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Hello to my Global Readers, I am so glad to hear your stories about how these letters and lessons are helping you. It is my one-day goal to offer courses, books, and resources to all of you to apply these skills in the real world. Especially for you to learn them in ways that are applicable and share them with people within your networks so that we can all drive the thought-leader movement, person by person. We need a cognitive revolution, and it’s possible. Good education is that which teaches you to think freely, without bounds (or at least the freedom for you to set your own thinking foundations). ***I apologise for any spelling/typo errors now. I try to edit what I notice as I write innovatively and freely. I have no inbuilt tool, and as it is Mother’s Day today, I have somewhere to be, so I have little time to proofread. I am also not perfect and do not desire to be. This week’s Trio-of Thoughts: Aphorism or quote: In just a few short words, we are triggered to think deeply and philosophically about our lives. This week’s lesson. Activities for the week to improve your critical thinking, emotional intelligence, and free thinking power.
THOUGHT 1 AN APHORISM ABOUT THIS WEEK’S LESSON “Your mind is capable of so much more than you have been made to realise. Once you begin to dance with it, you will understand how much the world limited you.”
—Esha Lovrić
THOUGHT 2 HOW TO BE INNOVATIVE OR TO THINK FREELY Critical thinking (CT) is strongly aligned with innovative thinking. (Children are particularly good at teaching us this truth.) If we have leaders (anyone who is in charge of our thinking) who allow us to think flexibly, authentically, openly, without shame, fear, or worry, we will do our most powerful thinking. But that type of thinking is often not conducive to the institutions that run our social spaces. These limits are reasonable to some degree, because we/society/or those in power need things to function. If we were all running around armed with bright ideas, this would simply be in chaos...or beauty, who knows? But one thing is for sure, we are dealing with another chaos, and that is a modern-day threat to the type of free thinking that wakes up sleeping minds and keeps them fighting for another day of learning something new. New ideas wake up the sleeping spirit. And if your spirit is dying or feeling somber, you need to shake that up now. As academics, we have been trained to come up with innovative ways of thinking about things that happen in the world. We are very lucky to have been trained to think. Why do we need innovative ideas? First, so that we understand the world, and second, so that we can come up with solutions to help us make good decisions. As a sociologist, I am trained to use CT to help me generate new ideas. In scientific and academic papers, we use CT to gather, understand, evaluate, and record the knowledge that already exists to inform new knowledge. As we collect knowledge about a particular phenomenon, we are simultaneously assessing its validity. The point is to come up with new ways of thinking about the same thing. That’s what our PhD thesis is a representation of: New Knowledge. We do not get a PhD for just regurgitating old knowledge, as we learn nothing new. Most people regurgitate old things in old ways. As a sovereign human being, you also need to be able to learn how to do this for yourself. Why: To learn how brilliant you truly can be To be empowered, because it feels very good to be able to offer solutions To make good decisions that give you contentment in your life To regain and have the confidence to retain full control over your cognitive mind
Why does this matter? To think with freedom enables you to test the limits of your thinking capacity. And that capacity is huge. It is the social spaces you are in that either allow you to think freely or curb your thinking for their own benefit. For example, I have done my most innovative thinking since I left academia. My paycheck and immense workload meant I had little time or reason to stray outside the thinking perimeters that were pre-set for me. I did a lot of really good thinking for the university, and I taught students with that thinking. I didn’t stray, and they didn’t stray. It was a perfect relationship of institutionalised thinking. When you are applying CT just to the same set of ideas, it’s not very innovative. Now that I have taken a leap, where I am working more freely (despite not making as much money), I have been able to think freely without any perimeters. That is incredibly liberating. I have set my own thinking perimeters based on what is important to me. The relationship between money and freedom is complex. For example, let’s take ourselves to our workplaces. If you have been given a job, a pre-designed set of steps to complete that job—your team leader, your boss, and their boss have decided what your job is—you cannot step outside that, and if you do, you are quickly reprimanded and told to step back into place. Workplaces, especially those that hold workers cognitively captive within the very strict parameters of their roles, are very good at curbing or keeping workers from thinking they cannot be better thinkers. Your capacity is so much more than you think it is now. It is often the social setting that completely destroys your appetite as well as your capacity for learning how much more you can be. Why children will always be the best teachers for critical thinking Let’s take it back to children. They are the most curious and innovative little beings around. They are born to ask questions and to explore solutions. Parents are very good at saying, “No—don’t make that mess, don’t take that apart, don’t ruin your toys,” and “DON’T!” When children are curious, they come face to face with something called a “knowledge gap.” A knowledge gap is a space where there isn’t enough information available to fill it. Two things can happen here: 1. The child will wonder how to find the answer to the question, or 2. Be quickly told the answer by the parent without having the joyful, wonderful chance to work it out. Concerning children, if they have a particularly clever parent, they will be allowed to explore. Maybe they want to make slime and need to use conditioners, soaps, and fragrances. We will usually say, “Don’t waste the products!” Maybe they want to take apart that car to see how it all functions together. We say “No! The car is expensive, leave it alone!” We start curbing our children’s natural love for curiosity and innovative solutions very early. We think it is just society that curbs critical thinking and innovative thinking, but it starts at home, then it happens at school, and then in the workplace. When does innovative thinking happen? Innovative thinking happens when we ask the right types of questions, “Why does this knowledge gap exist? What do we need to find out? How can I find out more?” “Let’s figure this out together”. It happens when we put unique minds together who can express themselves freely without fear or shame. It is followed by the chance to allow open, limitless exploration. If there is any space you are in that curbs your desire for bigger, wider, more curious exploration, you need to push back against that. And if this is happening to your children, you need to really push back! The future world needs innovative free thinkers. We need critical thinkers who have been enabled to think without limits. Your mind needs you to fight for it. Do not let the world limit your potential. So, this letter is to remind you that you are much more brilliant than you realise, and you CAN solve all your own problems. You need to learn how to think innovatively. Under Thought 3 activities, I give you the steps you can practice over time to slowly begin coming up with new ideas, solutions, and actions to apply in your life, work, home, wherever. Beyond that, it is incredibly thrilling to think about the same things in new ways. THOUGHT 3: ACTIVITY Step-by-Step Process for Innovative Thinking, which you can apply in any single area of your life Start with a Topic or Idea, or a Process you are questioning or want to Explore Further
Find all the information you have on it. This is your data collection process. Speak to as many people who know most about it or have the most experience. If it’s a subject, choose an author or speaker who has taken the time to figure it out. Decide their credibility by asking: Who are they? What are their motivations for exploring this topic? Writing a book means going deep, and this takes dedication—those who do it have already thought deeply and cared about the subject. Consider their motivations as well as their qualifications. They don’t need an academic title; they may have become experts through research or experience––that’s credibility too! Watch your own biases…Look for balance by the people you talk to–– detect where their biases are coming from or if they offer only a one-sided view. Find more information for alternative ideas and views on the topic. Engage Slowly and Deeply
Once you have enough “data” to assess the matter, you begin deep reading for clear understanding. You must be totally open. Our biases are very good at trying to creep in and close up our openness. WATCH THIS. The process of coming together with information is called immersion. You want to immerse yourself totally with the information you have to recognise patterns, sequences, inconsistencies, problems, errors, etc. Read or listen to their ideas deliberately. Move through each page or segment at a pace that lets your brain absorb the material. Slow, careful, thoughtful, open, flexible, respectful. Be careful…many people read with their biases, placing barriers at every point. Connect New Ideas to Old As you move through ideas on the page, your brain will naturally link them to what you already know. This is where the innovative magic happens. Extensions of your current thinking expand your knowledge massively. What people don’t realise is that everyone can have innovative ideas! Every single piece of knowledge we engage with connects with the knowledge we already hold. And this knowledge is unique to our minds. No one else holds our history. When you use critical thinking to engage with new information, your chance for innovative, novel thinking explodes. Pause at the Disruptive Moment When we connect with an exciting idea, we naturally pause. You must stay here and reflect. Don’t move past it too fast. Disrupted thinking is powerful and will lead you to bright ideas if you take the chance. Most people think that reading as fast as possible and as many books as possible is good. I will say this is not usually what enables the type of critical analysis that happens when we read slowly and deeply. We need time to learn, and learning requires deep, mindful reflection. Practice and Iterate Over time, turn your emergent ideas into small experiments in your life or work. Observe the outcomes, reactions, feedback, and other opinions. Keep refining your thinking, and repeat forever.
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