Those awesome ideas for a product or business, book or song?
We tend to think that they appear only in the great minds of the talented and super smart, the genius brained few. And that means that they’re unlikely to ever come our way. Hey, our minds just do boring stuff like our job, household tasks, and trying to work out the plot of the big TV drama.
Well, stop right there. Because that big TV drama could be about to lead you to the idea that you have long waited for.
But, to take advantage of it, you have to keep switched on as one man famously did.
Banking on a surprise.
Everyone needs a break, even the most creative among us.
That’s what a songwriter was doing one night in 1970 when he turned on the TV after a long day of musical work. As he began to relax he started paying to attention to the ads popping up on the TV during a break from the film he was watching.
He then heard something that set lightbulbs flashing off in his mind.
A seemingly non-descript advert for Crocker-Citizens National Bank in California featured a young couple getting married and needing financial help to support their new journey together. As the couple appeared on screen the lines of a background tune was heard, ‘We’ve only just begun to live…’
The songwriter was transfixed. He loved it and immediately believed he could turn it into a successful song for his group. His group of himself and his sister. His sister Karen Carpenter and himself, Richard Carpenter.
Acquiring rights to rework the whole song The Carpenters released it as a single in August 1970. It shot to No.2 in the US Billboard Charts and won the Carpenters siblings a Grammy. All from a TV ad. But when a mind is ready and open, anything can spark the most amazing ideas.
After all, we’re there’s one, there could be another!
Say Hello to Ideas.
After one unusually inspired song, lightning couldn’t strike twice….could it?
Guess who was watching another TV film one night? Now, this was because he liked movies, not because he expected to hit gold again with an idea like the last one. That said, his mind was already ready and prepared for potential ideas.
It was 1971 and Richard Carpenter noticed a Bing Crosby movie was showing on TV called Rhythm on The River while visiting London. In the movie in which Crosby played a ghost songwriter for Basil Rathbone’s character, they constantly referred to a song he was trying to write called ‘Goodbye to Love’, though it was never heard on screen.
The title got right into Richard’s head and soon he was off forming a melody and opening lyrics. Working with lyricist John Bettis they turned those 3 words into a fully fledged love song.
Another blockbuster had been born.
It hit No.7 in the Billboard chart and remained in the top 10 for months. It even became the song that was recognised as the first ever so called ‘power ballad’ whose style countless artists would also copy and record in the decades ahead.
One man with a mind ready for ideas from anywhere that produced mega success.
Ideas are everywhere.
Have you ever had an idea for a trip or big night out?
Maybe it was something different or way out or even plain crazy.
You didn’t question yourself whether you were intelligent enough or a recognised smart thinker to think it up. You simply had the idea, saw it in your mind, and then went ahead and worked it.
That’s what ideas are. They are everywhere for everyone.
They are not ‘for some’, they are ‘for all’. Age, gender, background, education etc mean NOTHING. Once you can allow yourself to accept this, you can start noticing all the ideas that have been hitting your head for years. The ones you persuaded yourself were silly because they were for a new business or gap in the marker product.
Key of all is that your mind remains receptive. Like Richard Carpenter watching TV ads or an artist walking outside or a business guru who sits in coffee shops and watches the world. Receptive minds see opportunity and possibility where others see nothing. From how people walk to too long a queue in a shop, these minds can craft something successful from it.
And their greatest advantage – they HEAR what people really say, they actively pick up the need or want behind their words and conversations. They gather great info on what people are missing or requiring or need help with.
This is how ideas leap at youwhen you are prepared for them.
There is gold in every day people.
Gold is not a nugget in the ground.
Gold is found in the world around us if we slowed our minds down and began observing. I’ve always said that observing leads to obviously serving people what makes their life better.
Being less focused on the slow traffic snarl up you’re stuck in and more on the scene and people around you is the magic most people are missing. Your partner is running late and you are standing outside the shops presents a massive window on how others move and act if you keep looking. Forget your phone and social media, let your mind have an idea as it watches and inform you.
In short, when you take any situation and set your mind to look around, listen, and simply take in what’s in front of you for a while, you will become an ideas factory.
A kind of prospector of gold out in the world.
As those of us that have already started watching for the amazing ideas, there’s plenty to come because…
We’ve only just begun to live!
References – Wikipedia – We’ve Only Just Begun.
Parade.com – the 1972 Carpenter’s song owes roots to Bing Crosby movie
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 – Gambling.
Having a little flutter is a popular pastime. Many of us like a little bet now and again for fun or for extra pleasure watching the big game on TV. That’s innocent enjoyment. But, it’s a habit that’s gone from an excited buzz if you might win a few pounds, to an out of control habit that’s costing thousands. Betting has become all out gambling, and it’s spreading like wildfire. Time for SMS to get to the heart of things.
1. Is Winning Addictive?
When we have a bet it’s fun. But, it also adds a decided thrill especially if it looks like we are going to win. When we start we play for low amounts so win or lose, it’s still enjoyable. However, as we learn and do better we up the ante waging more amounts to win more money. Everyone blames gambling as an activity for this. But, what if gambling merely reflects a human trait that is the real culprit powering the show? Winning and feeling like a winner.
Is the emotion of winning the real addiction we are caught by?
2. Online off the scale.
At the start of this century if you wanted a wager you had to find a bookmakers. You couldn’t just have an urge to place a bet and be able to do so in an instant like today. Betting previously meant a) you really wanted a bet on a team/horse you fancied and b) you had to walk or drive to a local bookmaker. It wasn’t just an easy action. It took some effort. Therefore, only the true follower of a sport tended to bet. Roll onto the Internet era. Now any adult at any time of day can bet on almost anything very quickly. It’s too easy and too available.
Is the real gambling problem the internet itself?
3. More pressure, more fun needed.
Globally, life is now very pressured for most of us. We have to work harder then ever at higher costs than ever just to struggle to maintain our past standards of living. It feels very stressful and worrying and life seems a constant day after day battle for many to make ends meet. This equates to burnout, mental overload, health issues, and financial difficulties. With all that hanging over us we feel like we are losing. We need to connect to something that makes us feel like we can be winning again. Something that’s fun and not fear.
Is the growth in gambling merely a response to the sheer pressures in life these days?
4. Keep it real, keep it rationed.
It is hard to deny that gambling is rather out of control for a growing number of people. Whether it’s due to the online availability or to escape the pressures of life as noted above, whatever the exact reasons, gambling issues have surged. If you want to be place a bet, spin a slot machine, or purchase scratch cards and lotteries, there’s nothing you can’t gamble on 24 hours a day. With plenty becoming addicted, they have lost the skill to keep in control. Maybe then it’s time for controls to help out. Time to restrict online betting to no more than an hour a day or some membership programme to limit betting elsewhere to agreed limits.
Should gambling be rationed in nationally monitored schemes?
5. Gambling with other people’s lives.
I’m going to finish today with a simple wisdom disguised as a joke from the famous late British comedian, Tommy Cooper, He said, ‘Gambling has brought our family together. We had to move to a smaller house’. When gambling gets out of control it’s not just the person losing the money, everyone in their lives can become the losers too. Their family and loved ones – bills not paid, debts rolled up, no money for proper food or for clothes, no holidays etc and friends – never see them due to being almost bankrupt, can’t afford to go out. And add to this, changed behaviour such as becoming more aggressive, distant, forgetful. The present is a mess, the future bears not even thinking about…
When we gamble too much, we gamble with the lives of those closest to us too.
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. Let’s bring our SuperMinds together!
See you next time for more super thinking.
Photo attribution – free to use under Piaxaby Content License bymetalboy and pixelheart.
A well used one we have all most likely heard in our life at some time or other.
It goes, ‘You are as young as you feel you are’.
Sounds great, but did you know that it’s actually true?
This is not just some positive affirmation, it’s a type of command from your mind which controls your body. When that order is obeyed, and it always is, the mind starts ‘persuading’ or initiating the body in renewing itself. Yes, this happens biologically to some extent, but this persuasion actually heightens and speeds up this process.
It becomes a belief that becomes a response that becomes a kind of regeneration.
Want to know more?
Great, let’s keep as young as possible through the mind.
Young after your time.
Have you heard the other well known phrase?
This one says, ‘You are old before your time’.
That people begin to consider they are old (even if they are in their 50’s) and so effectively become an elderly person in their demeanour, mindset, and even their movement. Suddenly, all manner of aches and pains develop, their eyesight worsens, and they are always tired.
Maybe you know somebody like this!
Their whole body lives and feels the label the mind has put on it.
It is similar to people who have a killer mindset where they are a victim all the time and destined to lose in any situation. They project an aura of loser before they start anything. And so, they never start anything. They remain small, insignificant, and forgotten. Again, living the mental label.
Well, I’m not thinking like that, and I recommend you don’t either. You aren’t old before your time, you are YOUNG before your time. And this is the precise message your mind should hold as it sends the very same definition to your body. To every cell, muscle, corpuscle, gene, and organ.
It is the same when confidence is oozing through your veins. You are full of beans, high in energy, and feel you can take on the world. You feel alive and dynamic. That is the mind powering it all.
And your mind can also help power your feeling younger again.
But don’t just trust me. Trust the scientists who have actually done tests on many people that prove feeling young transfers to your body.
The proof is out there.
Feeling young helps staying young!
Mentally mature, physically young.
The great advantage of age is wisdom and understanding.
Longer years of living have provided these benefits. But these mental advantages come with an aging body. To most people, the second outweighs the first.
Well, to some maybe. That’s not what scientists have discovered. Two specific studies prove my point powerfully about thought and age.
In 1979 Ellen Langer of Harvard University experimented putting 75 year old men back in a 1959 type environment and asked them to think ‘as if’ it was that year again and they were that age. This famous ‘counterclockwise’ study only lasted 5 days, but in that time all members experienced pronounced improvement in hearing, memory, vision, posture, joint flexibility, IQ, and physical strength. IN 5 DAYS!!
The other was by Yannick Stephan of the University of Montpellier who studied 1352 men and women aged between 50 and 75 years of age. Those that felt they were younger than their age were found to have better cognitive results even 10 YEARS LATER!
The other side is also true as Yannick reported from his studies. He found ‘those who tend to age themselves have a higher than average risk of cognitive decline’. Or in short – believe you are old and your body will agree.
There you have it – science confirms.Feeling young can almost reverse the aging process and CERTAINLY delays it.
There is a new truth that is being revealed.
Science is proving that what comes naturally to the young, comes mentally for us as we age.
Feeling young works wonders!
Feeling old, think again!
The mind is the fountain of youth we have been searching for.
Yes, it’s been within us all along.
For those over 50 years of age, altering the mindset to believing they are much younger, sees the body equally believe it. The mind says you are in your 40’s or even 30’s and the body does its best to support that in almost every single area possible.
So, how do you do it?
Pick an age. Be realistic, selecting being ten again isn’t going to achieve results as it’s too far past. If you are 55 choose being 35 and reactivate feeling like you did then. Truly believe you are as energetic and active as you were at that point and imagine as you go out each day it is the 35 year old you that is doing it.
Superimpose THAT person onto yourself today in your mind. THEY will be living your life now. THEY will be undertaking your duties and schedule. Keep that younger age person in mind in all you do. Blend time in effect. You are STILL 35 right now.
Keep this up. Day after day. Thought to thought, belief to belief, imagined activities you have to do to imagined activities you are doing.
Soon, it may take a week or two for us less scientific sorts, you will feel a difference. Record them and all areas of the body that have shown improvement. Then repeat, and go again and so on.
In the months ahead your body is going to live a journey back in time led by your mind.
Your younger days are on the way back – I can feel it…make sure you do!
References – National Institute of Health – Aging as a mindset.
Universite de Montpellier – Feeling younger to to age less quickly.
In the past you would most likely be on your own. There may have been others dotted around the world, perhaps even some who lived near you, but you had no real way of contacting them, never mind knowing where they were.
Beliefs used to be lodged just in our own minds.
And that’s where they stayed, doing little harm, appearing now and again, with a little flurry of activity by yourself. But, it was just some personal viewpoint. An unusual, maybe weird, but still plausible belief you had.
No-one got hot under the collar, life went on.
Then….along came the internet.
And all manner of beliefs exploded into life.
This thinking is alien to me.
Our beliefs used to be pretty harmless.
You went to the pub and some fella would tell you after a few pints that the moon landing was faked. Or maybe it was that Elvis was still alive. Hey, even you might have thrown in that aliens lived among us and the Royal Family were all from another planet.
You shared your stranger beliefs and went home to bed.
Not so today. Where you previously lived in a world of one, belief wise, now you can search for and connect to a whole community of others that know where Elvis lives and that Prince William is from Venus.
This tells your mind that what you believe IS true. Other people all round the world have the same view so clearly it is an unchallengeable fact. This cements further into your mind helped by accessing this online community of self believers every day further fixing in that conviction.
The trouble is, this is generally the law of averages at work.
You only need a group of 30 people and, on average, you will find someone with the same birthday as you. Go online and on social media with a few billion users, there will be those that think like you think.
It’s less meaning, and just more mathematical.
Firm your foundations.
Our beliefs are the very bedrock of our lives.
They are the foundation of how we live life, behave, communicate and connect, and think. No-one exists without this foundation. It’s your operating manual for your whole existence.
As it’s that crucial to everything you are and experience, you have to base this foundation on solid ground. On beliefs and thinking that can be backed up and strong to hold all things up for you. Otherwise it’s akin to building a skyscraper on sand. It (your beliefs and life) can collapse around you.
This can include incorrect negative beliefs about yourself (no-one likes me, I am ugly etc) as well as the Universe is a hologram or the Bible contains secret codes when the second coming will occur.
Wilder thoughts may feel good, but you can’t form a good life from them.
Thinking the Loch Ness monster is real is lovely, but it most likely won’t pay the bills, find a life long partner, and develop a career path that will serve you. Don’t get me wrong; believing that is your freedom and go fill your boots. It just won’t do anything supportive for your life.
And that’s what thoughts and beliefs are meant to do.
Celebrity or nobody? Naughty or nice?
Beliefs can help us, or hold us back.
It’s not just the weird and wacky that do that. It’s our own personal set of hang ups that achieve that every single day. The ones that go round our head and drive our actions and decisions. Like mice on a wheel.
Some hold us back – we truly think we’re never going to be successful, never meant to find a proper partner, that the world is against us and others along those lines. Ones that confirm in our head that we are a nobody overall.
Others elevate us – we consider we are going to be a star, or are an important person, someone who expects to be treated as royalty, and one others want to be around and look for. Ones that prove, also in our head, that we are a celebrity.
Truth is, many of us struggle to find that middle mental ground.
The balanced centred that knows, for example, that we have great potential and are as worthy as anyone else. With it that we deserve as good a life as possible and can be successful in our own way but not arrogant or self important with it.
This equates to the title of this post – everything really IS in our mind. Whether we are good or bad, happy or sad, saint or sinner, talented or completely unskilled.
From Nessie to NASA, being a born loser or winner, it’s what we believe in our head.
Believe better, but believe real.
Beliefs feel real.
The more we repeat them, the more they become absolute truth to us.
Neural pathways are built in the mind, like superhighways full of fast cars, that transmit hyper quick reactions due their regular use. This means no other thinking can interrupt those thoughts at those rocket like speeds.
Therefore they are the ones that hit the awareness and keep hitting it and filling it up. Making them THE beliefs that are authentic to you.
So whether you believe you are destined to always be dumped by a partner, or that UFO’s are everywhere and a government conspiracy, it will become your dominant thinking.
But, these don’t progress your life.
They don’t do anything expansive, productive, and helpful to you. You need to test them by taking them on. Did Elvis REALLY serve you down the chip shop? Are you ACTUALLY always being ignored for promotion? And is it true that you, as much as anyone, will never have money in your lifetime?
Get the answers to where your mind isn’t improving your life and you will discover one massive truth.
That what you believe really IS in your mind.
Then you can change it and change your life for something better!
A supercomputer housed in their brain ready to do phenomenal things.
But most also believe that it is only the geniuses and super intelligent that can really use it to create what has never been seen or never been done before.
And it is that fact that is preventing every day people doing something notable or very different that makes its mark and changes their life for ever. But not others. They brought something amazingly new. It’s not that they aimed to cause a shift in thinking or a stir, it is that they did it their way because it’s what their mind showed them. They originated and formulated an epic difference.
The impact was instantaneous.
You possess the very same mental capacity and capability as they did.
To take your individual mind and create something that has never existed and bring it to life. Something people could still be talking about many years later.
For starters let’s take one man who managed to do just that and changed the face of sport in the biggest arena possible.
The Unique Olympian.
The most famous golden Olympic moments tend to be related to world records.
Mega displays of athleticism that become the best ever witnessed on Earth.
But, one moment by one athlete still stands stellar towards the top of Olympic history before any medal was anywhere near being awarded. What did you think he did?
It’s 1968. The Mexico Olympic Games. A young 21 year old American Oregon State University student runs up to take his first leap in the high jump. It is what he did next that shocked sport and rewrote the technical books.
The traditionally applied high jumping technique saw athletes face forwards and spring over the bar like taking a hurdle on the track and twist in mid to avoid the bar. But this man threw all that out and brought innovation to the Games. His unique style was to jump backwards off the wrong foot and arch his back over the measurement bar.
The Fosbury Flop was born and still remains the chosen style of high jumpers nearly 60 years later.
In an instance Dick Fosbury reinvented high jumping and our approach to tried and tested styles. He was radical, innovative, and plain bold.
And not only did he win the gold, yes, he also set a new Olympic record. He was the best in the world through a technique he developed in his mind because he couldn’t even qualify for the event at high school using the regular methodology.
He could have believed he was simply no good at high jumping.
But he thought otherwise, he thought individually.
What is art?
Fine art had a certain style.
Historically it was influenced chiefly by abstract expressionism such as Cubism and the classic styles. There had been variants but they never strayed far from the established workings.
But, times were changing and consumerism was on the rise due to a growth in popular advertising. The design elements of contemporary brands were appealing to a wider section of the public through their colours and shapes and vivacity. This was far from art of course. Not to one man
He saw that a burgeoning industry could also represent a fresh form in the artistic field.
For him they weren’t separate entities, they were one in the same.
He took these everyday product items and reworked them into special subjects that originated a brand new genre of art. He created art that no other mind could ever had imagined previously. Art was changed forever and a new sub culture exploded onto the scene.
That man was Andy Warhol. A genius today; a rebel, and outlier, a maverick back in the 1960’s. Perhaps the first influencer we ever knew with his bright silkscreen Pop Movement designs.
Another who had an individual approach he wasn’t scared of presenting.
So, what about you?
Always the original.
There is a famous advice that says – you were born an original, don’t die a copy.
But in a world of fitting in, that’s precisely what the vast majority of us do. Regular job, nice home, partner and kids, reasonable car, some weekly hobbies and interests, a holiday or two a year, retire, then die. All pretty much along the same themed pattern….be like most others are.
However, I believe there is a Dick Fosbury or Andy Warhol in us all somewhere in our own way.
And our own mind is where that person sits awaiting permission to come to life. Some idea, service, fashion sense, video recording skills, writing ability, artistic work, and business offering is in there. You just haven’t accessed it because you want to jump like Dick did or present art like Andy did with it. To be different and stand out. To unlock your individual mentality and let it come to life.
Truth – you have always been an original, so why act or live like you are everyone else?
You were born to be different, stand out, shake things up, move the goalposts, break the mould and more. In your mind what you conceive is some of that. Go win your own gold medal at being you. Go paint a whole new world with your life.
Be the one-of-a-kind you were meant to be. The one your mind knows you are.
You only have one job now…
Open your mind and be individual and incredible all in one.
References – Olympics.com – when high jumper Dick Fosbury changed the game forever.
Myartbroker.com – Andy Warhol original influencer artist.
