Achieving Excellence through Self-Actualization

Are you on the road to self-actualization. Are you striving to achieve excellence?

If you want to accelerate your self-actualization and achieve flow you should read on. Many people have found these two practices to be helpful on this vital journey!

1. Metacognition – thinking about your thinking (and then improving your thinking)
2. Intentional Brain Lateralization – being able to shift from left to right and back again (L-Mode – R-Mode shifting) when you want to

When you are skilled at these two practices and aligned with your strengths you will achieve flow routinely! And  you will be unstoppable! On to your own personal greatness! “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead.”

This post is about Brain Lateralization. Maybe I’ll post something about Meta-cognition in the future but until then you can read Are You On the Road to Greatness?

The Question

Yesterday I posed this question on linkedin and sent the question to many of my contacts and friends. The responses are pouring in. And even though I’m sure I’ll get more, I wanted to summarize them here now for your benefit:

Do you have any special ways that you shift from left brain to right brain (L-Mode to R-Mode) to help solve problems?

Details: I’m taking Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain to help my creative process and am able to go R-Mode easily. But I’m hoping I can set up some exercises to help others that are L-Mode dominate so they can practice going R-Mode. You can see my drawings at http://vitaljourney.org/tag/drawing/

Why You Should Care About Brain Lateralization

If you are unfamiliar with the Left – Right Brain (L-Mode, R-Mode) brain dominance concepts you might want to visit wikipedia and this site at MIT. And for a really great write up, Betty Edward’s book, The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain details the benefits of Right Brain thinking and is one of the best general explanations of Brain Lateralization.

We do know this:

• Most people are left brain thinkers (logical, analytical, verbal)
• Society tends to be oriented towards left brain thinking
• Solutions to complex problems require 1) left brain analysis of the problem (critical thinking) and left brain collection of information about the problem and potential solutions 2) right brain synthesis of the facts and data collected by the left brain and 3) right brain usage in the development of solutions
• Schools (K12), while acknowledging the importance of right brain thinking, tend to discourage right brain thinking
• Performance and visual artists (musicians, painters, sculptors, etc.) use the right brain extensively

And the kicker is that long term life satisfaction and happiness requires achievement of flow and when you are engaged in right brain thinking, you achieve flow. See the Dr. Martin Seligman’s video at the bottom of this post to learn more about long term happiness and flow.

Answers

And now for the answers. I have summarized and shortened some of the answers for brevity. Where I have permission I will highlight the person’s full name and blog URL.  My comments are noted as such below.

Cody

I’ve been using both sides of my brain since the time I started to really dig into the web… I would design with one app, and code in another. Constantly switching back and forth from Photoshop to vim. Color palettes to php… I think web developers/designers are folks that are forced to do this day in and day out.

Comment: I have to agree. My job as a web professional requires dramatic and sometimes extreme lateralization from left to right and back again.

Ann

Try the Whack on the Side of the Head books.

Tony

These days, I’m a professional photographer. Thus, my ability to switch from Left (managing the highly technical equipment of high end photography) to Right (to produce effective fashion and art) is crucial to my field. It’s understanding that the thought processes for the two are led by two different goals: The Left is lead by a desire for a define answer that is achieved through logical thinking while the Right is lead by emotions (my own and the “viewers’”). I have to switch from “technical solving” mode to “emotionally creative” mode in a split second and back again, sometimes even taking on tracks of thinking for both sides simultaneously.

How does one learn how to do this if not born with it? I have to train my assistants and other photographers to do this often. “Think” versus “Feel”. Think too much, you ruin the feeling. Feel too much, you have a hard time thinking and solving. Do both right and you’re brilliant. Again, I think that it must come from an understanding of how these things are different so that they are applied at the appropriate times and application. If I’m looking at art or creating something artistic, I must feel my way through it. How does it make me FEEL? If I need to solve a math problem, my feelings about it are totally irrelevant. I should follow a logical process in that event. So what do I suggest as practice for achieving such mental switching? Look at a lot of art and focus on how it makes you feel. Explore these feelings by thinking about the associations you are making to cause these feelings. You likely moving to Right and primed for creating something of your own. To make the trip back, freeze frame that mental mode and immediately look for something that must be solved logically and through a define process.

Here is an example that applies to me. I might open a fashion magazine or some form of artistic photography magazine and look at the images there. Right side: how does the image make me feel? How can I create something to evoke that same feeling? Left side: What equipment was used to make that image? What lighting and camera settings do I need to create that image?

Comment: I wanted to edit down Tony’s response but I left it whole because of the amount of useful information packed in his words.  Tony is a photographer who used to be a marketing expert and just picked up a camera one day and it felt natural. He is extraordinary in his talents.  When I worked with him years ago he was able to go extreme left and right. He continues that tradition.

Ami

Another R-brain exercise - sketch your non-dominant hand after taking one good look at it, then don’t look again til finished. Use a single unbroken line to do this.

Read the rest of this entry »

This is a continuation of a series of posts about learning to draw using the Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain concept. The last update was about drawing my first live model profile.

In the last two classes that concluded yesterday, we discussed how the Brain can interpret a small amount of detail and fill in the pieces, giving the viewer the ability to see the image intended by the artist.  Think R-Mode or right brain recognition of the image despite a lack of clear detail.  I’m not sure I said that in a clear way but an example will help.

Gustave Courbet a french realist painter in the 19th century, was known for one of his self-portraits that has informally been called the fisherman.  Note below the use of shadows and highlights and the seemingly small amount of information contained in the drawing. Yet, his self portrait is striking and memorable enough that many people recognize this painting, once they have been exposure to its beauty.

As an exercise in learning to draw with shadows and highlights we created a grounding (a dark shaded rectangle) using graphite and then began to erase and darken as needed. I “copied” Gustave’s famous painting upside down for 20 minutes or so and then flipped it over and added a little more detail. I worked about 10 more minutes and got to the drawing shown below.  When I set out on the exercise, I set a goal to draw as little as I can to see how quickly I could come up with a drawing that resembles the Fisherman. Or at least a drawing that can be recognized as a man in a hat with smoking a pipe.

I’m not sure my drawing look’s anything like Gustave’s but I do think it is a decent drawing given I had 30 minutes total in it, and it is my first highlight and shadow drawing.

At the conclusion of the class we started working on our self portrait. I have included an image of that drawing here for contrast.  This draft was done with about 30 minutes of drawing and a lot of set up time and juggling with the mirror and lighting.  In the next class we will spend 2 to 3 more hours on our self portrait.  So I do expect this to get a lot better. Lets hope so anyway!

I’m really enjoying the class and wish it would never end.  two more classes and then I’m done.  Hope to take the advanced colors class if it is taught in the summer.

The next article in this series is about drawing negative space.

This is a continuation of a series of posts about learning to draw using Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain concept. The last update was the draft version of this profile.

This is the final version of my first live profile. Of all the work I have done in the class so far, this is the drawing I’m most proud of. Within 20 minutes I had a likeness of Bill down on paper and after probably 1 and a half to 2 hours total, I arrived at this drawing.

When I first started drawing Bill my left brain wanted to stop me and kept saying this is too complicated and you don’t know where to begin. But then I was able to quiet the brain down, go to the basic unit of measure concept and mark the position of the back of the eye, the chin and the back of the ear. After that the right brain took over and and Bill started to appear. I’m now a very big supporter of the Drawing On the Right Side of the Brain concept.

All my drawing posts can be viewed here.

On to the Self-Portrait. Yahoo!!!!

This is a continuation of a series of posts about learning to draw using Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain concept. The last update was the simple profile post.

Last night I spent less than an hour drawing Bill. I still have more work to do on darkness and lightness. Given this is my first live profile I’m happy with it. I’m hoping to draw my family after the class is complete.

I’ll post the final version when its ready in a week or two.

This is a continuation of a prior Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain posts (Learning to Draw). See update 6 for my perspective drawing example.

So in the last class we practiced drawing a profile after learning some fascinating information about proportions and location of eyes, ears and more. Pretty cool stuff. Very Left-Brain information necessary to get the Right-Brain working artistically.

We practiced drawing a freehand copy of a profile called Madame X by John Singer Sargent .

Below is the image we used to freehand copy and then my copy. Still needs lots of work and you can see I moved a lot of lines around (the chin area especially) to try to get the proportion worked out.

The original Madame X by John Singer Sargent

And my Version

Tonight we are going to do live profiles of each other. Now that should be interesting.