PAY ATTENTION! Firing and Wiring

Today I asked my muse to make sense of some of the seemingly unrelated material I have read, watched and thought about lately.  Here goes -

I was watching a video and reading articles on the Nicabm site (National Institute for the Clinical Application of Behavioral Medicine) and I became curious about Daniel Siegel's thoughts on paying attention.  This topic always interests me as an educator, coach and - well, a person.  Would you agree that paying attention can improve the quality of all sorts of activities, including friendships and family relations?  I find this to be true, although plenty of people are willing to excuse others for not paying attention to them.  Perhaps this is a "gimmie" so we'll be excused when we need one.

Siegel made it simple in his video: "Neurons that fire together, wire together."  We have daily opportunities to change our brains neurologically, if we'll concentrate long enough to allow our neurological system to respond to the content we are inputting.  Focusing everyday on what we say is important to us, how we prefer to behave and how and to what we respond to is a discipline that brain craves for growth.

Not only does this have personal implications, but as a leader of teams or musical ensembles, it could mean that getting everyone to pay attention simultaneously and consistently will change the dynamics of the entire team going forward.  It makes sense that creating some similar wiring affords us better odds that we will move in concert.  (Please) PAY ATTENTION, therefore, becomes more than just a request for obedience, but a call for mutual understanding.

That takes me to another current thought, which does apparently connect to the first: the overemphasis and demand for obedience, especially in our schools.  Sucking off the tit of obedience for thirteen years will not create the strong brain wiring necessary to navigate our complicated 21st century world, but paying attention will.  This may sound like semantics, but I advocate we motivate students (or team members) to pay attention rather than demanding obedience.  We must give our students compelling reasons to focus their precious attention, creating relevance and constant connections for strong brain synapses.  The case for obedience "so they'll get what we're teaching" is weak.  We all know we can appear obedient without actually engaging.  (Quiet does not equal learning.)

So that's a bit of thought congealing from me today - along with watching Streisand phone one in on her new movie Guilt Trip; although my brain couldn't retain the title 24 hours later and I had to look it up (inject obvious reason here: ______)  Football?  Yes, that too.  I think the Packers defense could have payed more attention to the SF quarterback running at will all over the field.
 
From my brain wiring to yours, I leave you with: Let's Pay Attention - our brains are counting on us!

Change is Inevitable and So Are We

Well it's been a while since I've been on here blogging.  I thought I would blog twice a week or at least once for a good long time, but after I lost my Grandma, I lost my mojo and then the holidays hit.  I don't think I'm letting lots of people down, but this was an exercise in communicating that I promised to myself, so I'm back.  My holiday vacation is almost over and so is my blogging break.

What I want to discuss today is growth.  NPR recently featured the work of Daniel Gilbert from Harvard who became curious about why we think we will be essentially the same person tomorrow or even 10 years from now.  The fact is, we almost all change and more than we ever predict. For some reason, we keep thinking that although we can recognize that we have grown up, grown wiser, more patient, etc., we usually consider where we are right now to be the pinnacle of that growth and rarely predict much, if any, further growth.

So I thought about this and it is much easier to reflect and accept the changes in ourselves than predict what we will become.  What I can consider however, is what I am aspiring to be and although there are lots of wishes and things I could put on a list, the essence of what I aspire to change in my future is being connected to my source and love on a daily basis; to stay grounded to my best self and avoid reacting to pointless drama.

I don't want to just believe in nonviolence, I want to be an active participant in helping others steer away from verbal and physical violence as the answer to their problems.  I don't want to just give to the Brady campaign for reasonable gun laws, I want to participate in the process that will bring an end to senseless firearm deaths.  I don't want to just hope that more women get involved in state and national politics, I want to participate in them getting elected.  I don't think it's unreasonable to want our children to have food to eat everyday, access to health care and a safe and productive education. 

I expect and plan to "grow" into these issues so when I look back in ten years, I will be different than I am today . . . and according to Daniel Gilbert, I shouldn't be surprised.  What will I have to change in myself to realize these changes?  I will have to say "yes" to growth opportunities and "no" to the safety of the predictable.  I expect more time management discipline of myself.  I pray for more compassionate responses, creativity and less mind-wandering.  I expect to take my life seriously AND remember to have more fun (that one's for Gram.)

How have you changed in the last 10 years?  What do you expect of yourself in the next ten?

This F-Word

Nope, not the 4-letter F word (I know that's what you're thinking); I'm talking about the 5-letter word we need everyday - FOCUS!

When we were younger you might remember getting "Focus!" yelled at you by a parent, a teacher or a coach.  "Stop talking and focus."  "What are you doing?  Stay focused!"   I'm  suggesting now that we choose to whisper this word to ourselves, "shhhh . . . stay still . . . focus."

There are so many distractions in our daily lives that we must make the commitment to improving our focus if we stand a chance of getting significant work done - not once in a while, but everyday.  Our phones beep and sing and ring at us, our email "blings" you've got another new email, here comes an instant message, a tweet and on and on.

Ironically, I've resorted to using the rain app on my phone to drown out the noise when I just want to focus on what I'm working on, reading or God forbid, resting.  Focus takes intention and practice - special thanks to my clarinet days; I thought I was practicing scales and difficult passages, but really I was practicing how to Focus. 

It helps to practice focusing in our childhood years, but improving our focus doesn't take buying an expensive instrument or taking a course - it takes committing time to one thing at a time and sticking to that commitment, despite the incoming distractions.

Besides the obvious tasks at work and needs of our home environment, there are lots of daily applications for focus.  Some I suggest are writing, meditating and reading.  When instructing young leaders, I emphasize focused listening - something that can be done haphazardly or with a high level of focus and intent.  Also, I'd appreciate it if some of you would focus more as you drive (you know who you are)!

Focus doesn't have to be the bad F-word and we don't need it yelled at us commando style.  Commit to improving your ability to focus without caving to distractions, focus on extending your ability to focus for longer periods of time, and to really enjoy the process, focus intently on challenges that matter to you, those tasks that make a difference for yourself and others.

Shhh . . . stay still . . . focus.

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