Tuesday, June 7, 2011

MAC Week 2 Reading

Chapter one focused on the different perspectives that two separate minds can perceive from any situation. In relation to the reading, one mind can take risks and go ahead open the shoe business while the other mind plays it safe and says it's not worth the risk because the natives don't wear shoes anyway. But my mind would tell me to ask the natives why they don't wear shoes. Like the reading said, the mind is selective when it comes to perception. It only shows us what we think will benefit us or is easiest. Later in the reading, the author cleverly related our thinking process to the catchphrase, it's all invented. He gave us the infamous 'connect the dots' test which can't be solved unless you think outside the box, which is, ironically, what the mind perceives it to be. Maybe that's where the saying comes from?

4 comments:

  1. I do wonder about the lineage of the "think outside the box" comes from. It's so disconnected from it's roots and overused. But I really like the dots example too.

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  2. "You say 'I' and you are proud of this word. But greater than this- although you will not believe in it - is your body and its great intelligence, which does not say 'I' but performs ‘I."
    — Friedrich Nietzsche (Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for None and All)

    Thus spoke Nike, ‘just do it.”
    I use to teach in a weekend residence course for outstand high school juniors with established or developing leadership skills. The Young Leaders Program (YLP) consisted of many moving parts (classes and outward-bound type activities) starting on Friday with a meet and greet social and ending with awards and certificates of completion. One of the courses was name Reality is Perception. It was interesting to see the student /leaders transformation from I knowing it all to contemplating all of it. As instructors, reality was not about right or wrong answers, but rather how the students developed (some times crazy) solutions by using a process in a small group of strangers. Reality is Perception, and conversely, Perception is Reality.
    YLP ran for over twenty years with competition between schools to get in on something great. We took three schools in the fall and the spring. What eventually killed the program was teacher perception of being paid for the weekend versus the administrative budget reality.

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  3. I like your perspective. I think I would have been inclined to ask why they didn’t have shoes as well. That could have given additional perspective about why it would or would not be a good business decision. For instance, maybe the tribe has intentionally chosen to avoid shoes.

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  4. The mind is a very powerful force. It can bing joy, pain, create insecurities you name it. However as you said, to push your mind to new levels by asking questions and analyzing why fear exists in the first place is the answer. If someone asked me the question of whether or not my mind thinks of the easier or beneficial ideas, I would say no. I always think of the hardest things to wrap my mind around so that I am challenged to go get them.

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