Circumference of Me -- Part 2 in a multi-part series

By George S. Smith and Steve Burnett

Positives from negatives

There are times in everyone’s life when things don’t make sense. Familiar sights and sounds seem out of focus and muffled; systems which only yesterday were business, non-profit association, education, and corporate comforters miraculously resemble a patchwork quilt with the Drunkard’s Path design; policies which once seemingly protected you are suddenly – like the cat of homespun legend – stealing your breath away and smothering your creativity.

Sometimes when something is broken, the pieces are better than the whole.

When your personal world – your professional portrait, familiar processes at home and work, predictable market trends – breaks apart, when conflicts diminish reason, take comfort in the fact that there are pieces always left. Don’t discard those pieces, don’t throw away relationships that might prove helpful to your and your business; they are a part of you. Take the pieces and play with them. Put them back together to create a new picture that will benefit the changed you. Take the pieces and make a you collage.

Take a giant step in the direction of change: Put your brain in neutral. Of course, it’s hard to do. Your brain does not normally recognize commands to go into neutral mode because that makes no sense. The brain is a pattern-loving organ, and with your brain in neutral, there are no thought-patterns being created. Your thinking self yearns to make sense of events, people, and opportunities; it wants to reason its way out of an economic ditch, catastrophic relationship, or a job that simply sucks.

Putting your brain in neutral does not mean “not thinking.” It means selective thinking about things that, when viewed from your personal or professional lives, are “neutral.”

One manager confided that her personal neutral mode consisted of closing her eyes in a quiet moment and concentrating on a single thought: A turtle walking at the edge of a tranquil pond. In a personal form of meditation or bio-feedback, the woman simply takes a minute or less and “walks” the turtle in her mind – silently saying “Turtle. Turtle. Turtle.” with each step. This form of non-sense calms and relaxes this particular manager, enabling her to put her creative brain in neutral and resulting in a refreshing pause.

It’s the paradox of non-sense that, through this neutral process, it’s possible to direct your brain to find to new patterns and conclusions. The exercise can generate new thoughts that inspire mental-inventions and creates a personal need to succeed despite all obstacles.

Now is as good a time as any to explode yourself with mental dynamite and reinvent you. It’s the perfect time for reinvestment of creative energy, setting new goals, dreaming new dreams, strengthening your personal will, and reorganizing your organizational structure to find a positive use for the tired, old, broken and scattered pieces of the truisms of your yesterday.

When things break – in your personal life, in your job, in the market – huge amounts of negative and positive energy are released. The energy has to go somewhere. You have choices on where to direct the energy, but doesn’t it make sense to direct it to enhance the positive side of life?

That’s the premise and reason for the Circumference of Me, directing stray thoughts into a living, breathing, growing example of how you can change your life through the appreciation and development of a very special personal tool: Personal thought leadership.

Take charge of your thoughts. Take charge of your life.
Next: Know thyself