Grow Your Mind

by Susan Hagen
E Mind Design

Leonardo was, and is, renowned primarily as a painter. Leonardo is revered for his technological ingenuity. He conceptualized a helicopter, a tank, concentrated solar power, a calculator, and the double hull, and he outlined a rudimentary theory of plate tectonics His work was centuries ahead of his time.   Benjamin Franklin was a fine amateur musician who was very knowledgeable in the history, theory, and harmony of music. He studied music as a Science, and practiced it as an Art. It is said that he could play violin, cello, harp, and guitar. As we all know he was a successful politician, businessman and inventor. 

Successful people stretch into the unknown to do what Einstein did. An engineer might take up painting to better learn to develop his creative muscles. A dancer might write a book to connect analysis to her creative movements. Flexing your mind helps to build your connection between the two hemispheres and increases your ability to think outside the box.  The net result is a thicker corpus callosum (the connection between the two sides of the cortex) plus more glial cells connecting the different parts of the brain. Researcher Marian Diamond has spent years analyzing the preserved brain of the great modern genius Albert Einstein. What did she find? Einstein’s brain had massive highways of glial cells and was packed with an abnormal amount of neural networks.

So if you are someone who is creative start to build your analytical skills and if you are analytical start to build your artistic side.  Increasing your brain can only help to make you a better leader and move beyond your current ability to solve issues or see things in a different way. 

Focus to Create Happiness in Your Career

Focus is important to create success in the workplace.  This is something that all employers want from their employees.  We can achieve some much in our jobs and our lives by focusing on the present.  With this focus we can also learn to create happiness in our lives and with our careers.  Happiness and focus is something that everyone is attracted to and can create success for you in your everyday life.  How you ask do I do this? 

I am going to tell you how....  It is a simple exercise that will seem forced at first but with continued efforts will become a regular part of your routine.  I will begin with the exercise and then explain how to make this a daily part of your routine.

First I want you to start by focusing on your breathing.... Say to yourself I feel the air moving into my nose and out of my nose.... Continue to do this...



Second...Focus on your breathing and your chest and stomach rising and falling....continue to focus on this for a minute or two

Third... Bring to mind a person or place that gives you complete happiness and joy...Focus on this feeling while continuing to focus on your breathing continue for a couple of minutes

The key to this is to bring you to a place of joy and send this into the people around you.  Happiness is contagious and we all want to be around someone who makes us happy and focuses on the positive.  You can be this person.  At first you will need to practice this several times a day.  I would suggest doing the exercise every morning when you awake, when you first arrive at work, at each break and at lunch.  Before you know it this will become a daily part of your life.  When you are stressed your instinct will be to go to this point and bring back a positive focus...

Good luck on your path to happiness