Gary Patton's List: Life Skills

• Remember when you were staring at the ceiling in elementary school, and the teacher asked you whether the answer was on the ceiling? Maybe it was.

  • You guys NEVER ever did that ...right? gfp (2011-10-04)
• One potentially appropriate therapy for procrastination lies in teaching something akin to time management
• it is desirable that not only that there should be an interval free from conscious thought on the particular problem concerned, but also that that interval should be so spent that nothing should interfere with the free working of the unconscious or partially unconscious processes of the mind. In those cases, the stage of incubation should include a large amount of actual mental relaxation"

  • Might it not have been more understandable for his readers for this academic to have simply said: "When you have a really difficult problem ...go to sleep!" Or: "Take a shower!" The latter usually works best for me. And to enhance the former, I keep a pad & pen on my bed-side table so I can jot down a quickie reminder, without really waking up, because I seldom can rember my brialliant idea in the morning? What do you do? gfp (2011-10-04)
• Helmholz described how new thoughts came to him: After previous investigation, "in all directions," .. " happy ideas come unexpectedly without effort, like an inspiration ... they have never come to me when my mind was fatigued, or when I was at my working table ... They came particularly readily during the slow ascent of wooded hills on a sunny day" (p. 91).

  • Athiestic scientists describe the event this way! Some call it 'serindipity' to similarily disguise the real source! I more accurately and unasamably call it what it is: GOD! gfp (2011-10-04)
• Einstein would "allow the subconscious to solve particularly tricky problems

  • Apropos my note above re 'serendipity', and contrary to common myth, Einstein was at best a diest late in life but not a Christian, according to those who knew him well. gfp (2011-10-04)
• They engage in the "preliminary period of conscious work which also precedes all fruitful unconscious labor" (Poincare, 1924).

  • Don't you just love academic writing? gfp (2011-10-04)
• Of course, the "illumination" that is the result of incubation needs to be followed by more conscious work. Ideas that arise as a result of incubation need to be evaluated (Smith, 1994);

  • Really? Duh!! gfp
• Incubation sometimes requires a very long break:
• can also occur with breaks of shorter duration.
• it can also happen in very short breaks, a few minutes or even moments.

  • God seldom works the same way ...every time! gfp
• I have found that these breaks work best when they are devoted to something fairly mindless: washing just a few dishes, filing just a few papers, or doing some light exercise.
• In fact, high achievers may actually take more time.
• perhaps some of the "non-stop" working was staring at the ceiling. If high achievers appear to accomplish tasks more quickly than others, I suspect it is only because they put in so much more time.¹

  • "Type "A' Personalities", please take note! (This is a note to myself!! :-) ) gfp

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• But asking questions effectively is a major underlying part of a manager's job

  • I'd argue effective questioning is everyone's job and a major life ...not just business... skill! It "blows my mind" that theis powerful relationship communication skill is not taught at school.
    But then, some argue, that John Dewey, one of the Founders of the Humanist Society and principal author of the "Humanist Manifesto"
• Many managers don't know how to probe the thought process of their subordinates, colleagues, and bosses — and instead make assumptions about the basis of their actions. And when those assumptions are wrong, all sorts of dysfunctional patterns can be created.
• three areas where improved "questioning" can strengthen managerial effectiveness
• Good managers therefore are always asking themselves and others about what they could do better or differently.

  • Both getting and giving good feedback is another major life-skill challenge for many of us. Ask me for my S-M-A-R-TBriefing™ on each of these life-skills because ...
    "All feedback you get or, better, can encourage, is helpful and able to assist you irrespective of it being complimentary, contrarian or contentious!"~ gfp '42™
• probing needs to be in the spirit of accelerating progress, illuminating unconscious assumptions and solving problems
• many of the best managers I've seen have an uncanny ability to engage in Socratic dialogue that helps people reach their own conclusions about what can be done to improve a plan or project, which of course leads to much more ownership and learning.
• Asking these questions in a way that does not trigger defensiveness and that is seen as constructive is an important skill for managers.

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• little is said about the one of the biggest addictions for the Western world - compulsive thinking.
• addiction is a habit that we cannot easily break through willpower, is something we do compulsively and is harmful to us, or to people around us
• it is a habit that is difficult to stop does harm.
• We have assigned our minds an aristocratic nobility so that our thinking often reigns supreme over our feelings and intuitions, which are often denied in the process.
• Thinking becomes harmful when it takes total control of our behavior - so we can't freely choose but feel compelled to act. In other words, conscious choice is absent.
• Anne Lamott quote: "My mind is like a bad neighborhood, I try not to go there alone."

  • The Apostle Paul agrees with Ms. Lamott, (1954- ) U.S. author. He suggests that we allow Holy Spirit to control that dangerous neighbourhood in Galatians 5:16-17 &25 <http://is.gd/qWtPyt> as well as 2 Corinthians 10:3-5 <http://is.gd/pqRshA>. gfp
• Mystics and spiritual teachers tell us about the trap that our egoic minds represent, and how our egoic thinking prevents us from having "the relationship of all relationships" that so many people yearn for.
• many if not most of people's problems stem from egoic thinking which leads to worry, anxiety, depression and fear.
• We are the most sedated society in the world
• Surrender to a Higher Power - "a power greater than ourselves" - was the answer created by the founders of A.A. along with a supportive community of fellow alcoholics who knew what it was like - who could identify with the hopelessness, fear, and powerlessness that went with the addiction.

• So how do we stop thinking? We can't stop all thinking but we'd be far healthier if we could end the compulsiveness and only engage with generative thinking - thinking that creates, explains, challenges and contributes to wisdom and understanding. Compulsiveness is the problem, not thinking itself.
  

    
• Einstein told us decades ago that we'd never solve our problems with the same consciousness that created them. The same thinking that made the messes cannot get us out of them. We have evolved to such a degree that we must surrender to a power greater than our egoic minds if we are to transcend the conditions we find undesirable - personally, organizationally and societally.
• mystic Robert Rabbin says, "we must live in the heart, not in the thinking mind."

  • Mr. Rabbin, a U.S. author & speaker, has a flagship program, "The 5 Principles of Authentic Living. He calls these his "Authenticity Accelerator". The priciples are powerfull. I agree and teach these five, key relationship approaches as well:
    1 Be Present
    2 Pay Attention
    3 Listen Deeply
    4 Speak Truthfully
    5 Act Creatively
    at http://www.authenticityaccelerator.com
    I disagree with Mr. Rensch, however, that Mr. Rabbin's work entitles him to the title given to the great mystics of the Middle Ages, like Catholic Priest John of the Cross and his mentor, the Catholic Nun, Teresa of Avalon! gfp

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• And without passion it's hard to do something that's meaningfully different from what has been done before. It's next to impossible to prove that a new idea will work. Passion and intuition are necessary ingredients for disruptive success.
• philosopher George Santayana defined a fanatic as someone redoubles their effort when they have forgotten their aim.
• Passion only matters if it leads to an innovation that delivers impact
• look for "innovation bipolarity,"

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• Colossians 3:23-24

  • "What To Take To Work With You" - http://diigo.com/0o5fo
    
    Something cool to take to work each day besides your lunch bag ...a Christ-like attitude!
    
    GaryFPatton (gfp '42™ 2012--03-03)
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• work at it with all your heart

  • Working at everything "with all your heart", i.e. "gusto with excellence" is the key!
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• you will receive an inheritance

  • Receiving "crowns" of glory from your Master and Lord in heaven for doing His preplanned work excellently, as explained at http://diigo.com/0n20e , is the "inheritance" referred to here ...not heaven. And it will beat just heaven and "an outhouse" "hands down", I suspect!
    
    But please note, carefully however, that it's not "good works" with, or without, gusto and passion that gets real Jesus Followers their promised abundant life in the here & now, plus to heaven and spending eternity with the One God, in the hereafter!
    
    Only believing and trusting in Jesus' death and resurrection and acting in the complete freedom that comes from His payment, in full, of the penalty for your sin nature and sins ...past, present, and future... will get you those glorious gifts as it says at http://diigo.com/0lk6j .
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• The Upside of Anger
• research finds that anger also has its positive side
• it make you feel bad, it makes you do stupid things without noticing the risks and it can be self-destructive
• But like all emotions anger has its purposes, which can be used to good effect.
• anger itself is a kind of positive energy and a powerful motivating force
• when used right, constructive anger can make you feel strong and powerful and help push you on to get what you want.
• angry people have something in common with happy people
• Anger is a natural reaction to being wronged by someone else and it's a way of communicating that sense of injustice.
• if justifiable and aimed at finding a solution rather than just venting, can actually benefit and strengthen relationships.
• Anger can also provide insight into ourselves, if we allow it.
• Anger can motivate self-change
• Although anger often precedes physical violence, it can also be a way of reducing violence. That's because it's a very strong social signal that a situation needs to be resolved. When others see the signal they are more motivated to try and placate the angry party.
• Anger can be a legitimate way to get what you want.
• Anger is likely to work best when it's justified, if you appear powerful and when the other side's options are limited
• anger can reduce violence, benefit relationships, promote optimism and be a useful motivating force
• but it can just as easily be destructive
• That's the wonder of human emotions: happy isn't always good and angry isn't always bad (although it may feel that way). An unhappy person is also more likely to spot mistakes and an angry person is highly motivated to act. We need reminding that even scary and dangerous emotions have their upsides, as long as they are used for the correct purpose.

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• Patience, Art of Intelligent Waiting
• patience is possible
• Impatience, however, can have great costs.
• how much is there in our lives that our patience has benefited us?
• HeartMath Founder Doc Childre characterizes patience as "the art of intelligent waiting" – waiting with purpose, positive intention and a sincere belief that waiting is an important element in the unfolding of all things.
• "Patience is the practice of maintaining a state of inner ease and resilience when you are tempted to be impatient," Childre said, "especially when the mind wants to force results, rather than remain in flow. 
  
• There is no reason we cannot opt to be patient or impatient in myriad situations throughout our busy days.
• "I don’t have time for this." How much effort would it have taken if you had gone to your heart instead and told yourself, "I have a choice. I don’t have to be impatient. I can make peace with this situation."
• "The state of ease is a refuge," HeartMath’s Doc Childre writes in his book, The State of Ease, "a refuge for action in our hearts and minds.
• instead of reacting in the same old ways to the stresses and challenges of our
• harried world, we can take a little time to connect with the qualities of our hearts – love, care and compassion – and our hearts’ wisdom." (Go to The State of Ease to download a free copy of the e-booklet.)
• Remember, the presence of sincere patience means the absence of so many byproducts of impatience: negative emotions like anger, disappointment, frustration and blame among others. Rather than draining yourself and creating negative energy, you can increase your energy and resilience. Sincere patience means approaching situations with a positive attitude, care, understanding and genuine allowance.

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• Vitamin D And Alzheimer's

• A review of Dr. William Davis's book, Wheat Belly

• the evils of wheat
• the plant has been hybridized and crossbred to make it resistant to drought and fungi, and to vastly increase yield per acre. Agricultural geneticists have shown that wheat proteins undergo structural change with hybridization, and that the hybrid contains proteins that are found in neither parent plant.
• we’ve created thousands of what I call Frankengrains over the past 50 years, using pretty extreme techniques, and their safety for human consumption has never been tested or even questioned.

• get around any potential health concerns by buying products made with organically grown wheat?

   

  A: No, because the actual wheat plant itself is the same. It’s almost as if we’ve put lipstick on this thing and called it organic and therefore good, when the truth is, it’s really hardly any better at all.
• There’s a presumption that consuming a whole bunch of the less bad thing must be good for you, and that’s just flawed logic. An analogy would be to say that filtered cigarettes are less bad for you than unfiltered cigarettes, and therefore, a whole bunch of filtered cigarettes is good for you. It makes no sense.

• wheat make us fat, exactly?

   

  A: It contains amylopectin A, which is more efficiently converted to blood sugar than just about any other carbohydrate, including table sugar. In fact, two slices of whole wheat bread increase blood sugar to a higher level than a candy bar does. And then, after about two hours, your blood sugar plunges and you get shaky, your brain feels foggy, you’re hungry.

• I’m not overweight and I exercise regularly. So why would eating whole wheat bread be bad for me?

   

  A: You can trigger effects you don’t perceive. Small low-density lipoprotein [LDL] particles form when you’re eating lots of carbohydrates, and they are responsible for atherosclerotic plaque, which in turn triggers heart disease and stroke. So even if you’re a slender, vigorous, healthy person, you’re still triggering the formation of small LDL particles. And second, carbohydrates increase your blood sugars, which cause this process of glycation, that is, the glucose modification of proteins. If I glycate the proteins in my eyes, I get cataracts. If I glycate the cartilage of my knees and hips, I get arthritis. If I glycate small LDL, I’m more prone to atherosclerosis. So it’s a twofold effect.

• wheat is essentially the single cause of the obesity epidemic.

   

  A: I wouldn’t go so far as to say that all obesity is due to wheat. There are kids, of course, who drink Coca-Cola and sit in front of video games for many hours a day. But I’m speaking to the relatively health-minded people who think they’re doing the right thing by limiting fat consumption and eating more whole grains, and there’s a clear subset of people who are doing that and gaining weight and don’t understand why.

• wheat is “addictive,” but does it really meet the criteria for addiction we’d use when talking about, say, drugs?

   

  A: National Institutes of Health researchers showed that gluten-derived polypeptides can cross into the brain and bind to the brain’s opiate receptors. So you get this mild euphoria after eating a product made with whole wheat.
• In clinical trials, people lost about 22.4 lb. in the first six months.

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• The theological field of apologetics is lauded by most and feared by few.  Great strides have been taken by the church to raise up “defenders of the faith.”  Debating others in public on the veracity of Christianity is a spectator sport that rivals all others.
• I can remember my youth in Christ, and how my brain turned to sponge.  Soaking up every theory, every angle, and every point of view regarding the faith, I too wanted to nail it down so as to defend my position.
• I read everything I could get my hands on and considered every opinion under the sun.  I also read from those who directly challenged my religion; atheists, agnostics, deists, scientists, and the various writings from those christians would call “the cults.”
• ly and confrontationally, sparring with them in a sense to see if I had weaknesses in my theological construct.
• But, deep down in my immaturity, I wanted and needed to be right.
• My love for apologetics had turned to lust.  I had exchanged Christ, my Hope, for the fallacy of “faith defending.”
• Personally, I count that time in my apologetic walk as adulterous and Idolatrous.  Where I sought to defend the faith, I was, in many cases defaming Jesus name.  If any of this strikes a chord with you, stop for a moment and ask the Lord for wisdom, then read the rest.
• efending the hope within us,” 1 Peter 3:15, to “defending the faith,” our stance, and our pet doctrines.
• Somewhere along the way, the church went from “
• I dare say that if any of us had to give a defense of our faith, we could  at least give it a decent showing.  I wonder though, how many could give a solid defense for the HOPE within them.
• I would ask the same, “What is your hope?”
• 

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• “Our most valuable asset sits 63 feet ahead” (referring to the driver of the truck).
• really struggling with stress and not able to get everything accomplished that I wanted to get done. As a result, I had begun putting a lot of pressure on myself to become more productive.
• I love progress and I love getting stuff done. However, what God showed me was that people and relationships are more important.
• “I figured that God is bringing this person into my life at this moment for a reason – either for them to speak into my life or for me to speak into theirs.
• I was stunned. It occurred to me how often I do not demonstrate this in my own life, especially with my own fa
• ily. My attitude so often is, “I can’t talk now. I’ve got something really important to get done!”
• “The way I look at it, if I honor God in conversations like these, He will take care of what needs to get done on my task list.”
• Perhaps my biggest problem was my lack of faith.
• more faith in myself to get work done than I do in my Heavenly Father’s ability to empower me to accomplish what has to be done. Because of my displaced “faith,” I sometimes put tasks ahead of people.
• Truth@Work
• ), a ministry to people in the workplace.
• www.christianroundtablegroups.com
• online blog, www.5feet20.com
• Bleedership: Biblical First-Aid for Leaders.

  • See what people say about Jim's book @ http://is.gd/tqIhNw
    gfp
• Reflection/Discussion Questions
• Proverbs 17:17, 18:24, 27:23-27; Matthew 7:12; Luke 6:31; John 15:13; Ephesians 6:5-9

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• Don't fast for a cause, but to shape your soul.
• by making the Lenten discipline of fasting about a cause, we are caving in to our cultural distaste for self-denial.
• Neuroscience sheds light on how fasting and other spiritual disciplines work by training our subconscious mental processes.
• our conscious self is far less in control over who you are and what you do than you realize.  "We are not the ones driving the boat of our behavior," says neuroscientist David Eagleman.
• Jesus expected that dietary restriction would be a part of our spiritual practice. "When you fast," he said, not if.
• But more importantly, spiritual disciplines shape us in deep ways. Because our brains—at the very least—mediate, process, and experience our spiritual lives, the disciplines can train us to become more attuned to God himself.
• when our blood sugar runs low, chemical signals from the blood stream reach the brain, which sends out signals to eat.
• The subconscious brain is at work, guiding our actions and our behavior

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• Expect Value Added in Names
• Your handle’s a brand of sorts – one that defines you, and the brain associates certain unique traits with your name.
• pack a punch when comments link to names.
• It’s not easy to remember names, since brains are more equipped to forget a name than to remember one. How so?
• To hear your name spoken respectfully, is to spike wellbeing in the area of the brain that operates personal self-awareness.

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• 10 Ways to Beat Sugar

  • Control this killer in what you ingest and you'll be well on your way to better health and wellness plus protect yourself from insulin resistence.
    gfp (2012-04-28)
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• sugar slips into your diet unnoticed more than any other fat-building substance.

  • For example, some sodas (Canada pop) contain up to 22 teaspoonsful of sugar.
    And so-called "diet" drinks contain dangerous aspertame or similar substances which are proven to cause neurological problems.
    gfp
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• the mind, body, and

  • It's the spiritual dimensions of yoga that are dangerous. The exercise is simply a packaging for a demoniacal, eastern religion, according to the Bible.
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• spiritual aspects of yoga

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• 5 Tips for Ordering Vegan at a Restaurant

  • Frequenting buffets can be the best and easiest way to "eat vegan".
    And here's 10 other tips that work based on my 13+ years of experience as a "live food vegan".
    gfp (2012-04-28)
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• Just ask – it doesn’t hurt to see what they might be able to do.

  • It also doesn't hurt to ask the manager to discount his/her regular "meat-in" price to be fair. But, don't be surprised if s(he) says no because there may be extra effort for the kitchen staff to meet your request.
    gfp
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• I can’t stress this enough: Pour on the “please” and “thank you”. As long as you have a good attitude, a restaurant will usually be happy to accommodate you.

  • I agree! Honey attracts more than vinegar!!
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