We’ve all been there, or at least worried about being there … that heart-stopping moment of our mind going blank while we’re speaking in public. Eventually – or perhaps fairly quickly – we take a deep breath, refer to our notes, collect our thoughts and get back on track. Sometimes we may even be able to manage it with humour.
As discussed in the previous newsletters, a noticeable change in circumstances, whether sudden or slow onset, can cause us to react with startle, surprise or both.
I...
Have you ever watched a TED talk or read a book that flipped your perspective on something? I mean – radically – flipped your perspective? Maybe even blew your mind?
What was it like? What changed for you? How relevant is the changed perspective to you now?
As explained in the previous newsletter, we hold mental models (called frames) in our long-term memory that help us explain and make sense of our experiences. We use the frames, blending as necessary, mostly subconsciously … until the...
Have you ever had one of ‘those’ days where a seemingly endless succession of small things went wrong? How did your reactions change over the course of the day?
We all have them… We can often deal with or manage around most of the problems without too much effort. We may find them frustrating, or maybe we are able to eventually ‘surrender’ to our ‘fate’ for the day and laugh the events off, or at least let them wash over us.
Most of the time things don’t go wrong – they go smoothly, or smoot...
Have you ever tried to learn something complex when you’re tired or in a noisy and stressful environment? Or stayed up late the night before an exam or proposal due date when you secretly knew you’d been procrastinating over doing it? How well did you learn in that situation?
We’ve all been in those less ideal situations, and sometimes we even surprise ourselves with how much we can learn even then. But when we reflect on such times we can see that our learning capacity is lessened.
There...
Have you ever struggled for an hour or more trying to learn or understand something, then had it suddenly make sense after you’ve gotten up to do something else? Or perhaps while you’re still struggling had a friend or colleague turn up and point out a solution? The learning process can have its highs and lows!
Some of my most memorable learnings have arisen from experiences that were somewhat bruising at the time, even if only to my ego! Getting lost in East Berlin in the mid-1990s – no smart...