Think

Think Outside the Box

Here are 11 ways to beef up your out-of-the-box thinking skills. Make an effort to push your thinking up to and beyond its limit every now and again – the talents you develop may come in handy the next time you face a situation that “everybody knows” how to solve.

1. Study another industry.

I’ve learned as much about teaching from learning about marketing as I have from studying pedagogy – maybe more. Go to the library and pick up a trade magazine in an industry other than your own, or grab a few books from the library, and learn about how things are done in other industries. You might find that many of the problems people in other industries face are similar to the problems in your own, but that they’ve developed really quite different ways of dealing with them. Or you might well find new linkages between your own industry and the new one, linkages that might well be the basis of innovative partnerships in the future.

 

2. Learn about another religion.

Religions are the way that humans organize and understand their relationships not only with the supernatural or divine but with each other. Learning about how such relations are structured can teach you a lot about how people relate to each other and the world around them. Starting to see the reason in another religion can also help you develop mental flexibility – when you really look at all the different ways people comprehend the same mysteries, and the fact that they generally manage to survive regardless of what they believe, you start to see the limitations of whatever dogma or doxy you follow, a revelation that will transfer quite a bit into the non-religious parts of your life.

3. Take a class.

Learning a new topic will not only teach you a new set of facts and figures, it will teach you a new way of looking at and making sense of aspects of your everyday life or of the society or natural world you live in. This in turn will help expand both how you look at problems and the breadth of possible solutions you can come up with.

4. Read a novel in an unfamiliar genre.

Reading is one of the great mental stimulators in our society, but it’s easy to get into a rut. Try reading something you’d never have touched otherwise – if you read literary fiction, try a mystery or science fiction novel; if you read a lot of hard-boiled detective novels, try a romance; and so on. Pay attention not only to the story but to the particular problems the author has to deal with. For instance, how does the fantasy author bypass your normal skepticism about magic and pull you into their story? Try to connect those problems to problems you face in your own field. For example, how might your marketing team overcome your audiences normal reticence about a new “miracle” product?

5. Write a poem.

While most problem-solving leans heavily on our brain’s logical centers, poetry neatly bridges our more rational left-brain though processes and our more creative right-brain processes. Though it may feel foolish (and getting comfortable with feeling foolish might be another way to think outside the box), try writing a poem about the problem you’re working on. Your poem doesn’t necessarily have to propose a solution – the idea is to shift your thinking away from your brain’s logic centers and into a more creative part of the brain, where it can be mulled over in a non-rational way. Remember, nobody has to ever see your poem…

6. Draw a picture.

Drawing a picture is even more right-brained, and can help break your logical left-brain’s hold on a problem the same way a poem can. Also, visualizing a problem engages other modes of thinking that we don’t normally use, bringing you another creative boost.

7. Turn it upside down.

Turning something upside-down, whether physically by flipping a piece of paper around or metaphorically by re-imagining it can help you see patterns that wouldn’t otherwise be apparent. The brain has a bunch of pattern-making habits that often obscure other, more subtle patterns at work; changing the orientation of things can hide the more obvious patterns and make other patterns emerge. For example, you might ask what a problem would look like if the least important outcome were the most important, and how you’d then try to solve it.

8. Work backwards.

Just like turning a thing upside down, working backwards breaks the brain’s normal conception of causality. This is the key to backwards planning, for example, where you start with a goal and think back through the steps needed to reach it until you get to where you are right now.

9. Ask a child for advice.

I don’t buy into the notion that children are inherently ore creative before society “ruins” them, but I do know that children think and speak with a n ignorance of convention that is often helpful. Ask a child how they might tackle a problem, or if you don’t have a child around think about how you might reformulate a problem so that a child could understand it if one was available. Don’t run out and build a boat made out of cookies because a child told you to, though – the idea isn’t to do what the child says, necessarily, but to jog your own thinking into a more unconventional path.

10. Invite randomness.

If you’ve ever seen video of Jackson Pollock painting, you have seen a masterful painter consciously inviting randomness into his work. Pollock exercises a great deal of control over his brushes and paddles, in the service of capturing the stray drips and splashes of paint that make up his work. Embracing mistakes and incorporating them into your projects, developing strategies that allow for random input, working amid chaotic juxtapositions of sound and form – all of these can help to move beyond everyday patterns of thinking into the sublime.

11. Take a shower.

There’s some kind of weird psychic link between showering and creativity. Who knows why? Maybe it’s because your mind is on other things, maybe it’s because you’re naked, maybe it’s the warm water relaxing you – it’s a mystery. But a lot of people swear by it. So maybe when the status quo response to some circumstance just isn’t working, try taking a shower and see if something remarkable doesn’t occur to you!

Do you have strategies for thinking differently? Share your tips with us in the comments.

jumping kids

Kids Coatching

It is not healthy for kids to go to any kind of therapy (unless it is absolutely a must) as their subconscious perceives this as “something is wrong with me” and makes them think they need to be “fixed”. As our main focus in emotional intelligence, we do not think kids need to be fixed, they need to be guided. Working with thousands of kids around the world, we are convinced this belief is very unhealthy for them to have and we want to make sure it will not reside in their brain.

Child coaching sessions must be completed in a very short time to prevent them from developing the “Something is wrong with me” attitude; therefore we limit the number of sessions and encourage you to take advantage of our 3+1 assessment. Having the tools to help your child will make it very effective and much cheaper.

 

Parents are the best coach for their own children. Therefore we will do all within our power to hand the coaching over to you. As the most important agent in your kids socializing and life development we think you are the best person to help your child. You are the person who will take care of your kid’s interests the most. Most of what you think, do or believe will be more meaningful to your kid than what any therapist will ever do. So we would rather give you the tools and help you do it because your impact of it will be much greater. On the session with parents we will discuss the implementation of the report recommendation and decide together whether the parents are able to implement it on their own or whether they would like the coach to start the second coaching cycle implementing the program. From 28 years of experience, we can reassure you that 92% of parents were able to implement the recommendations by themselves and did not need the second cycle.

Parenting is a learned skill. Unfortunately, we don’t learn it in a structured manner during our life nor we have the time and money to invest in a degree in parenting. Therefore we will take you though psychological, educational theories and parenting tools that have been researched and implemented all over the world by millions of parents and were found to be extremely successful.

The best parent coach leads by example. If you ask any parent in the world what they want for their kids, they will say, “to be happy, successful, and healthy”. Happiness, success and health care, no doubt, the most valuable gifts we can give our kids. Yet, since being a role model is our greatest tool to pass on our beliefs to our kids, it will be very hard to pass on happiness, success and health until we possess them ourselves. Therefore will help you connect between your style to your kids’ style and be congruent in your parenting style.

 

Happy parents raise happy kids. When parents are happy with themselves and clear about their beliefs and values, this will be reflected by their children, like little mirrors. Therefore we will equipped you with coaching mentality and simple but powerful parenting tools to balance life, work, family and your parenting task to reflect positively on your kids.

Small problems when not taken care of become big problems. As experts in special education we know that any learning difficulty or emotional struggle that is not addressed becomes a huge problem. Over time, they get out of proportion and make it hard to assess the origin of the problem. Therefore we encourage our clients to address the situation as soon as possible and avoid the medication or using therapists. It is harder to change the kids’ “something is wrong with me” mindset than to treat any learning or emotional difficulty he has.


Emotional intelligence is the most important ingredient in success
and people having a high EQ can succeed in whatever they do. We think IQ is overrated and can be changed with strong emotional strength. Therefore we assess the child’s emotional intelligence and his natural ways of dealing with stress, frustration and pressure and suggest practical and easy ways in the report on strengthening the child’s emotional intelligence.

All children can improve with the right guidance. Regardless of their age, ability or disability, their circumstances, their behavior, their social skills, their academic performance and their talents (or lack of it), we can increase their success and wellbeing. We have 28 years and thousands of satisfied customers from all around the world who are a living proof of the Be Happy in LIFE method.

 

Family matters. WE think that any child’s difficulty reflects on the whole family and changes the very delicate and fine balance between a happy family and a very troubled family. Therefore we focus on families and supporting parents in their quest. Ronit Baras, the founder, the parenting and kids’ coach have dedicated years of writing advice for parents in her blog “family matters” with over 1500 articles for parents and educators.

 

All kids are unique and no one size fits all. Therefore we focus on an individual assessment and report that matches your child’s ability, age, needs and emotional intelligence. We do not use a computer generated report or one set of assessment tool but adjust the tools to the specific kids. ( even if it takes a very long time)

Labels are not healthy for children (nor it is healthy for adults) as they limit their options and are very disempowering. Working for 28 years with labeled kids and families brought us to the conclusion that there is more harm done to those families than good. Labeling is a very old fashion way of grouping behaviors to make it easy for the assessor but not for the one who needs help.

 


Games are the best assessment tools for kids.
Being stressed by testing most kids react badly to formal assessment where they need to perform. We have accumulated many informal testing tools in game formats that can give us lots of information on the child’s thinking abilities, emotional intelligence and academic abilities. When kids attend the session they spend the hour playing and their performance is much more accurate. All kids are so busy playing during the session they express disappointment when they need to go and are very eager to come to the following session.

develop

Develop yourself

1

Seek feedback from others

Find out how others (whose opinions you value) view your work.  They might be peers or managers other than your line manager in the organization.   People are more likely to give you useful feedback if you ask them specific questions – perhaps about a particular piece of work or event.   Decide on 2 or 3 questions such as “what went well?” and “what might I do differently?” and ask for some examples to support their view.  Don’t be defensive if their feedback is a surprise and thank them for letting you know.  Decide afterwards what you can learn from this and what action you might need to take as a result.

2

Reflect on your day

Get into the habit of reflecting on how things have gone at the end of the day.  Ask yourself some questions such as: What have I learnt today? How well did I work with others?  How did I contribute at a meeting?  How did others? How might I approach an activity if asked to do it again? What would I do differently next time?

3

Observe the practice and behaviour of others

Who do you admire in your organization?  Who manages their team, their time and themselves well?  Observe how they manage in as many situations as possible and consider what you might learn.

You can also learn much from those whose management practice you don’t admire.  They can offer great lessons in “what not to do”.

4

Look for internal opportunities for development

When you’ve been in a job for some time, it’s easy to get used to doing what you do.  Although you may perform well, your work is no longer stretching.  Discuss with your manager how you might take on new (or more challenging work) to develop new knowledge and skills and give you experience of new areas of work.

5

Look for external opportunities for development

Could you be a trustee or volunteer for another organization? What causes interest you?  Investigate possible opportunities to share your skills, knowledge and experience with another organization.

6

Where do you hope to go next?

Think about what role you’d like to do next.  Even though you may have no intention of leaving your current position at the moment, it’s useful to keep an eye on vacancies (internal and external).  When a post is of interest, have a look at the person specification and assess your current knowledge, skills and experience against it.   What areas might you need to address?  Seek to fill those gaps so that you have evidence to support a strong application when you decide its time to move on.

7

Next steps

You might decide to formalize what you discover by recording it in a Personal Development Plan.

However you record your findings, ensure that you:

  • prioritise your development needs.  What is most urgent?
  • be specific about how and when you will go about addressing any identified gap
  • think about who needs to know.    You might want to share it with your manager so that you can plan together how to address any skills gaps
  • keep learning!
Pro

Defining Professionalism

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines professionalism as “the conduct, aims, or qualities that characterize or mark a profession or a professional person”; and it defines a profession as “a calling requiring specialized knowledge and often long and intensive academic preparation.”

These definitions imply that professionalism encompasses a number of different attributes, and, together, these attributes identify and define a professional.

So, what are these attributes?

Coloring

Color Therapy affect a person’s mood and physical or mental health

An Introduction to Color Therapy. Color therapy and healing (also known as chromotherapy or lighttherapy) is a type of holistic healing that uses the visible spectrum of light and color to affect a person’s mood and physical or mental health.

What is Color?

As most of you know, color is light and energy.

The Emotional Effects of Colors

Color Psychology: The Color White

  • purity
  • innocence
  • cleanliness
  • sense of space
  • neutrality
  • mourning (in some cultures/societies)

Color Psychology: The Color Black

  • authority
  • power
  • strength
  • evil
  • intelligence
  • thinning / slimming
  • death or mourning

Color Psychology: The Color Gray

  • neutral
  • timeless
  • practical

Color Psychology: The Color Red

  • love
  • romance
  • gentle
  • warmth
  • comfort
  • energy
  • excitement
  • intensity
  • life
  • blood

Color Psychology: The Color Orange

  • happy
  • energetic
  • excitement
  • enthusiasm
  • warmth
  • wealth prosperity
  • sophistication
  • change
  • stimulation

Color Psychology: The Color Yellow

  • happiness
  • laughter
  • cheery
  • warmth
  • optimism
  • hunger
  • intensity
  • frustration
  • anger
  • attention-getting

Color Psychology: The Color Green

  • natural
  • cool
  • growth
  • money
  • health
  • envy
  • tranquility
  • harmony
  • calmness
  • fertility

Color Psychology: The Color Blue

  • calmness
  • serenity
  • cold
  • uncaring
  • wisdom
  • loyalty
  • truth
  • focused
  • un-appetizing

Color Psychology: The Color Purple

  • royalty
  • wealth
  • sophistication
  • wisdom
  • exotic
  • spiritual
  • prosperity
  • respect
  • mystery

Color Psychology: The Color Brown

  • reliability
  • stability
  • friendship
  • sadness
  • warmth
  • comfort
  • security
  • natural
  • organic
  • mourning (in some cultures/societies)

Color Psychology: The Color Pink

  • romance
  • love
  • gentle
  • calming
  • agitation