Personal Development

OOPS. You missed the deadline for the extra special price offer, but I *did* get to attend Havi’s call (and it was way cool. more later) Still, I’m leaving this post here because, well… I love the image of the duck with antlers too much to take it down.

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Here’s the thing. I have a new bloggy web crush. Her name is Havi Brooks. No, she doesn’t know I exist, and yes, that is a rubber duck on her shoulder.

More on the duck, later.

I have a crush on her because Havi does things on the web the way I used to do them before I started learning how I’m supposed to do things on the web, got all self conscious and mucked it all up. See, her marketing approach is to be shamelessly, unrelentingly, and blatantly herself, wearing her issues and quirks on her sleeve.

She also has a wicked sense of intuition, humor, and creativity. Sound familiar? [click to continue...]

Yes, ok, fine…. I’ve been suckered into writing about the latest “big sensation”. But it’s on topic, dang nab it! The phenomena of this British singer is apparently a bit of a mind tweak for millions of Americans.

For those of you who live under a rock, Susan Boyle is a contestant in a British reality TV/talent show. She’s become an overnight sensation - not just in Britain, where the program airs, but in America, where the YouTube clip of her performance has made waves.

She’s a singer. And yes, she’s a good singer.

But what makes her (and the YouTube clip of her performance) so notable is that she doesn’t *look* like a great singer - or rather, she doesn’t look the way we’ve been conditioned to expect “great singers” to look.

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Yesterday, the author of the "LiteMind" blog contacted me with a  personal invite to participate in his latest collaborative project/contest. 

When I say "personal invite" I don’t mean one of those generic mass e-mails with my name  filled in by bot-script.   Nope.    Luciano Passuello (isn’t that a cool name?) went beyond the usual generic stuff, adding remarks that made it clear that not only had he actually been to my blog, but that he’d paid attention, and found a way to relate to me.

Hi Tori,

I recently found out about your blog and I like it very much! I think it has a lot to do with mine, actually (I once thought about making the logo a blue brain, too… REALLY!)

The reason I contact you is to invite you to join a new collaborative project I’ve put together….

By making his invite *actually* personal (rather than pretend personal) Luciano’s effort turned a potentially cold and impersonal blog contact into the beginnings of a relationship, and he upped the likelihood that I’d submit an entry for in his "Personal Excellence" project.

Which brings me to my own tip for personal excellence: 

Make Personal Excellence… personal

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When most people discover a book that really connects for them, they can’t put it down. Me? I can’t keep it picked up!

Contrary, I know. But sometimes an author’s words hit all the right buttons, and my mental machinery gets all wound up and excited. It starts kicking out so many of its own ideas that I’m compelled to put the book down, pick up a pen and notepad, and scribble madly.

Brain Rules is one of those books. It sparked so many thoughts that I had trouble focusing on the book itself. My attempts to focus on a proper review have been even trickier. [click to continue...]

Read Part 1

So. Where were we in the discussion of my personal computerized neuro-enlightenment madness? Oh yes, we were about to speculate on contributing factors: exactly how a new computer and online interaction may have brought on a burst of neural re-organization akin to enlightenment.

Here goes:

Sudden Exposure To New and Different Perspectives

I’d already had a pretty interesting mental reorganization as I learned basic DOS structure, and some early Visual Basic programming.

But accessing the Internet itself did more to broaden my perspectives, exposing me directly to people, ideas and cultures I’d otherwise never have encountered. I wasn’t just reading about them; I was interacting with people whose backgrounds spanned spanned generations, geography, income and educational levels. Mixed in was exposure to spiritual systems ranging from psychotic cults like Heaven’s Gate to traditional Buddhism.

Instead of looking on as a spectator, I was trying to put myself in these peoples shoes, to understand their perspectives and what made them tick. All that learning no doubt created a new neural pathway or two (thousand).

Removing Familiar Aspects Of Communication:

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