Monday, May 11, 2009

If I Only Had a (Whole) Brain

It pays to remind myself daily that being fascinated with people is more productive than being frustrated by them. That’s one reason why studying personality types, learning styles and brain dominance has always held great interest for me.

I’ve been reflecting for the past few days on a communication problem/personality conflict I’ve been experiencing with a business associate. She has left brain dominance and I have right brain dominance. How this translates is she is very logical and relies on data and facts in making decisions. Everything has to be according to the “rules” and all probabilities must be understood before action can be taken.

As for me and my right-brain thinking, I’m not constrained by logic and facts if there’s a vision and a dream that’s powerful enough to press through the obstacles that inevitably lie ahead. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it, is what I’m thinking.

The exciting thing is when you put the left brain together with the right brain, you get a whole brain perspective; the ideal scenario.

I saw this powerful example of the brain’s ability to process information the other day:

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Cna yuo raed tihs? I cdn’uolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonemnel pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rsereeachr at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno’t mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteers be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig, huh? Yaeh, and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt!

Isn’t it astounding how easily we can decipher words with information that is ambiguous, garbled, or less than complete? We are wired to see underlying patterns, fill in the gaps, straighten out the miscues, and discover the hidden meanings. The same is true of our innate ability to make decisions.

Excerpt from Lee J. Colan, Winner's Always Quit

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Our brain has astonishing capabilities. Here's hoping for a week working with a whole brain.

11 comments:

Uncommon Blonde said...

Wow! I read that entire paragraph without a problem. That is truly amazing!

Reasons said...

It's a good one, I do remember seeing it on my teacher training course and still find it amazing. My brain is like yours, instinctive and intuitive, I don't do rules and numbers very well.

Rosezilla (Tracie Walker) said...

It always amazes me that I can read this so easily. I love word puzzles, but I don't know if that has anything to do with it or not. As for people that deal with things differently, it can be very frustrating, but if you trust each other it's amazing what you can accomplish if you "put your heads together."

Sylane Mack said...

It is so azmanig how God put the of the wnoerds of the uinvrese tgeotehr! The hmuan bairn is one of His grateest! All prisae to Him!

Wtih the miinsrty of spaeikng and conuslenig I msut be eevr radey to wrok wtih a vraeity of tihnknig and preicevnig stleys! Tanhks be to God who gveis wsiodm to all who ask! (James 1:5)

Takhn you, Bev, for shranig tihs wtih us! love, Sylane (www.theTBloG.org)

Skoots1moM said...

I referenced the 4-quadrant personality assessment tables in a post recently...quadrants: "askers", "tellers", "task-oriented", and "people-oriented". (Falling in the middle of the quad is me...an amiable/expressive.)
Those hard lefters confound me quite often...I live with one!
great post!

sara said...

I have seen that before and it still amazes me that I could read the paragraph without a single problem!!

My ADHD Me said...

Ha. Tonight on House (one of my fave tv shows) the patient's left side of his brain was fighting the right side. Your post was right on time. haha

Skoots1moM said...

i just had to jump over from liddie's...you cracked me up, wet phone and all...i so almost did that yesterday. thank goodness I felt the edge of the glass b4 i dropped the phone 'cause i would have been right there w/ u had i let go of it

Zuzana said...

Ah, absolutely loved this post!
As a scientist, I am constricted to rely on proof and follow logic, but my first inclination is to always go with my gut and trust my intuition. Sometime this combination works wonders in research.;)
I loved the text you posted, with the funny spelling. I have seen this on the Discovery channel, how cool is our brain, right?

Greg C said...

I use logic in most of my decissions but sometimes I go by instinct. I love rules. They aren't made to be broken, LOL

2nd Cup of Coffee said...

What an intelligent and fun post. I think I rely on rules too much. It makes one stodgy.