With the advent of social media, 24 hour rolling news, and a permanent non-stop 24/7 culture, it’s hard to keep anything hidden away.
But, there is one secret that very few are party to. It’s a secret that’s long been there, but has remained under the radar from everyone.
That secret is a special ingredient to thinking and observation that will totally and utterly change your perspective. Change your mind so you begin to see what you could never see before, and have a mindset you have never previously owned. One specific but crucial ingredient.
And it’s not just one factor….it’s ONE WORD.
One word with far reaching mental effects.
The Super C word for Mindset.
Let’s say you receive a piece of information.
Some fact or data or point you hear, read, or are told.
On paper it appears enlightening. Or it could be revealing or shocking. For some it proves what they have always believed. Some facts and figures, for example. The kind of stuff political parties roll out to get your vote. Or keep hold of power.
Typically it may go along the lines of stating, ‘In real terms we have spent an extra £150m on education or increased the number of police officers by 10,000 over the last 3 years’. Again at first look it sounds impressive. And at this point minds begin to get made up about what it means and many believe what is in front of them.
Of course, the facts as presented are hard to argue with.
Until you employ that secret ingredient you read about at the start. The one word secret that alters what you read above in that statistic ridden statement.
That word, that ingredient is…..
CONTEXT!
This is going to create a very different, but real picture in your mind.
How does context work?
Context is a word you have heard of, but most people don’t know how it works.
To simplify – context provides the full facts as well as the big picture all in one. Let me show you. We are going back to those political statements from earlier. By the way a context statement of my own – I have no political affiliations whatsoever, in fact I rather loathe the subject. I merely use it because it perfectly represents context in action for the average person to understand.
Let’s pick a statement.
‘We have spent an extra £150m on education’. Now we add context – the full background info. They spent £150m on education but they promised in their manifesto to spend £200m or 33% more. So, a statement, a ‘fact’ or ‘truth’, looks far less so with the addition of context.
Politicians are adept at leaving context out (diplomatic phrase there by me). They want to direct you to what suits their agenda message. But, they are not alone. Many everyday people tell you what they want you to know or limit what they let you into. They too remove certain elements that would reveal a very different story.
And that’s precisely why YOU need to use context if you wish to change your life, create a business, achieve a major goal, or overcome an issue or obstacle.
Context will fill in the gaps AND expand everything.
How to use context.
You are going to context your thinking.
The rabbit is about to be pulled out of the magicians hat.
Well, more like from Sherlock Holmes mind without the need for his genius.
You are going to begin looking ‘behind the curtain’ of what’s in front of you. That block or restriction causing you stress or sleepless nights. Instead of trying to solve it head on, you are going to activate context.
Here’s what I mean.
Statement belief – ‘I can never seem to lose weight, I could a few years ago but now I guess I’m getting older and the pounds are staying on’.
Context – use the clue in what you said/thought i.e. ‘a few years ago’. Adding context but zooming out and viewing from above you will notice that those days three years ago were when you worked at a busy office. You walked to and from a car park a mile away and up and down the various floors in the office block. You were always on the go each day.
Now you work 3 days a week at home with food on tap as a major temptation and virtually no walking.
With context your weight issue is shown to be a home working issue. One you can now amend – go for a walk each lunchtime, prepare meals in advance for lunch using smaller portions, lock away those naughty snacks (or put them out of reach), or have Teams video work chats during normal bored eating moments.
Context reveals what’s really going onAND how to start solving it.
Context works.
Yes, context works wonders.
Why do you think politicians and companies get rid of context when they share so called factual information? From political parties omitting figures to big brands shrinking the size of products while promoting their great taste or best ingredients in its place, LACK of context is what’s usually on show in the public arena.
And that means the same for yourself.
What ‘stuff’ you don’t admit or want to accept is the context that will save you.
Girls do not want to ignore you – you choose a certain type of blonde who does.
Your boss isn’t failing to appreciate you – your workload has dropped as you hate the job.
Context is king. It’s the secret game changer right there under our noses in our own lives. So, own up, take a look, and get it on the table. Stop burying it away. You are not seeking votes or mega profits in your chocolate bars. You are trying to be the best person possible so you can have the best success that’s in you.
Context is the secret ingredient that gets rid of secrets.
And context is the key to the door marked, ‘PROGRESS’!!
Do you want to have more positive thinking but you can’t seem to make it work?
You won’t be on your own because most minds get stuck when moving from poor thoughts to better ones. The current neural pathways that fire constant lesser thoughts to the awareness have become fused in and well developed. Due to many years of repeated use, these lower thinking paths have formed powerfully and will need some budging.
This is why when you WANT to think more optimistically, it never lasts very long. Or never gets going in the first place.
Is there an easier way to get a better head space?
What can you do to experience positive thinking for longer?
The Bitesize Brain.
Your brain is a complex machine.
It has sheer mega computing power and stunning memory recall. It can multi-task and consider both deep questions and challenging problems. From crosswords to life’s conundrums, your brain is one super computer.
But, computers are reprogrammable.
They can be made to forget one set of informational instructions in favour of a newer set. That can be done by simply changing the software (the operating system that has instructions for use) and rebooting.
You can do the same. But, instead of one swift upgrade like in the computer world, you are going to do this in miniature in the mental world.
You are going to bitesize your brain with new input. Little bits of positive input.
You can’t just command the mind to completely change the way it has previously thought at the snap of your fingers. But you can, bit by bit, get it to accept alternative thinking in building brick doses.
Each new thought is going to act like a Lego brick. Piece by piece, adding to what’s come before it, a little masterpiece is going to be constructed. One day, not far from now, those tiny little bricks of thought will form a newly shaped mentality that you can play with to your heart’s desire.
Let’s build a new positively wired brain!
Micro Mental Magic.
Brain building can be done by anyone.
You DON’T need to be some naturally gifted genius or first class honours graduate. Everyone from the janitor to a princess, professor to a ballet teacher, can rebuild their mind. It’s THEIR mind, so they are the one who can change how it works.
And the same goes for you. You can rethink how you think. So, let’s get you doing that in micro thinking style to form a new positive neural pathway filled brain mind.
Positive thinking for hours and hours while negative thoughts go have a cup of coffee and let you get on with it, ain’t gonna happen. Don’t fight that fact. Use it to your advantage.
Instead of longer periods trying to retain a positive mindset, aim for micro moments. These are small chunks of positivity and optimism for, say, 15 minutes to begin with. As you find that less challenging in a week, up it to 20 mins, then 30. NEVER get over confident and go straight to an hour. Your mind has to form new neural pathways, they won’t develop in big leaps. They need short, consistent growth.
See it like snakes and ladders.
You don’t want fast progress only to slip right back down to the start.
Short IS sweet in mindset terms.
Little and Often.
Time to think like you are exercising.
To develop fitness, you start small, with limited periods of running, weights, cardio workouts etc. Then, as you improve, you step up the length of the exercise. This is to help build resilience in your body and to get it to gradually become stronger.
In other words, little bites repeated often.
Copy that. If you can muster it, set a reminder on your phone or watch to have 10 – 15 mins positive thinking every two or three hours. As you find it increasingly easier to maintain the better thinking (neural pathways are growing and more powerful) reduce to once per hour.
The obvious next progression follows – 20 – 30 mins at a time per hour. And so on. That’s how a super mindset is formed. A few minutes gradually per hour gradually expanding to a few hours at a time.
If you keep it up employing a sensible increase in the time you have positive thoughts, and not overconfident jumps straight into trying to have a whole day, the new neural networks in your mind will lock in and grow.
Like building a sturdy wall, micro thinking will build a whole chain of positive neuroplasticity links in your mind. Superhighways of more super stuff thinking wise.
In terms of great thinking that sticks and lasts, micro is the way to go!
A basic and simple question to most people, one a five year old would be able to answer.
‘With your eyes’, they would reply.
But, it’s not through the lens of your eyes that you have tended see the world and life, but through the perceptions of your mind.
Or, more precisely…..Mindsight!
The super recorder mind.
Your mind is amazing.
Not only can it generate 46.8 thoughts per second (amounting to 70,000 thoughts per day), it can also store some 2.5 million gigabytes of memory. It is the mega computer of mega computers housed in your head. And…it’s always working. Working, evaluating, responding…..and keeping!
You see, it doesn’t just hold data and process images and compute everything from your cost of that snap vacation to Bora Bora to when you last visited Aunt Maud. It records it all.
Your mind is effectively a super tape recorder.
Not only does it hold learned info, it turns that into instructions. Life advice from parents, guidance insight from teachers/authority figures, influences from friends and colleagues, and, yes, even the news and the media. This becomes your ‘guide’ for living; your blueprint of how life and the world is made up and your place in it.
Furthermore is the unknown factor few realise. That mental tape recorder picks up the lot. All your throw away trash thoughts or your ongoing daily self-talk chatter gets picked up and kept in the same internal file named, ‘This is Life and Me’.
Your mind keeps everything. It’s a hoarder!
A world of perception.
What you see, is not what you see.
It’s what you are told to see by your mind from your life storage file. Like a type of artificial reality game playing out for real. Mindsight at work.
When any given situation occurs (directly or indirectly involving you), your mind has already noticed and begins feeding you a stream of beliefs (both personal and impersonal) it has held catalogued in its storage banks. This happens in the blink of an eye. So, before you’ve had time to make up your conscious mind about it, the subconscious has already jumped in and interrupted with a meaning.
This all takes place so fast you believe that these are your actual thoughts and views as you look at something or someone. Here’s an example –
You see a pretty blonde girl/handsome blonde guy you’ve not met before at a bar. You are attracted by the way they look and dress and how their personality comes across. Before you can do a thing about it, in comes the feedback from the ‘This is Life and Me’ file which instantly pulls up….
‘That’s a blonde, the last blonde you dated was a nightmare, stay way from blondes. They say blondes are more fun, but they aren’t very faithful, everyone knows, so steer well clear’.
Your potential dream partner is left standing at the bar and your happy love life with it.
Your mindsight saw her/him and fed you old junk you accepted.
What can you do? How can you override that non-fun file in your mind?
Mindsight isn’t right sight.
Let’s get back to those eyes.Remember what your eyes see.
Sounds a silly piece of advice, but where mental filters are spoiling the view, it’s wisdom you need to recall as often as possible. Your eyes are going to be a major ally in defeating Mindsight.
It will be like removing a mask that’s long prevented you from seeing life correctly. But, you are going to have be switched on eyes wise. Whatever you first see (gorgeous girl/guy, new industry job opportunities, business idea financial support etc), you MUST remind yourself that it IS what you see, NOT what your mind is telling you that you are looking at.
View it as every time you look at something/someone the Mindsight acts similar to a nagging parent when you were a teen or that work colleague that has to give their opinion on anything. Chatter you don’t need. Hear that voice but listen to yourself if what you see appeals to you.
That blonde looks a lovely person so you are going to go on over and find out. That new industry you heard about sounds interesting so you’re going to read up on it more. The unusual business idea you have, well, you’re going to develop it into a business plan and see who is interested.
That’s the skill to develop. To keep in mind Mindsight and how it filters the world.
From now on keep Mindsight at the back of your mind and your eyesight at the front.
Mindsight isn’t right sight for insight!
References – American Journal of Medicine – Amjmed.com – A Selection of Fascinating Facts About the Brain and Heart.
Clinical Neurology Specialists – cnsnevada.com – What is the Memory Capacity of a Human Brain?
Five thoughts, ideas, insights, or quotes to power up your mind to think differently and creatively about life and who we are. Put all previous thinking away and open up a brand new world of the Supermind. YOUR SuperMind.
This week – Celebrities.
You can’t move these days without hearing the term celebrity. It seems people who do anything small or were once on a TV show are classed as celebrities. So much has this sub industry exploded it even has it’s own name….Celebrity Culture. As we can’t get away from celebrities then, SMS takes a good look by asking questions about them and their existence in our lives.
1. What does celebrity mean?
Let’s cut to the chase and start big. The label ‘Celebrity’ appears to be attached to virtually anyone these days and not for something momentous or record breaking. Typically until social media arrived a celebrity was a world figure at the very top – THE best actor/actress in the world, a person famous in history, etc. Not anymore. It truly has been dropped many levels. The dictionary definition of a celebrity is ‘The state or fact of being well known, widely discussed, or publicly esteemed’ Which leads to the first question….
Consequently, are current celebrities truly ‘well known’ or simply promoted as that so they will be?
2. Dumbing down or lifting up?
Modern society has been accused of being a cotton wool one. Particularly that every tiny risk or effort or activity is prevented due to worry over minor hurt or damage. The phrase attached to this is ‘dumbing down’. The ‘fall’ of society to this effect has been matched by the rise in numbers of so called celebrities. We used to be as tough as nails as people and celebrity was for the very few. Now we are soft as tissues and celebrity is for the many. Which begs the question…
Are we dumbing down celebrities and their hard endeavours to get there, or elevating ordinary people to think better of themselves?
3. Setting the wrong standards?
Historically celebrities were good for us. They were a small band of pinnacle people at the peak of certain professions. The very best of the very best. World beaters and world winners. They were figures to look up to, to admire, to be in awe of. People who had started like one of us and tirelessly and diligently fought and struggled to get where they are. Presently I’m sure that can’t be said of the current crop of ‘celebrities’ overall, many only barely working for less than a decade and often far less. Celebrities before were standard bearers for never ending determination, persistence, and sheer hard work.
As it takes far less time or effort to be called a celebrity, does that set good or poor standards ? What are they??
4. How many celebrities?
Since the start of the 21st Century the media has been busy making more and more people celebrities. The figure goes up every single week. Truth is, celebrity status was confined to a small group. This protected the very ideal of an exalted person who had achieved something of an elevated nature. This inspired people of all ages. Times have most definitely changed. Celebrities exist across the board, supplied with the title for a fraction of the level or results past celebrities reached. Where there were a handful, now it’s chocked full.
Do we need so many celebrities? Why do we require that many at all?
5. Finally, is it all real anyway?
French musician and record producer, Thomas Bangalter observed this about celebrity, ‘Usually the…celebrity lifestyle can disconnect people from reality’. Perhaps he has spotted something others never have. This whole celebrity thing is merely a bubble that people want to live in with lots of nice things, attention all the time, money to do what they want……and mainly to escape how hard real life is. A bubble life which protects them from the harsh struggles and mental pressures everyone goes through to live.
Is being a celebrity nowadays just a desire to escape from reality?
Ok, that’s another SuperMind Saturday done. Thank you for being here for the SuperMind time. Keep thinking about these. We need more minds thinking about this issue and the others issue on SuperMind Saturdays. Why? Because it’s needed. Because the world requires new thoughts and ideas. Ones from people like you!!
See you next time for more super thinking.
References – Oxford English Dictionary – Celebrity.
Photo attribution – Free to use under Pixabay Content License by OmarMedinaFilms.
A mega life achievement you wish to come true. Or simply to solve a long standing problem.
Typically, you have in your mind a final outcome – fame, money, awards, freedom to live your life, less struggle and more success, issue sorted forever, you happy.
Your endgame is lodged in your mind and so you set about considering how to make that happen. To do that the normal approach is to think about what you want to accomplish, how you go about getting there, what’s in the way, who could help, what resources you will need, and a proposed timeframe it will take.
Regular or normal logical thinking we can call it.
But, there’s a new radical kid on the mental block that’s busting up this thinking. And it’s not only a surprise approach, it’s completely counterintuitive to how thinking has previously been done.
Welcome to Reverse Thinking.
How to NOT get what you think you want.
Take a look at that header line above again.
Re-read it and take it in. It’s not as confusing as your head first thinks. That’s because yours is currently a mind that is set in rational thinking mode. One that’s been set to operate in only that process. This phrase is anti in nature to its thought recognition and calculation. You feel befuddled.
This, though, is where we start moving into the reverse mindset world.
Default thinking is often at fault. It regurgitates the same old advice that has been around for some time. Tried and tested, you may shout. But, firstly it may not have been updated for the modern world (you wouldn’t advise a Victorian the same as a Gen Z would you!!). Secondly, established thinking doesn’t fit everyone. Some people require more creative approaches or are seeking success in an unusual field or packed market place and need to stand out as different. Or they face a unique complication with various factors causing headaches.
At this point I take it you are reading this blog post because you yearn for success. Or, more likely, you have been trying to break through in some way and it’s just isn’t coming together. Either way, you have an interest or skill or product you want to make more popular (and yourself with it).
And I bet you have looked at, or even been through, the usual routes to promoting it/you. With nada results.
Excellent.
Because now we are going to flip the thinking on its head.
Flip Reverse Thinking.
Let’s go rogue in the mind!
We are going over to the other side.
Marketing traditionally is based around promotion, advertising, profile building and customer acquisition through pushing out your message. The accepted manner by which you sell a product or individual. But, in 2009 Scott and Alison Stratten took on this concept when they wrote a book called, ‘Unmarketing’. Their chief premise was to focus instead on building relationships with customers and people through engaging, listening, and communicating with them rather than chasing sales and profit growth. Giving big value gets their big value multiplied back.
It was a raging success. It broke the mould on the way many approached business thinking.
This flipped mentality is how you can win at life too.
Take your common thinking over a matter and ‘go opposite’. Come at it from the other side. Or it often only takes a changed word or two to succeed at this. Don’t overthink. Simply think tails instead of heads. Learn to think the other way round.
Like this….
Don’t imagine a dream life to inspire you, dream what it would be like in ten years if you did nothing and everything stayed the same as now.
Don’t study how to find love, be more loving ‘as if’ you already had a life long partner.
Or don’t try to be rich and make money for yourself, look to create money for the good of everyone by what you set up or do.
Reverse thinking covers virtually every subject you can think of.
Think again in reverse.
Now it’s your turn.
Take any situation you want to improve or are stuck fast on and apply the flip factor. Reverse think.
How do you stop drinking too much alcohol becomes how to start enjoying different drinks without alcohol (by tasting drinks from around the world).
Desperate to lose weight is reversed to be enjoying fresher natural food (by trying good food of 5 different colours each day).
You can almost make a game of it (TikTok channel anyone????).
It really is endless. I spent years attempting and failing to write a book until last year when I stopped trying to write long meaningful passages and simply wrote ONE PAGE a day and no more. I thought it would kill my creativity. The total opposite actually happened. Every day my mind was ready to go again and full of ideas. The book was written and with it a fully edited second draft in 11 months!
**(I later found out that Ernest Hemingwaywrote in a very similar style)**
It was like a firework of possibility going off in my mind. BANG!
So, go activate your own BANG. Reverse your thinking and with it reverse your fate that appears stuck and your prospects slipping away. If you change your mind in the reverse progress will start coming back to you in a myriad of mega ways.
Reverse thinking gets you going magically forward in life again!
References – UnMarketing.com
Turnerstories.com – Ernest Hemingway’s Tips on Writing.
