There’s a little more to visualization to manifest your dreams.

It has been tested time after time to work better than not visualizing about your goals. In the past many experiments with athletes of equal ability found that their visualizing group – the group that practiced visualizing about achieving their goals - did substantially better than the group that didn’t. The original research was based on brain research that states our brains don’t know the difference between what’s actually is taking place and a dream.

Visualization programs will tell you to look into your mind’s eye and make a picture of what you want. The part that they are missing is two fold: 1.) The clarity of the picture needs to be in pictures, feelings, smells, tastes, and sounds and you want to have as many of these as possible. 2.) You need to be looking in the correct direction to have your brain properly assimilate the information. You need to look to a spot upwards and to the right. This is your brain’s place to access future events.

Sometimes step 2 won’t help because often our brains keep painful images from our past in that area to “keep and eye” on them and it will impede what we’re trying to accomplish.

Just a side note: This is when you might think about coming to my seminar on Monday on timers. Or contact me so we can do some work on moving around that barrier.

Words, words, words.

Did you know that your words, the words you use specifically, are words that have connection, emotion and meaning in your brain. If someone uses your words in front of you, you will feel more comfortable in their presence than a person who uses words that are a paraphrase of your vocabulary. In the 80’s and 90’s there were active listening courses that had people repeat back others ideas to them using paraphrased words and we now know this is a miss match an actually brings up people’s defenses because it appears we don’t relate if you don’t use the words that match our brain patterning.

If you are marketing to a particular group, you want to know what are the words are to access that group. For example, you are going to get an entirely different group if you market to “body workers” versus “holistic practitioners.” Similarly, individuals will buy an entirely different brand of toilet a paper based on the marketing words used for marketing that toilet paper.

Announcing FREE Seminar series and NETWORKING EVENT in San Francisco!

Please join us for our FREE mini-seminar series and networking session in San Francisco.

Where: Patima Organic Coffee
2314 Clement Street (at 24th Avenue)
San Francisco
When: 6:30pm-8:30pm Mondays starting
November 24th, 2008

Seminar topics include:

• Brain Communication: Brain communication that will help you get a job or client, and keep a job or client and tell you before the boss or client knows when there is something wrong so you can fix it. (Nov. 24th)
• What STOPS you from having it all? And how to change that. (Dec. 1st)
• Brain Marketing: How to tap the subconscious of people’s desires. (Dec. 8th)
• Innovation: How to find the dream. (Dec. 17th)

More details will be up on the main site (www.ExecutiveSandbox.com) shortly or call 415-497-3979.

The power of your words

A couple nights ago I finally got a chance to attend my first Ladies Who Launch networking session run by Allie Covarrubias. Being unfamiliar with the electoral process I asked the 2 women I was talking at the end of the event, if they knew what the result of the Proposition 8 vote. One of them said as a result of the vote there would be a change made to the US constitution.

One of the 2 women I was speaking to admitted to voting “Yes” on this ballot issue. I was shocked hearing this from someone who is a woman and lives in San Francisco. She voted for changing the constitution – the agreement in which this great country was founded on! The other woman chatting was equally perplexed at her response and that she even would admit it in this forum we were having.

The woman who voted “Yes” even admitted she understood that whether or not she agreed with same-sex marriage that minority rights means rights for all people no matter how you differentiate yourself and it is imperative for a our democratic society to advance. In a woman’s group how could one of our members be vehemently apposed to same-sex marriage that they would vote to change the constitution?

She admitted to have both gay and lesbian friends but she said the decision was based on the word “marriage” NOT on the act of marriage. To her, “marriage” was sacred word used to describe the union between a man and a woman. In the country she immigrated from, they had legalized same-sex marriages but they used another word to define a same-sex union.

Sometimes an issue is so charged that we can’t even see what we’re fighting about and as a result there could be split between people and our connectedness to each other.

We don’t live in reality. We live in our interpretations of our reality. This means that each of us has our own unique definitions and meaning for the words that create our reality. No two realities are the same. If we don’t take the time to listen and really understand what another is communicating, what their meaning and definition behind their words then we will definitely loose out to misunderstandings that can elevate our disagreements to possibly violent proportions. In this case, because we got wrapped up in our interpretation, because we couldn’t see the real issue we may be permanently scaring a document that founded this great country.

Tracy Slotin
Corporate Culturist
The Executive Sandbox Innovation Consultants

Blowing Spit Bubbles

When I think about innovation I also think about ideas that move us forward.

So Ideas – where do they come from? In my life and business experiences, ideas come from our subconscious. Frequently an idea will get caught in our consciousness and if it stays long enough it may impact us or get us to act upon the idea.

But how do we know an idea is a worthwhile pursuit?

Have you ever read something that you wanted to drink up? It was so delicious you wanted to let the words drip down and through you like honey dripping down your throat: Slow and warm and all encompassing but sweet and tangy as well.

Rarely do we come across a work that nourishes every part of our being but when we do, we want to dance in its rays. This is inspiration. When we follow it and put our energy behind it, it is called an innovation. And, when we’re in the midst of developing the idea and putting the pieces together it is called being in “flow”.

How do we get there? How do maintain it? When it only comes in short bursts sometimes at the most inconvenient times when we can’t do anything about it. We need to honor those ideas. Write them down. Then give them their time.

Einstein would write his ideas down in a book and then set aside 3 hours a week to go over the ideas he generated. He would plug them into his to do lists if after the 3 hours he though the ideas were worthy of pursuit.

What is actually taking place when we get those ideas is we are letting ourselves get caught up in between our conscious and subconscious selves. We let it happen by taking off the reins of trying to control our mind and allowing them to wonder. In other words, when we allow ourselves to play. The more we allow ourselves to play, the more innovative and ideas oriented we can be. Being plugged into every energy source (TV, computers, cell phones, electronic games etc.) doesn’t allow for the human brain to relax and open that gap between our conscious and subconscious worlds.

William James (1880) believed that being able to get in touch with one’s unconscious ides was a vital part of being creative. Douglas McGregor believed that work was a type of punishment to acquire the things we need for getting fun. It is so ingrained in our society and culture that work must be work so we aren’t having fun. As a result we aren’t innovating and creating like we could be in our lives. Fun tends to be something that kids can only have because they are absolved from the rules. But knowing this is the path for innovation we must learn how to play again in our work and lives.

What are you doing for fun today? I think I’ll go blow some spit bubbles and then I think I’ll go check out the surf.

A new beginning

If we truly live in place where you can have what ever your dream is, then truly what do you want and what do you have to do to get there? How much longer are you going to let others use your energy in not forwarding you in that dream? Only you can choose.

Once you choose it, that’s when the adventure and fun begins.

Drop Confusing tones and Will Create Clear Communication - Part 5

Albert Mahrabian found that 37% of our communication transmission is made up of tone. Now there is a little glitch in our genetic code to make this a little more interesting. 37% is a considerable amount of communication to be tied up in tone alone if you happen to be half of the population that doesn’t hear all of the tones. It has been found that on average women hear 5-8 tones in communication whereas men hear 35 tones.

We mostly received examples of tonal errors when we were scolded by our mothers as children for our tone of voice and not quite understanding the reprimand. How many times then did you say ‘sorry’ and have the result of the individual responding you didn’t mean it? As adults we have all used the word “fine” to mean that “later, you are going to pay dearly that I’m not happy” without really knowing if the communication was received.

Now communication is usually slated into to forms – indirect and direct. Women are reportedly to speak indirectly while males are reported to speak directly. What this is trying to account for is historical adaptations in communication that have taken form since the days of Hunters & Gatherers. In the Hunter-Gather days women tended to be the gatherers and men tended to be the hunters. The adaptation was created something like this...

Hunters spent most of their time with groups of other hunters or men going to hunt. Going to the hunt was similar to the ways today’s men currently go fishing or attend or watch a sporting event. They quickly work out a plan of attack, where they are going to go, when they get to the area of the hunt. Once they get to the area of attack they stop talking using words for directives and instruction – straight to the point – so to not scare their prey away. This type of emotionless, less tonal communication is prevalent in business. Male brains adapted the direct type of communication because of their tasks during the course of history (Remember Anne Moir found that 80% of males and 10% of women have focus brains which also supports this theory).

Gatherers spent time with other women, children, and the elders of the tribe. They couldn’t just relay on directive communication because some of the individuals they were dealing with didn’t speak. The Gatherers were responsible for taking care of the community when the Hunters were going out getting the kill. They developed ways of seeing and hearing emotions and developed tone references. As with the Hunters, the Gatherers developed adaptations in their brain to deal with the world they dealt with.

Recent studies of male and female brains reveal that the communication areas for a females to be larger in volume with many more communication centers than their male counterparts.



This brain picture shows the communication centers in the male brain (designated by the blue areas) and the communication centers in the female brain (designated by the red areas).

One of the final frontiers is the human brain. Current research reports that we change our brain with every conversation, every action we partake in. Our brain keeps changing and developing well into our 80’s (current research states 80’s but it could be longer). Just because your biological hand may have dealt you a certain brain style doesn’t mean you can’t change, build, and reconstruct your brain. If you communicate indirectly you can practice communicating directly with a direct speaker. If you are a direct speaker you can work with an indirect speaker to build up your ability to speak indirectly.

Tracy Slotin, BSc, BA, MBA (Leadership)
CEO and Grand Sandmaster
The Executive Sandbox® Change/Innovation Consultants
www.ExecutiveSandbox.com