The Gift in You: Discovering New Life Through Gifts Hidden in Your Mind (12 page)

You become someone who is able to:

• plan
  

• strategize
  

• imagine
  

• listen
  

• reason
  

• guide
  

• reflect
  

• follow
  

• evaluate
  

• intellectualize
  

• analyze
  

• actualize
  

• consider
  

• create
  

And when you can do all of the above well (most of the time!) you will become a good:

• leader
  

• parent
  

• follower
  

• friend
  

• educator
  

• spouse
  

• manager
  

• professional
  

• Anything you want to be!
  

• In other words, you will be a success!
  

Now here are some guidelines to help you harness the power of your gift.

Intrapersonal Thinking

If the Intrapersonal type of thought is your dominant thinking, you think deeply inside yourself. You build memory through being given quiet time to evaluate the knowledge you are receiving. You don't work well in a group or through discussions with others. You won't cope well in conventional learning environments.

You can enhance your Intrapersonal thinking when you:

• Develop your self-awareness by listening to and becoming aware of what you are thinking.
  

• Analyze your intuition when it has proven to be correct.
  

• Develop your senses, which increases your awareness.
  

• Have quiet time alone.
  

• Write down your dreams.
  

• Associate new and unique ideas with old ideas.
  

• See things from different points of view.
  

• Respond as fully as you can to aesthetically appealing objects.
  

• Solve problems and find solutions.
  

• Always see a situation as a challenge, no matter how bad, and find solutions to solve it.
  

• Be honest with yourself.
  

• Make the effort to listen deeply to others and to what they are really trying to say.
  

• Use the 5 Step Switch On Your Brain™ Learning Process (see the Recommended Reading for this program).
  

Interpersonal Thinking

If the Interpersonal type of thinking is dominant, then you think by:

• Bouncing ideas off other people.
  

• Building memory through interactive discussion with others.
  

• You will cope well in a conventional school or learning environment that allows sufficient time for talking to others.
  

You can enhance your Interpersonal thinking when you:

• Do group work.
  

• Retell stories or tales.
  

• Use a thesaurus.
  

• Practice involving a group in your presentation or lesson and tuning into others.
  

• Practice making people feel at ease in challenging situations.
  

• Spend time with people.
  

• Listen without interrupting and planning your own response.
  

• Listen twice as much as you talk.
  

• Put yourself in another’s position and try to think how they think.
  

• Take a presentation skills course.
  

• Play “What if?” games.
  

• Take the time to coach or mentor others in something you are good at.
  

• Use the 5 Step Switch On Your Brain™ Learning Process.
  

Linguistic Thinking

If your Linguistic type of thinking is dominant, you build memory through words - spoken and written. You need to talk, ask questions, repeat statements and write down thoughts while learning and concentrating.

It is true that no one form of thinking is more important than another, but language is a universal means of communication and we all benefit by developing this form of intelligence and taking advantage of it.

The interesting fact about this form of intelligence is that it is bright and strong in all of us - the proof is that we learned to speak before we had a single formal lesson. The problem for many of us is that after this first fantastic burst of learning as babies and toddlers, our development of this intelligence can slow down. This might happen because at school we may become bored and lose interest in learning when we are forced to learn in ways that don't come naturally to us.

Your Linguistic type of thinking is based on the ability to play with the 26 letters of the alphabet, as they are the foundation of language. The more you increase your capacity to juggle them, the more you will see the relationship between them and the more intelligent you will be.

You enhance your Linguistic thinking when you:

• Read, read and read some more. This is the quickest and most effective way of building Linguistic thinking. Read a variety of literature, from the newspaper to novels, news magazines and even comics! Read across a variety of different subjects.
  

• Increase your vocabulary by learning one new word a day. Within a year, you will have increased your vocabulary by 365 words. Practice using these words in different contexts.
  

• Apply effective reading techniques to improve your concentration and comprehension.
  

• Play word games like Trivial
  Purst
  , Scrabble,
  Cluedo
  and General Knowledge.
  

• Do crossword puzzles.
  

• Learn a new language.
  

• Use the 5 Step Switch On Your Brain™ Learning Process.
  

Logical/Mathematical Thinking
 

If your Logical/Mathematical pillar is strongest, you think by reasoning. You build memory through analyzing. You need to quantify and ask questions until you understand. You will cope well in conventional schools or learning environments because their educational system is based heavily on this type of thinking.

You enhance your Logical/Mathematical thinking when you:

• Practice estimating.
  

• Practice remembering statistics, for example, on your favorite sports team.
  

• Become aware of how you use numbers automatically on a daily basis. For example, how much time is left till lunch or before work is over etc.
  

• Use numbers to rank, organize and prioritize other numbers.
  

• Play mental calculation games. For example, if you are a passenger in a car, add up the numbers you see on registration plates of other vehicles on the road.
  

• Use your calculator as a training device and not a crutch!
  

• Break apart information you want to remember.
  

• Play games that are an effective “mind sport,” such as Backgammon, Chess or Bridge.
  

• Make stories with numbers – let them talk to you.
  

• Use the 5 Step Switch On Your Brain™ Learning Process.
  

Kinesthetic Thinking
 

If the Kinesthetic type of thought dominates, then you will think in movement and through your senses. You build memory through sensory perceptions and movement. You essentially think by seeing, touching and moving materials, which requires externalizing your mental processes. You must be allowed to see, feel, hear, touch, manipulate and move when learning and concentrating, or the information will not absorb into your brain. This form of externalized thinking has several advantages. The sensory information literally provides "food for thought." In addition, you experience a positive sense of action in actually doing something.

Conventional schooling environments make learning especially difficult, if not impossible for you to achieve. They can often be hellish. However, some simple changes will make all the difference.

For example, you enhance your Kinesthetic thinking when you:

• Sit on a ball instead of a chair when learning.
  

• Stretch frequently.
  

• Do drama, including formal theater, role-play and simulations.
  

• Do creative movement, dance and stretching routines.
  

• Engage in small manipulative tasks, for example, using flash cards and stamps.
  

• Make things.
  

• Play games such as scavenger hunts and Twister.
  

• Learn to play or make a musical instrument.
  

• Take up pottery or woodcarving.
  

• Use the 5 Step Switch On Your Brain™ Learning Process.
  

Musical Thinking
 

If the Musical type of thinking is dominant, you think via rhythm, melodies and intuition. You build memory through rhythm and must be allowed to create this in any situation where you are learning and concentrating. Not surprisingly, this makes conventional school environments less than optimal for you. Some schools may think they are better than others, simply because they offer Music as a subject. That misses the point of Geodesic Learning in more ways than one and mostly because it restricts the stimulation of Musical intelligence to one session.

The mere existence of music lessons does not mean that Musical thinking is properly stimulated in learners. The truth is that few schools pay much attention to how music can enhance learning in all subject areas and few schools would think of having the right kind of music in the background for many different types of learning situations.

Yet there is a powerful, scientifically established link between music and our emotions that is responsible for memory building, both strong and weak. The strong emotional component of music allows it to add depth to our perceptions.

It is true that there are critical ages for developing sensitivity to sound and pitch, which are between the ages of four and six. During this time, musical stimulation can provide the basis for future musical ability.
Iou
have missed these, it doesn't mean that music is lost to you forever. You don't have to go on to be a budding Mozart or even a rock star to use your Musical intelligence.

You enhance your Musical type of thinking when you:

• Play classical music in the background when working.
  

• Have musical instruments (or make them) available and play them periodically.
  

• Do aerobic routines to music.
  

• Tap a rhythm with your feet in time to your fingers typing on the computer.
  

• Sing or hum while you work, even if it’s under your breath so as not to disturb others.
  

• Read poetry.
  

• Pretend you are a disc jockey while you learn or work.
  

• Be aware of using inflection in your voice and notice the inflection in other people’s voices.
  

• Make an effort to read body language.
  

• Listen to your intuition.
  

• Use the 5 Step Switch On Your Brain™ Learning Process.
  

Visual/Spatial Thinking
 

If your Visual/Spatial type of thinking is dominant, you think in images and pictures. You build memory through imagery and imagination and need to imagine and visualize while learning and concentrating.

You may not have fared that well in traditional schools in the past. Luckily for you, though, conventional educational environments have begun using more visual and spatial elements in learning. It remains true, though, that ordinary classroom situations are not ideal learning environments for you. You may find looking at someone while concentrating and learning very distracting, so you can't learn optimally just by sitting still and listening to an educator or lecturer. Your instinctive way of thinking almost literally abandons language and enters into abstract modes of thought. It involves various related skills, such as visual discrimination, recognition, projection, mental imagery, spatial reasoning and image manipulation.