCFcK8Kgod4hlIuQ

Here is the story

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4tuTi8_z6Q

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“Dump It”

Posted on April 13, 2011 by ray

Do It
Delegate It
Delay It
Dump It
Four terms I learned years ago in one of my many “How to get Organized” classes. The big lesson for me, at the time, was to delay it, that delaying was a decision, a choice. Wow! Great. It helped, didn’t cure, but it helped.
Now fast forward years later and I am thinking how do I apply these same tools to my inner self and my thoughts, more than just my physical “stuff”

“Do it” – Is this thought good for me, is it productive and life enhancing?

If so but maybe not right now then can I “Delegate it” – maybe by transferring it from my mind to a piece of paper or my computer.

“Delay It” – Can I slow it down or choose another time to think about it?

“Dump It” - Totally get rid of this thought, idea or duty?

The Four “D’s” time for me “to do” or actually “to think” about them.

 

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Lighting up those Wintertime Blues…

Posted on March 4, 2011 by ray

Here’s a little something for all my friends who live with me in the Northeast, along the shores of the Great Lakes where we rarely see the sun from November to May.  Give this a try when your thoughts go south and your mood is frozen beneath what seems like an eternity of grey overcast clouds. 

  • Find a quiet spot where you can sit in a comfortable position
  • Be still and close your eyes
  • Now, let your imagination bring to life a Montana Sky.  High above you – let it be big, blue and clear. Soak it in for a minute and then fill in the background.  Are you on a white sandy beach, where a bright blue sky fades into mist atop the blue green ocean that surges up on shore as though it’s reaching for you?  Or are you on top of a snowy white capped mountain, so high that you feel like you belong to the sky? 
  • Where ever your imagination takes you, take it all in.  Feel it.  Breathe it.  Be it.
    With your inner voice, add a song or a poem to your creation.  I use this little poem that I made up.  It flows for me like a soothing melody:

  Blue sky blue…
  It’s a perfect blue
    It’s happy
      It’s healing
        It’s huge
  It’s a song in my heart, blue sky blue

When I’m done and have had my peace, I always feel lighter, lit up inside, more energetic.  Maybe you will too.  : )

Chris Kolankiewicz
Think 2Wice Inc.

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Making Good Decisions in 2011

Posted on December 31, 2010 by ray

 For many of us, with the New Year about to ring in, our thoughts are turning towards ideas of starting things a fresh.  Down come the holiday decorations and with them our merry festive spirits that held us high above the trials and tribulations of the passing year. 

Yep, it’s time for sensibility and reason to show up on our doorsteps and march us forward with renewed purpose.  Closets are cleaned out to squeeze in those last minute tax write offs, exercise and diet strategies revised and of course, resolutions are made with the best intentions.

 It’s time for us to decide what we’re going to do to make this New Year new.  And if not for the book I picked up this past fall, “How We Decide” by Johan Lehrer, I might not have given this notion about making decisions a second thought.

In his book, Lehrer offers up the latest research and a good number of compelling examples to demonstrate our human capacity for decision making.  He describes how both logic and emotions play vital roles in good decision making.   He also warns us that if they are not in proper balance according to the problem at hand, we can fall into some inherently human mental flaws while trying to evaluate our choices. 

For example, there is the loss aversion bias, something that easily creeps in to our thinking process as we evaluate our risks associated with anything from investment portfolios, to relationships, to that little gamble on the office football pool.  We just don’t like losses and will make decisions that influence our behavior to avoid them, even over gaining something of the same value. 

Another piece to this same flaw is how we choose to frame our choices or options when making a decision.  What I mean here is, there is usually more than one way to look at things and we need to be conscious of how our choices are framed.  Are they framed as losses or gains?  Does it make a difference to us if our burger is 95% lean or if it’s 5% fat?  Would we rather get a 10% discount or avoid a 10% handling fee if our out of pocket expense was $20 either way?

Bottom line is, as Lehrer points out, we need to think about how we think, especially if we want to make good decisions.  Actually, we need to not only think about how we are thinking, but we need to think about how we are feeling too.   So keep these wise words in your head as you go about making good decisions in 2011.  Happy New Year!

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Focus

Posted on July 1, 2010 by ray

Focus – Focus – Focus

Last week in a game of Squash I was ahead by a score of 7 to 2 with 9 being the winning point.
As I served for the 8th point, meaning two points to go and this game is over, I started thinking “Do we have time to play another game?” While I was having this discussion in my head I lost that serve and the next two points – 7 to 4.
I then preceded to have a conversation with myself about making sure I pay attention and not be thinking while playing the game. The result of that conversation in my head was that I lost the next three points and it was now 7 to 7. By the time I figured out that I needed to stop thinking I had lost that round.
This story is to emphasis how quickly and easily we can lose our focus. We see it regularly in sports but have to realize how often we do it in our day to day situations. The game is that of not thinking so that we are present to what is going on. Focus, focus, focus is a big part of how we stay on track or not and let things slip on a daily basis. In sports it is called a loss of momentum, in our business world it is the same thing, loss of focus. Coaches have to bring the team mind set back into focus – we have to do it for ourselves.

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Being Happy

Posted on July 1, 2010 by ray

Practice Being Happy
The word “Practice” jumped out at me from a book I was reading last week. It was used to explain that we need to “Practice” being Happy just as we need to practice anything else we want to be good at. This made sense to me but I had never thought of it in this way before. I started wondering what do we need to practice, in the world of small business, that we have not thought about before.
First we have to assume that we practice because we want to improve or get better at something. Let’s discuss a couple of possibilities here.
Listening – Are we really paying attention or waiting to make our own comments? Listening is a skill that can be improved if we are interested in doing so.
The “Practice” exercise here could be to practice not thinking about other things while someone is talking to you. Staying present, not thinking about the past or future, is what we need to improve. Focus on their words, and then ask them a question about what they had just said, most people will be trilled. We are not used to being listened to.
Another is Speaking – Do others hear you? Do you articulate clearly without just rambling on and on? Is brushing up on your speaking skills something to do? This can be one on one or to a group. If we are standing, do we need posture practice and image practice?
There is more, but the idea for me here is to focus on areas that could use improvement and practice imaging and doing it the way I would like to have it be. Practice makes perfect or at least improvement.

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All in the Name

Posted on July 1, 2010 by ray

“Ha” Connection

It’s all in the name
At a local food market the other day I had a delightful cashier that I was lucky enough to have wait on me. She knew what she was doing, moved quickly and was very pleasant. When I looked at her name tag it said “Ha“.
I asked her if that was a nickname or short for a longer name. She said “No. that is my name.” So now I am more intrigued and ask if she is from China or Japan and she said “No, I am from Vietnam.”
Next question from me is “What does “Ha” mean in your language?”
Her reply is that it means “Water“. I mentioned to her how interesting it is that her name means Water in her country of origin and it means Fun or Laughter in the USA.
I have had fun, or at least a smile, as I thought about “Ha” and her name for the next few days.
If I still had a retail business (which I do not) I would consider looking up the meaning of each staff members name and add it to their name tag. I, Ray, am either a straight line, a ray of sunshine (a person or thing that brings happiness into the lives of others) or a Fish. Guess which I would pick.
“Ha” made my day. If you had a name tag what definition of your name would you use.
Look it up, it might be “fun” or it may be “Water” or it maybe conversation for your customers and that means Connection.

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