This is a short post about the power of analogies.

Thinking about "I Have a Dream", I was thinking about the doing an analogy to update the speech.   This analogy consists of changing the topic of skin colour to the topic of economy of the country and how to link different economies to work together.  The idea is to reflect on this history of Martin Luther King fighting to end racism with the history of fighting to end poverty.  What elements of the speech, what elements of the process, what actions could be learnt from it?

Below there are some videos about Martin Luther King, the speech of Robert Kenedy after Martin Luther King had been killed and then some videos about Amnesty International and Cafod, connecting the poor to the powerful to finish with a video of the original Band Aid.  Maybe another analogy between any ordinary day and Christmas day?

Last Thursday, 28th January 2016 I was invited to a wonderful event with conferences and workshops in The Royal College of Psychiatrists about “Enabling Environments”.


As it is explained on their website:
“Good relationships promote well-being, but many organisations and groups fail to address this aspect of people’s lives. The Enabling Environments Award is a quality mark given to those who can demonstrate they are achieving an outstanding level of best practice in creating and sustaining a positive and effective social environment.”


As it mentions on its Standards Document:
“The Enabling Environments standards apply to a wide range of environments ranging from those providing health and social care, to criminal justice settings and education. They also apply to workplace settings and leisure facilities such as offices and gyms.”


Thinking about all these, I want to raise awareness about the importance this can have in all type of environments such as workplaces and family homes.  In an informal way, I want to develop a website called www.enablingenvironments.clubto contribute with suggestions that can help to increase these standards in a global level.  Something informal that anybody can contribute suggesting ideas they have applied to improve any of the particular standards (belonging, boundaries, communication, development, involvement, safety, structure, empowerment, leadership and openness).


The original title for this post was going to be totally different.  It was going to be a quotation from Albert Einstein: 
“The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.”
Then, I remember two different type of situations: One of the situations is when somebody ask you some question and tell you something like: “I love your aspect of being confused when I ask you a question” or other situations in which you are told “Don´t ask me these stupid questions!”.  In both situations, there is some type of process in my head in which I am thinking, I am asking questions to myself without being allowed to do it in the way I am more effective.  Sometimes I need to ask somebody a question that is really addressed to myself and that is way the other person feels annoyed as cannot give me an answer or doesn´t want to think about it.  Very interesting situations… is like a type of counselling in whichthe benefit is not on the answer of the other person, but on the opportunity that gives you to talk about something… and as you are talking you are thinking about it.


So, I want to talk about some useful tool I use called “Quora”.  It is a type of social media in which you can be asked questions about a topic of your choice.  In my case it is mainly about creative thinking.  After having answering several questions, I was inviting to post 10 questions, what I found very interesting.  Now, besides questions being sent to my email, I am also receiving answers to the questions I proposed, what is very engaging.


I have found this tool a very engaging way of continuing learning and thinking about any topic you  are particularly interested.  The opportunity to answer questions about the topic of your choice is an excellent way to become aware of your thoughts, to learn about things you can construct but you haven´t because of other distractions.  The reason why I love Quora is because while other social media can be more distracting, Quora is reminding you about a specific topic, focusing your attention on it from different angles.


Since I attended a conference from James Altucher, I became aware of the power of writing every day 10 ideas to improve yourself or somebody else or… anything (something that I do every day while travelling in The Tube) and the benefits of doing something about it or sharing it with somebody you want to help.  Now I am thinking about the possibility of not only writing 10 ideas about something every day, but also about the possibility of writing 10 questions about something.  Questioning is a very powerful tool to focus your attention and your action as it happens which questions such as “What is stopping you?” or after you give a reason of a consequence that could happen when you try something, then you ask again: “What would happen then?”
By forcing yourself to think about new questions, you open doors to have new thoughts about things you already know but you haven´t looked at them from these different angles and at the same time, to have the motivation for new initiatives.

I hope 2016 becomes a year in which parenting classes are pushed forward.
I am developing my own system to help parents of teens.  It is with sadness that every day I find people with poor problem solving skills, people who did not know there were other options to solve their problems… and what could be more useful than parents able to help children to learn how to solve any type of problem effectively?  How much confidence and hope can that bring to anybody?


Hopefully children have the proper parenting they deserve and they become healthy teens.  How to help parents to achieve this?  In my experience, parents need to help their children to learn to think.  This is as simple as helping them to see other options (or to look for them), think about the consequences in the short and long term, to be disciplined to commit to plans to achieve what they want, to be able to learn what they want because they know how to study and enjoy doing it, etc.


When I created www.learningmentor.org, my main purpose was to have a list of websites where people can learn things for free.  Regrettably, it is so difficult to access the wonderful educational programmes that sometimes are shown in the TV.  With the internet, again, it is so difficult sometimes to find the websites that can help you to learn what you want, the way you want.  Not only that, but to provide access to free software that children can create things with what they are learning, publish things, etc.  In our era of content marketing, everybody should use their educational years to find out the topics they are more interested and think how to combine them and present them in unique ways, in their own perspectives, in their own formats such as papers, books, comics, presentations, videos, etc.
I would suggest books such as “Reinventing education. A Thought Experiment by 21 authors” edited by Vincent Nolan and Gerard Darby, where among other things, it is promoted the need to encourage in children the desire to learn and teach children how to think.  When I createdwww.microworkshops.org my idea was to organise some videos about personal development that can motivate people towards their own improvement.
It is important to think about social change, about ways of life, about learning how to live in a society with so much consumption, so much publicity and social media…


It is not easy to change, to improve, unless you keep out of distractions.  That is why I have started a website called www.onlinegym.club, not thinking only about the physical health, but also about the mental, social, emotional, financial and spiritual health, and the importance of having some social media influence to remind us the need of healthy routines.  I am creating some more websites, such as www.professionaldevelopment.club, to help workers to be ready for their next move.  In a society with a high level of uncertainty, in which changes happen at any time, it is important to be ready for the next move.  You can move yourself or get ready for when the right time comes.


One of the projects in which I am more interested is on my other websitewww.thethinkingking.com. Through this website I would like to provide effective education (seminars for teens, facilitations for parents, innovation for employees and businesses).  Parents need to be able to compete, not only with the content of social media, but with the attraction and the time that they take away from children to think.  This means that parents have to be very effective in the way they help their children, not by just telling them what to do, but by listening carefully, asking the right questions, with the a helping attitude, in the right time, in a collaboratively exploring manner, humbly and trying to understand and learn, so that children can think about it (Is it not that same approach we would like from our children?).  In my own experience with a teenager that when he was 15 years old was a bit challenging, I was amazed by how using techniques learnt from being a facilitator, from using cognitive behavioural therapy and motivational interviewing, not only contributed to help the child to think better (what also lead to a sustainable improved behaviour), but also to change from having some type of discussions to having interesting dialogues based on ideas and thoughts, what lead myself to learn by thinking from other perspectives.  Some of my books explore this topic, specifically, I would recommend “Creative Thinking for Londoners.  Learning different things in different ways”.


When thinking about our social media and about computers, my thoughts are about how to change the programmes that some children have, the instructions they have learnt that lead to their own destruction, to their continue distraction, their lack of thinking time, forgetting they already have access to the tools to improve their lives.  We need to understand the long life possibilities of change and the enormous availability of resources that can be used to improve ourselves.  More important than that, to stimulate the desire to use the tools we have in our hands to improve ourselves and our society.

First published in www.miguelacha.com

Sometimes there are things that are combined in interesting ways…
Some of the topics I am thinking about, relate to analogies (as tool to think out of the box, creatively), the concept of introvert (defined by Susan Cain as people who are at the most capable when they´re in quieter environments), canvas tool (to think about a business model) and the power of networking (not mainly to sell, but as a way of listening, helping, learning and creating connexions).


Probably I will start by highlighting the benefits of networking to link with partners, clients and suppliers… and to develop relationships and support networks.
Thinking about introverts, as Susan Cain said in her Ted Talk:
“This is especially important when it comes to creativity and to productivity, because when psychologists look at the lives of the most creative people, what they find are people who are very good at exchanging ideas and advancing ideas, but who also have a serious streak of introversion in them.”
She mentions the collaboration between Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs to start Apple Computer and also how groups famously follow the opinions of the most dominant or charismatic person in the room, even though there's zero correlation between being the best talker and having the best ideas.  She also added:  “Stop the madness for constant group work. Just stop it.”
Susan Cain Ted Talk “The Power of Introverts”   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0KYU2j0TM4
Susan Cain website   http://www.quietrev.com/


Thinking about creativity, there are benefits and disadvantages when thinking individually or in group, ie. Groupthink(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groupthink) or Anchoring(http://www.fastcompany.com/3033567/agendas/brainstorming-doesnt-work-try-this-technique-instead).
I have always found analogies a very useful tool to innovate (http://www.oceansofexcellence.com/synectics-creative-connection-making/)
There are many useful ways to use analogies, especially trying to relate things  that are unrelated (http://www.tallerdecreatividad.com/blog/analogies-between-books-and-friends).  https://www.mycoted.com/Analogies
Finally, I love the idea of canvas for business model generation:http://www.businessmodelgeneration.com/downloads/business_model_canvas_poster.pdf


My suggestion is to organise networking events in which people can attend with their own canvas.  They will meet with somebody who has his/her own canvas.  It is expected that they belong to a different type of business or they should look for somebody else.
Then, the idea is to share item by item of the canvas (for example, each of the customer segments respectively), in a type of analogy activity in which there is a discussion about what would happen if one of the individuals would have as a segment market, the same segment market of the other business (after this discussion, the next discussion will be the opposite, if the other individual would choose to have the segment market of the other).  By exchanging ideas from a different type of business, they force themselves to think from another perspective, plus having some opinions from the person who is in the other business.  So, the idea is to make an effort of thinking from the other perspective and allowing permission to think about a variety of options and analyse what would happen. Also trying to help the other person by suggesting ideas.
  The rules are not fixed, but it could be interesting to change only one item of the canvas at a time, to see how it would affect the other items of the canvas.  At the same time, it might not be possible to use exactly the same item of the other business, but it can trigger other types of ideas, other options.

First published on www.miguelacha.com

One of the benefits of living in London is that you can attend many events where you can learn things at the same time you are entertained.  It is a mix between networking and learning.

There are many training sessions, seminars, workshops, etc. where you can learn tips useful for many different areas of life, for personal and professional development.

Always there is an opportunity to re-think about your projects, ideas, etc.  
From the creative point of view, I tend to search for questions that trigger new thoughts.  In the case of yesterday´s session with Simone Vincenzi, I found among others:
​

• How to balance between being yourself and professional image?
• How can I create something that is easy to understand for my clients?
• How to divide whatever I am presenting, teaching, etc. in 3 parts, as it will be easily memorable?
• What kind of value can I give to my customers?

Besides, we learnt many other things: 4 pilars of business (vision, target client, packages and ability to sell the product and rate your clarity-confidence on them), productisation...  It was very clever the way of linking your life, the most important things you have achieved (between 3 to 7) to generate a product that is "from your heart".

Besides the fact that his seminar is very useful (always there is something easy and practical to learn),  I enjoyed the "pressure factor" in which I felt as in little time you had to think about creating something, what is a first draft of something that you take away with you.

Thank you Simone!!!!!

By the way, here is the link to his book:

69 Buzzing Question to turn your life Upside-Down: Change Your Life Asking Better Questions