Archive for the 'High Performance' Category

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The Power of State

Published on 9 September, 2009 in event and High Performance. 2 Comments Tags: , .

Our next session for Awaken Your Genius will be next Wednesday night, 16 September. I will be presenting all new material. And I’d really like it if you could join us.

If you could remember a time when you were at your best, you might notice that you thought, felt and moved in a very specific way. Some people could call this a ‘genius state’ or a ‘flow state’ or ‘being in the zone’ – when your mind and body are helping you achieve at your best.

But sometimes, we’re not. Sometimes we’re in the “wrong” state. In fact, many of us spend a lot of time not being at our best.

What if we could change that? This time, I want to focus on “state”. We’re going to explore some exercises and techniques that can help get you out of an unresourceful state and into a state of mind that can help you perform at your best.

The importance of state

Published on 1 July, 2009 in High Performance. Closed Tags: , , .

Your state is very important. To learn well, you will want to be able to state your outcome, check on your internal state of mind, and your external state or your surroundings.

“State” refers to how you feel emotionally and how you are physically. Your biochemistry and your posture and your focus in a given moment.

With simple exercises we can get into better states so that you can think, feel and perform better.

This video clip was taken on 30 June, 2009, in Shanghai as part of Awaken Your Genius.

It starts mid-way through a split-attention task where participants read out the alphabet while lifting their arms in legs in specific ways as listed on the screen in front of them. This is an exercised specifically designed to help you get into a more resourceful state of mind.

What does a creative person do?

Published on 23 June, 2009 in High Performance. 5 Comments Tags: , , , .

Creative people do things differently. But what specifically? We mostly agree that creative people are willing to act unconventionally, that they are inquisitive, and that they are intuitive. But aren’t creative artists different from creative business people?

There are differences between domains. Here are some extra characteristics that Sternberg (1985) found to be important in the following domains:

Art: Imagination, Originality, Risk-taking

Business: Coming up with and exploring new ideas

Philosophy: Play and classifying new ideas

Physics: See order amid chaos, Inventiveness, Problem solving

These are really quite different, aren’t they! So what are you great at? How can you develop your unique skills?

Years ago, I found that I could survive on 4.5h sleep but…

Published on 18 June, 2009 in High Performance. Closed Tags: , .

Years ago, I found I could survive on 4.5 hours of sleep per night but that my creativity died. Seems that Jim Collins feels the same way http://is.gd/HCXE

It was while I was at university, and while I found that I could work hard enough to get some of my best academic results, I felt drained. Not that I couldn’t think – but just that I could only think within the rules. I couldn’t look beyond the rules, frameworks and paradigms that were presented to me, and I certainly couldn’t explore the connections between systems. So I went back to enjoying dreams.

Still, it was a worthwhile experiment!

(originally published on DanielSmith.info)

Cracking iPods at 22

Published on 13 February, 2009 in High Performance, Purpose and Science and Technology. 4 Comments Tags: .

This kid is a genius. When he was 15, he cracked the copy protection on DVDs, allowing millions of people to make backups and share DVDs around the world. Now, at 22, he’s cracked the Fairplay code that Apple have been using to try to preserve their monopolistic position in the music player market… it’s even better than an anti-trust suit against them!

You have to wonder what drives this kid… but you can be sure that it’s not the money!
Great work, DVD Jon!!! For the full story, have a look here…

Daniel Smith

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