How do you get exceptionally good?

You may not follow baseball. I don’t. But there’s a really good baseball player called Alex Rodriguez (often called A-Rod). He was always headed to be a good player. But he did something different than most of us. He decided to be great. So how do you get to greatness? http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/03/11/how-did-a-rod-get-so-good/

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Is Learning, Fun?

Yes it should be. Because we learn best when we’re relaxed. But most learning isn’t fun at all. If I told you that you have to learn how to learn the new version of a program, would it be fun? If I told you that you have to learn the chords to a new song […]

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900 Times: Same Shot: Then You Become Talented

First you be disciplined. Then you be talented. When I started playing badminton about three months ago, all the old ladies (who play crappy badminton) were giving me advice. Yes, I was playing so badly. And I paid attention, but only barely so. You see, you have to know whom to listen to, and whom […]

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How Ideas Are Implemented

Here’s how I learn. I read. Or listen. Or watch. I make a note. I discuss it with my wife. I bring it up with my clients. I post it in my forums. I post an expanded, detailed version in my blogs. I write an article for Psychotactics.com I write four-five angles of the same […]

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Where are the Elves?: Part 2

Any fool can create profit. It’s the smart ones that can create time. So first to create time, you have to want to create time. Yes, you have to want to create time. Just moaning and groaning about how busy you are, isn’t going to create time. You can moan and groan, but nothing’s going […]

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Where Are The Elves?

The poster for the the movie “Elf” Now I don’t want to boast, but this is what I do. I run blogs at: http://www.psychotactics.com/blog https://brainaudit.com http://www.spidersecret.com/ Less frequently at: http://www.cavechronicles.com http://www.stickybusinessbooks.com Write articles, per year: http://www.5000bc.com (about 100-300 a year) http://www.psychotactics.com (about 50 a year) And monitor no less than four to five forums: On […]

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How To Bypass A Brain Virus: Part 2

My wife Renuka, sniffled. She sniffled. She sneezed. Achoo! Achoo! Achoo! For thirteen years she sneezed. Her eyes would get all red and puffy. She tried all types of anti-allergy medication. It would work for a while, then it was back to achoo! Incredible as it seems, the problem was in her brain. Your brain […]

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How To Bypass A Brain Virus

Most people can’t draw. There’s a reason why. They have a brain virus. Here’s what happens when someone asks you to draw. Your brain runs a program. The program says: Execute program. Draw, you silly fool, draw! And the program starts to execute. But even as it’s executing the lines of code, it runs into […]

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How Kids Willfully Make Mistakes

I was sitting at my favourite cafe in Takapuna with Renuka’s niece, Marsha. Marsha was only three and half years old at the time, and happily drinking her um, ‘coffee’, when she looked upwards (as most kids do), and noticed a black object on the glass. “What’s that?” she asked. “Fungus,” I said. “Fungus,” she […]

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A Mistake-Making Organism: Your Brain

This isn’t a learner sign: It’s a ‘I’m going to make a mistake’ sign Think of anything you’ve ever learned. Anything. Ever learned. And the only way you’ll have learned it is by making a mistake. Look at the act of learning the alphabet. Speaking; walking; running; talking; dancing, and just about anything. And you’ll […]

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Back To You…

This is a song by John Mayer. It’s a love song. Read the lyrics of the song (till you can stand it), and then scroll to the bottom. 🙂 Back to you. It always comes around. Back to you. I tried to forget you. I tried to stay away. But its too late. Over you. […]

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The Thought Cancer

If you have a cancerous growth, how long would you wait to remove the growth? If you had a cancerous thought, how long would you wait to remove the thought? Most people let the thought cancer grow. Then they say, ‘I’m not really talented’. They say, ‘I wasn’t born talented.’ They say, ‘Talent is in-born, […]

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Why Talent Needs Conservative As Well As Radical Thought Patterns

Do we come into this world as conservative thinkers? Or are we born with a radical bent? Not surprisingly, we aren’t born with a blank slate. We come into this world with Version 1.0 embedded in our brains. So if you look at the most isolated to the most populated places on the planet, you’ll […]

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How’s Article Writing Linked To Painting?: The Weird World of Creativity

Catherine’s painting: Click to see big picture Here’s an interesting story about ‘creativity’. It’s so interesting that I’ll reproduce it verbatim. What’s even better is that it’s about a painting. And how the painting linked to article-writing? You’re dying to know, huh? Well read on. This note is from Catherine Marechal, who lives in Italy […]

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Serial Killers and Creativity

You don’t think of serial killers as creative, do you? They go about killing people, while all the time following a very creative pattern. And detectives are able to figure out the serial killer based on the killer’s creative pattern. Once the detective works out the pattern, it’s not hard to track and throw the […]

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Don’t You Love Spammers?

Well, I don’t! But often they remind me of business owners with no focus at all. Look at this spammer’s email. He’s only after ‘men’ and ‘women’. And through some wonderful typo, he also addresses all mothers as ‘ma.’ Enjoy and guffaw. Then stop trying to appeal to everyone, when you market your business! And […]

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A resource about creativity (and how parents kill it)

Sir Robert Winston has done more research on the human body and brain than your cousin. Yet most of us believe our cousins, our friends, or others who know close to nothing about their brains. In an ongoing study of the human brain, Sir Winston studies children. Children and creativity 🙂 You may find this […]

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Does layering work best at a bird’s eye view? Or at ground level?

Bird’s eye view or ground level to learn a new skill? There’s little doubt that layering is critical for learning. But how does one go about layering? Should you learn small chapters of information and keep repeating them several times? Or should you go through an entire body of knowledge and then repeat it several […]

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How the brain fixes pain

See that bridge. That’s a ‘bridge of pain’ or ‘no-pain.’ Find out how your brain deals with creating permanent pain. I play a lot of badminton these days. And after running on the courts for two hours, I’m fine. But the next day, my knees are sore. I find it difficult to bend my knees. […]

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Can Microsoft Be Cool?: How uniqueness is important

Apple has been bugging Microsoft forever. And finally Microsoft takes the bait. Yup, it’s bait! They fight back with an ad that looks remarkably like Apple. Microsoft tries to be cool. And yet, Microsoft can never be cool. This isn’t a stupid ad issue. And who fights whom. It’s a branding issue. If you own […]

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Memory vs. Layering: Some more thoughts…

This equation could be memorised. But with layering, you’re more likely to remember it seventeen years from now Does the brain learn through memorisation? Most people would think so. And those people would be partially wrong. Of course, you don’t have to believe me. Because we’re going to do a simple test of memory. So […]

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Which is superior?: Layering or repetition?

How much is 3 + 3? You know the answer already, don’t you? That answer is embedded in your brain through a factor of repetition. Time and time again, you were called on to remember random numbers. Then you had to add them up, multiply them and eventually they formed a memory. Your brain has […]

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Can ‘Anyone’ Draw Cartoons?: Some proof

If you ask a stupid question, you get a stupid answer. Or if you ask a question that’s engineered to get the answer ‘NO’, then you get the answer ‘NO.’ And most of your education, my education, and everything we’ve learned is engineered around getting a negative answer. But what if we changed the question? […]

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Is Creativity A Myth?: Research Talks Back

Just today, Ankesh Kothari sent me a link. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1147152,00.html Judge for yourself. And compare notes with what’s been posted on this blog so far.

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How Your Body Responds To Long-Lost Memories

Imagine you listen to a song that you haven’t heard for twenty years. And you know the tune, but the lyrics seem all jumbled in your brain. So you play the song once. Then once again. By the third time, you’ll remember every word of the lyrics you knew twenty years ago. So what happened […]

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Why Our Brains Freeze

Writer’s Block? Artist’s Block? Dancer’s Block? They all relate to one simple factor. Your brain freezes. It doesn’t have a memory of a fire-drill So let’s start with the fire-drill, shall we? The reason why you had a fire-drill in school or at an office, isn’t because the organisation likes making you run out of […]

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Why Learning Is Difficult: And How Lack of Intimidation Helps Build Talent

Imagine you had to learn Photoshop. And you were given a Photoshop manual. Or maybe thrown into the deep end, with the program. There you are, wondering what those complicated things on the tool bar mean. There you are, wondering why Photoshop–or any other learning–can’t be simpler. But yes it can be simpler. What if […]

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What If We Were All Born Without Talent?

No one ever asks that question, do they? We automatically assume that we’re born with some talent. But what if the reverse were true? What if we were all blank slates? What if everything depended on where we lived? What if everything depended on if we were taught, based on how we learned fastest? What […]

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What if you made learning difficult?

Learning and talent is all supposed to hinge on ease of instruction. But what if you made learning difficult? And what if there was no apparent benefit or payoff? One Indian researcher ended up doing just that, quite by mistake… In the year 1999, Sugata Mitra occupied an office at NIIT (a computer-training institute that […]

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What If You Could Read Maps With Your Feet?

Could you read maps with your feet? That’s not quite how we read maps, eh? Some of us need directions, and need to close our eyes. Some of us need to see a picture. And print the picture. Some of us need explicit left-right directions. But what if you weren’t any of those people mentioned […]

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