Successful Blog

Thinking about How We Think

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How Nice of You to Ask!

The email came yesterday. I smiled hugely when I read it. What a gift! What a fine idea! Talk about something that is my passion! Here was a question on one of my favorite topics. We could explore this one for days.

The email said . . .

Do you invite or encourage ideas for posts? If so, I have a thought/question, a definitive answer to which I haven’t found anywhere:

How do people think? Well, to be more specific, does one use a language to think and form ideas? Or is it the result of a juxtaposition of experiences, facts and figures that enable one to think? Or is it an imagery without words in any language that helps you make a decision? What if one is fluent in three languages?

Well, the basic question is something like: When arriving at a decision, do you use words in your head?

Thank you, Zackman!

The short answer is that we all assemble our thoughts and ideas in different ways. So before we get to far into how it all works — left brain and right, young children, adults, and folks past their prine — let’s start by describing to each other the amazing ways our minds process words and pictures to bring us to the combinations of information that we call ideas.

Reflect for a while. Then would you write a few words about how an important, special, and fully thought idea comes to you?

I’ll write how it happens for me in the comment box. Once you read that, I suspect that you’ll have plenty of room and reason to write how it happens for you.

–ME Liz” Strauss
Behind every successful business is an outstanding manager –The Perfect Virtual Manager.

Related
Inside Out Thinking: Catching Ideas Coming In and Going Out
5 +1 Whole Brain Steps to Believable Strategic Goals OR Find Your Bliss Without Wasting Time

The Blog Herald: Flying Cars Are Unlikely

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Did They Promise You Flying Cars Too?

When I first got to the Internet, I unconsciously tried to give everything a place, north, south, east, west. Being visual, I still find myself, thinking about people’s blogs and websites on a map of the world in my head. But that’s only half of the story.

Like any 3-D company — building and people — that I might drive to, the Internet is a place, but it’s also the people that live, work, and play every day here.

However, we have to remember that the two Internets — the place and the people — don’t sit on a world map or follow 3-D rules as the two companies in the physical world we are used to. Doc Searls says it well in his notes on the wrap up summary by Karim Lekhani at the Internet & Society 2007 Conference.

Read the whole feature in today’s Blog Herald by clicking the logo.

The Blog Herald

It’s about blogging and real life.
–ME “Liz” Strauss

Related articles
Liz Strauss at The Blog Herald, The Blogging Times, and Who’s One in a Million?

The Second Submissions: What’s Your Blogging Metaphor?

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The Metaphor Project: Wow! More!

The next bunch of submissions are in, and like the first batch, they’re colorful creative and inspiring. They show the individuality of each blog and each blog author, while at the same time they show what we all have in common.

It’s such fun reading all of the submissions to The “What’s Your Blogging Metaphor?” Group Writing Project. Some great blog writers have taken on this challenge. Again, the creativity is reflected in the titles! Check this new batch out and pass them along to your readers. The more ways we look at blogging the better we’ll be able to explain it when we need to.

Let’s find some more.

Because this project spread so quickly and not all links are making their way to me, if you’ve written a metaphor and you’re not on the list, please email me a link. If you’ve already done that before 10:00 on June 4, please forgive me and send it again. (I had dental surgery yesterday . . .)

Be a Part of the Project

So, what’s your blogging metaphor? Join the project. There’s still time to be a part

I’ve extended the list to 10pm Chicago time (GMT-6hrs.) June 11th the Monday I return from NYC. So you have plenty of time to take part.

Here’s the original post for the background — the whats and the hows.

C’mon tell us. How would you explain blogging to someone who knew nothing about it? What’s your blogging metaphor?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Check out the Work with Liz!! page in the sidebar.

Change the World: One World-Sized Idea

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Are We Afraid We Would Make a Difference?

changetheworld8

A lucky part of being who and where I am is that I get have conversations about people’s passions and dreams for the future. I hear their heads describing their skills and talents. I hear their hearts explaining how they long to follow their calling.

The wish is always there, often unspoken — sometimes from fear of it, sometimes from a lack of ownership.

Yesterday, I had a conversation with a young man. He had some idea of his future, but not yet a whole one. He asked my experience. I said is that, if he were going to make one mistake, I suspected that he would not think big enough.

“Not think big enough,” he pondered that phrase.

“Yes, I don’t think I’ve heard anyone think too big for years, maybe forever.”
He asked for more. I elaborated in this way.

We make our ideas smaller by thinking we weren’t meant to do something. Other folks were meant to change things. We were meant to live with them. Why do we argue for that? Isn’t the opposite an equally valid argument?

Why do we shy away from what we long to be doing?

Are we afraid that we actually could make a difference?

Nelson Mandela knows.

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.

We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God.

Your playing small doesn’t serve the world. There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.

It’s not just in some of us, it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

Ghandhi
Mother Teresa
Martin Luther King

They were each one person with a refusal to follow their fear.

Your playing small doesn’t serve the world.

One person can change the world with belief in a world-sized idea.

This is not talk. I truly do . . . plan . . .. to . . . Change the World.

With capital letters.

Why not me? Why not you? Why not all of us?

We can change the world — just like that.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Mandela’s speech was written by Marianne Williamson.

Starbucker’s Meme

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What Can I Do? He Danced!

When I’m a speaker at an event and the emcee asks me to do something for him, I naturally give him my attention. When he’s the Terry Starbucker co-founder of SOBCon, one of two guys who handled so many things through the event planning and details, I make sure that my attention is unwavering.

Ah but, when you know that Terry is the famous half-fuller, the guy who danced and sang at the conference, ah then, ah then, that’s an even bigger story. Then, dear readers, attention is too small a word. When the half-fuller guy comes calling to say “Liz, how full is your glass?” I have no other option, but to tell him and to answer to the best of my abilities.

handpainted champagne flute

These are the questions Terry Starbucker asked me.

What’s in Your Glass (The Starbucker Meme)?

  1. How full is your glass?

    2. My glass is completely full. There’s no question about that.

  2. What kind of glass is it?

    3. It’s a hand-painted French champagne flute, lovely and light to the hand.

  3. What’s in the glass?

    4. A nice, sparkly French champagne I enjoy on occasion.

  4. Reasons for #1, #2, and #3

    5. All of the above go together so I’ll do my reasons this way. Champagine is light and effervescent, celebratory. It’s a drink of positivity. It’s about hope, new beginnings and I’ve got a new beginning I’ll be announcing soon. When I reached a certain age, my father once said to me, “You can drink all that you like, but don’t get drunk.” He followed that with a smile and said, “Do you know what that means? That means you can’t drink all that you like.” Then he smiled again.

I smiled so sweetly right back at him, and gave this reply, “Aw, Daddy, I thought for sure you meant just drink something incredibily expensive so that I don’t have the money to get drunk.”

Some other who might like a chance to take a creative drink. David, Wendy, Nick, and Billy. Don’t forget to link back to that half-fuller man. 🙂

–ME “Liz” Strauss