Busting the Mental Myths

Facilitators, trainers and educators are highly influential people, and what we spout in class or in a coaching session can be taken at face value. So, we have a humongous responsibility to be truthful, factual and exact.

Yesterday, I received from Douglas O’Loughlin, author of Facilitating Transformation this article.

This raised an alarm bell in me: where in the world did we get the source of our facts? It is so easy to ramble on like a world almanac with interesting bits and bytes of facts and figures, however, are we being exact? Do we test our facts like the way Wikipedia challenges us to compliantly, authenticate and verify our facts? Of the three myths, I was particularly amused, in an annoyingly sort of way with this: We Use Less Than 10 percent of Our Brain.

Do we really?

Who came up with this research number? 10 percent is a whole number, and what happened to the additional decimals behind it. I’m sure that our brain is a work-in-progress, akin to a beta version with an expanding RAM and memory space.10 percent referral fee is moderate, yet for my potential, 10 percent 'brain power' is relatively, short-changing to my clients, those around me, and myself. My take on that is, less than 10 percent (or whatever amount that you give your brain credit for) of what we think or do is within conscious learning or control. The remainder of our brain prowess - 90 percent, or so - is governed by unconscious brain processes. I insist that we can enhance our intellect and intelligence – based, of course, on Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences.

The way to enhance your intellectual currency is: Use your brain for a change! Ask different questions. Explore. Learn. Discover. Disagree. Confirm. Validate. Verify. Enhance. Refute. Challenge.

Can you give more of your brainpower, intellect, intelligence and intuition in your profession? How do you become more productive when you do not fully commit to using your brain?

There is also a corollary to this myth – that we are right- or left-brain dominant. We are whole-brained. Full stop. The corpus callosum is then bridge/causeway between the two cerebral hemispheres. Why tell people that you are only half-a-brain? No, if we multiply ninety percent of that to half a brain, then we get 5%. The math is not optimistic, and the odds of getting creative will be severely lessened.

You have a nice bus (brain), but who’s driving your bus? Just a thought.