Wade's Insights

Brain Developments That Will Change The World

The amazing discoveries on how the brain can continually change itself has profound economic and global implications. “These findings amount to the discovery that the adult human brain, rather than being fixed or “hardwired,” can not only change itself but works by changing itself.” Norman Doidge, “The Death of Neurological Nihilism.” Probably one of the most exciting and important areas of scientific research today is the workings of the human brain. What is being discovered is that, from birth to old age, the human brain can continually be changed to meet new circumstances. Many of the latest findings have been documented in a book, “The Brain That Changes Itself,” written by Norman Doidge, a Toronto-based psychiatrist. Among the most interesting facts arising from the new field of neuroplasticity is that the human brain can overcome a wide range of disabilities, handicaps, injuries, and losses. For example, a woman born without half of her brain—the left hemisphere—is able to live normally and happily because her right hemisphere developed all the functions of a complete brain. Other people who have suffered paralysis caused by strokes, cerebral palsy, multiple sclerosis, or brain trauma can regain their capabilities through specially-designed brain exercises. These exercises, which are becoming a growth industry on the Internet, reorganize the brain to work around dead tissues. Researchers have documented cases where individuals learned how to reverse disabilities that were in place for as long as 50 years. The study of neuroplasticity will become one of the most important areas of scientific development in the 21st century because of its underlying premise and promise: Human beings have the ability to continually transform how their brains respond to a changing world. The economic and political structures that make use of neuroplasticity as their operating principle will become the dominant ones in the world—far surpassing those that believe human beings have little or no ability to change how they think about things.

Tony Snow

‘Blessings arrive in unexpected packages, - in my case, cancer. Those of us with potentially fatal diseases - and there are millions in America today - find ourselves in the odd position of coping with our mortality while trying to fathom God’s will. 

Although it would be the height of presumption to declare with confidence ‘What It All Means,’ Scripture provides powerful hints and consolations. 

The first is that we shouldn’t spend too much time trying to answer the ‘why’ questions: Why me? Why must people suffer? Why can’t someone else get sick?

We can’t answer such things, and the questions themselves often are designed more to express our anguish than to solicit an answer.  I don’t know why I have cancer, and I don’t much care. It is what it is, a plain and indisputable fact.

Yet even while staring into a mirror darkly, great and stunning truths begin to take shape. Our maladies define a central feature of our existence: We are fallen. We are imperfect. Our bodies give out. 

But despite this, - or because of it, - God offers the possibility of salvation and grace. We don’t know how the narrative of our lives will end, but we get to choose how to use the interval between now and the moment we meet our Creator face-to-face. 

Second, we need to get past the anxiety. The mere thought of dying can send adrenaline flooding through your system. A dizzy, unfocused panic seizes you. Your heart thumps; your head swims. You think of nothingness and swoon.  You fear partings; you worry about the impact on family and friends. You fidget and get nowhere. 

To regain footing, remember that we were born not into death, but into life,- and that the journey continues after we have finished our days on this earth. We accept this on faith, but that faith is nourished by a conviction that stirs even within many non-believing hearts… an intuition that the gift of life, once given, cannot be taken away.

Those who have been stricken enjoy the special privilege of being able to fight with their might, main, and faith to live fully, richly, exuberantly - no matter how their days may be numbered. 

Third, we can open our eyes and hearts. God relishes surprise. We want lives of simple, predictable ease,- smooth, even trails as far as the eye can see…. but God likes to go off-road. He provokes us with twists and turns.  He places us in predicaments that seem to defy our endurance; and comprehension - and yet don’t.

By His love and grace, we persevere. The challenges that make our hearts leap and stomachs churn invariably strengthen our faith and grant measures of wisdom and joy we would not experience otherwise. 

‘You Have Been Called’. Picture yourself in a hospital bed. The fog of anesthesia has begun to wear away. A doctor stands at your feet, a loved one holds your hand at the side. ‘It’s cancer,’ the healer announces.  The natural reaction is to turn to God and ask him to serve as a cosmic Santa. ‘Dear God, make it all go away. Make everything simpler.’

But another voice whispers: ‘You have been called.’ Your quandary has drawn you closer to God, closer to those you love, closer to the issues that matter… and has dragged into insignificance the banal concerns that occupy our ‘normal time.’ 

There’s another kind of response, although usually short-lived an inexplicable shudder of excitement, as if a clarifying moment of calamity has swept away everything trivial and tiny, and placed before us the challenge of important questions.  The moment you enter the Valley of the Shadow of Death, things change.

You discover that Christianity is not something doughy, passive, pious, and soft.

Faith may be the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. But it also draws you into a world shorn of fearful caution. The life of belief teems with thrills, boldness, danger, shocks, reversals, triumphs, and epiphanies.

Think of Paul, traipsing through the known world and contemplating trips to what must have seemed the antipodes ( Spain ), shaking the dust from his sandals, worrying not about the morrow, but only about the moment. 

There’s nothing wilder than a life of humble virtue, - for it is through selflessness and service that God wrings from our bodies and spirits the most we ever could give, the most we ever could offer, and the most we ever could do. 

Finally, we can let love change everything.

When Jesus was faced with the prospect of crucifixion, he grieved not for himself, but for us. He cried for Jerusalem before entering the holy city. From the Cross, he took on the cumulative burden of human sin and weakness, and begged for forgiveness on our behalf. 

We get repeated chances to learn that life is not about us, that we acquire purpose and satisfaction by sharing in God’s love for others. Sickness gets us part way there. It reminds us of our limitations and dependence. But it also gives us a chance to serve the healthy.

A minister friend of mine observes that people suffering grave afflictions often acquire the faith of two people, while loved ones accept the burden of two peoples’ worries and fears. 

‘Learning How to Live’. Most of us have watched friends as they drifted toward God’s arms, not with resignation, but with peace and hope. In so doing, they have taught us not how to die, but how to live. They have emulated Christ by transmitting the power and authority of love. 

I sat by my best friend’s bedside a few years ago as a wasting cancer took him away. He kept at his table a worn Bible and a 1928 edition of the Book of Common Prayer. A shattering grief disabled his family, many of his old friends, and at least one priest. Here was an humble and very good guy, someone who apologized when he winced with pain because he thought it made his guest uncomfortable. He retained his equanimity and good humor literally until his last conscious moment. ‘I’m going to try to beat [this cancer],’ he told me several months before he died ‘But if I don’t, I’ll see you on the other side.’ 

His gift was to remind everyone around him that even though God doesn’t promise us tomorrow, he does promise us eternity, - filled with life and love we cannot comprehend, - and that one can in the throes of sickness point the rest of us toward timeless truths that will help us weather future storms. 

Through such trials, God bids us to choose: Do we believe, or do we not?  Will we be bold enough to love, daring enough to serve, humble enough to submit, and strong enough to acknowledge our limitations? Can we surrender our concern in things that don’t matter so that we might devote our remaining days to things that do? 

When our faith flags, he throws reminders in our way. Think of the prayer warriors in our midst. They change things, and those of us who have been on the receiving end of their petitions and intercessions know it.

It is hard to describe, but there are times when suddenly the hairs on the back of your neck stand up, and you feel a surge of the Spirit. Somehow you just know:  Others have chosen, when talking to the Author of all creation, to lift us up, - to speak of us!  This is love of a very special order.

But so is the ability to sit back and appreciate the wonder of every created thing. The mere thought of death somehow makes every blessing vivid, every happiness more luminous and intense. We may not know how our contest with sickness will end, but we have felt the ineluctable touch of God. 

What is man that Thou art mindful of him? We don’t know much, but we know this: No matter where we are, no matter what we do, no matter how bleak or frightening our prospects, each and every one of us who believe, each and every day, lies in the same safe and impregnable place, in the hollow of God’s hand.’ 

Tony Snow

Cliff Young

The whole nation thought he was a crazy old man to undertake an almost impossible feat. Most feared that he would die trying. But this humble old man proved all the critics wrong.

Every year, Australia hosts an 875-kilometer endurance racing from Sydney to Melbourne - considered to be the world’s longest and toughest ultra-marathon. It’s a long, tough race that takes a week and normally participated by world-class athletes who train specially for the event. Backed by big names in sports like Nike, these athletes are mostly less than 30 years old men and women equipped with the most expensive sponsored training outfits and shoes.

In 1983, these top class runners were in for a surprise. On the day of the race, a guy named Cliff Young showed up. At first, no one cared about him since everybody thought he was there to watch the event. After all, he was 61 years old, showed up in overalls and galoshes over his work boots.

As Cliff walked up to the table to take his number, it became obvious to everybody he was going to run. He was going to join a group of 150 world-class athletes and run! During that time, these runners don’t even know another surprising fact - his only trainer was his 81-year-old mother, Neville Wran.

Everybody thought that it was a crazy publicity stunt. But the press was curious, so as he took his number 64 and moved into the pack of runners in their special, expensive racing outfit, the camera focused on him and reporters started to ask:

“Who are you and what are you doing?”

“I’m Cliff Young. I’m from a large ranch where we run sheep outside of Melbourne.”

They said, “You’re really going to run in this race?”

“Yeah,” Cliff nodded.

“Got any backers?”

“No.”

“Then you can’t run.”

“Yeah I can.” Cliff said. “See, I grew up on a farm where we couldn’t afford horses or four wheel drives, and the whole time I was growing up– until about four years ago when we finally made some money and got a four wheeler– whenever the storms would roll in, I’d have to go out and round up the sheep. We had 2,000 head, and we have 2,000 acres. Sometimes I would have to run those sheep for two or three days. It took a long time, but I’d catch them. I believe I can run this race; it’s only two more days. Five days. I’ve run sheep for three.”

When the marathon started, the pros left Cliff behind in his galoshes. The crowds smiled because he didn’t even run correctly. Instead of running, he appeared to run leisurely, shuffling like an amateur.

Now, the 61-year-old potato farmer from Beech Forest with no teeth had started the ultra-tough race with world-class athletes. All over Australia, people who watched the live telecast kept on praying that someone would stop this crazy old man from running because everyone believed he’ll die even before even getting halfway across Sydney.

Turtle vs rabbits

The “Scary Times” Success Manual

From time to time, economic and politicalevents make people anxious and fearfulabout their futures. At Strategic Coach®, our business is helping successful entrepreneurs increase their sense of direction, confidence, and capability in all areas of their personal and business lives. In response to many requests from our clients for insight on how to thrive when events seem to be beyond their control, we offer ten strategies for transforming negativity and unpredictability into opportunities for growth, progress, and achievement. We hope these strategies support your creative thinking, communications, and actions.

1. Forget about yourself, focus on others. Uncertainty can drive people into themselves, making them feel isolated and helpless. The best strategy here is to go in the opposite direction, expanding your connection with others—focusing on helping them transform their negatives into positives. The more you contribute in this fashion, the less you will need to worry about your own situation. You will become a source of confidence for everyone else.

2. Forget about your commodity, focus on your relationships. In uncertain times, people become frightened about the viability of their “commodities” — the things they sell and the jobs they hold. A more strategic response here is to disregard your own commodity and focus on deepening the power and possibility of all your relationships — with family, friends, team members, suppliers, clients, customers, and prospects. Everytime you strengthen a relationship, the viability of your commodity will increase.

3. Forget about the sale, focus on creating value. Most people don’t like being sold at the best of times. When the future is less certain, they turn off, hang up, and slam shut. But what people want at all times is value creation — that is, solutions that help them eliminate their dangers, capture their opportunities,and reinforce their strengths. When you focus on providing these three solutions, the sales will naturally follow.

4. Forget about your losses, focus on your opportunities.  Things you had and may have taken for granted sometimes disappear. Some people never get over this. They keep trying to replay their old games. A better strategy is to start an entirely new game — using new ideas, new energies, new tools, and new resources.  As the world changes, opportunities suddenly become available to achieve far more than you ever did in the past.

5. Forget about your difficulties, focus on your progress. Because of some changes, things may not be as easy as they once were. New difficulties can either defeat you or reveal new strengths. Your body’s muscles always get stronger from working against resistance.The same is true for the “muscles” in your mind, your spirit, and your character. Treat this whole period of challenge as a time when you can make your greatest progress as a human being.

6. Forget about the “future,” focus on today.  The “future” is an abstraction. It doesn’t exist except as an idea. The only future that has any reality is the one that you continually create for yourself through each day’s contributions, achievements, and results. This is an excellent time to ignore all those experts who never saw the present circumstances coming. Focus on whatyou can do over the course of each 24 hours, and you’ll be the only expert on the future you’ll ever need.

7. Forget about who you were, focus on who you can be.  Many people define themselves by external circumstances.  When these abruptly or unexpectedly change, they don’t know who they are, so they keep trying to be who they used to be. From now on, take your cues from the inside — from your dreams, ideals, values, and operating principles. These need never change, regardless of the circumstances. Take advantage of external confusion to become self-directed, self-managed, and self-motivated.

8. Forget about events, focus on your responses.  When things are going well, many people think they are actually in control of events. That’s why they feel so defeated and depressed when things turn bad. They think they’ve lost some fundamental ability. The most consistently successful people in the world know they can’t control events — but continually work toward greater control over their creative responses to events.  Any period when things are uncertain is an excellent time to focus all of your attention and energies on being creatively responsive to all of the unpredictable events that lie ahead.

9. Forget about what’s missing, focus on what’s available.When things change for the worse, many desirable resources are inevitably missing — including information, knowledge, tools, systems, personnel, and capabilities.  These deficiencies can paralyze many people, who believe they can’t make decisions and take action. A strategic response is to take advantage of every resource that is immediately available in order to achieve as many small results and make as much daily progress as possible. Work with every resource and opportunity at hand, and your confidence will continually grow.

10. Forget about your complaints, focus on your gratitude.  When times get tough, everyone has to make a fundamental decision: to complain or to be grateful.  In an environment where negative sentiment is rampant, the consequences of this decision are much greater.  Complaining only attracts negative thoughts and people.  Gratitude, on the other hand, creates the opportunity for the best thinking, actions, and results to emerge.  Focus on everything that you are grateful for, communicate this, and open yourself each day to the best possible consequences.

Written by Dan Sullivan of Strategic Coach