Quote of the Month: "The coward dies a thousand deaths, the brave man...only five hundred." -Meredith Willson

Cool Research of the Month: How an ice cream cone led to the discovery of mirror neurons.

While researching one of my favorite topics, how to use stories in a business context, I came across an interesting story about the discovery of mirror neurons. Dr. Giacomo Rizzolatti of the University of Parma, Italy, was studying the specific brain neurons that macaque monkeys use to grasp their food. The researchers had a detector buried in the brain of the monkey that would set off a buzzer when the neuron was stimulated by the hand grasping something. One day, a lab assistant walked in from lunch eating an ice cream cone and the monkey's buzzer began to sound. The monkey's brain wasn't just responding to his emotional response to the ice cream cone, or the desire for the ice cream cone, it was responding as if he (the monkey) were closing his hand around the ice cream cone. Further investigation in the lab at Parma and other labs revealed the existence of mirror neurons and their importance for primate and human learning. This is one of the ways we learn, by observing others, and having our brains mimic the actions we observe.

Source: The Elements of Persuasion: Use Storytelling to Pitch Better, Sell Faster and Win More Business,
by Richard Maxwell and Robert Dickman, NY: HarperCollins, 2007.

Handout of the Month:
As usual, you have my permission to copy this handout and distribute it. If you want to  use it in commercial activities (i.e., anything from which you make money), contact me for special permission.

Bill O'Hanlon, M.S., Possibilities, 223 N. Guadalupe #278, Santa Fe, NM 87501
PossiBill@aol.com, www.billohanlon.com

With the discovery of mirror neurons, we have learned that not
just infants learn by modeling. Something in our brains (and perhaps all over our bodies) responds with similar neuronal patterns when we
observe someone else performing some action or feeling some emotion.

You can use this to your advantage when you want to learn something new.

Hang around and observe people who are doing what you would like to learn. Watch videos or screenshots of them doing the task or actions involved in what you want to learn. Here's some hints.

Determine what you would like to learn or master
Get as specific or general as you'd like
It might be that you want to learn to ski; or it might be that you want to learn how to create an e-book

Find someone who is good at what you'd like to learn, preferably someone who has mastered the art or skill you seek
It's best to be able to observe the person live, but if there is no one available to observe live, you can find someone you can access at a distance through video or computer

Watch and listen to them doing the skill or task you seek to learn
This process involves directly observing what the person or people are doing or have done rather than relying on them talking about what they do, so find a way to observe them during or after the action or task. The point here is not to analyze what they are doing or explain it to yourself, but just observe attentively.

Then go do what you have observed them doing
Obviously there are some tasks and skills that require much more preparation than this, but for many things, just plunging ahead after some observation will work.

Then go back and observe some more after you have done the task or action for a time
Some time ago, there was an experiment that showed that chess masters could remember chess piece positions much better than the average person when they were shown the board for a very short time and asked to recreate it. But, when the pieces were put on the board in a way that would never occur during a game of chess, chess masters were no better than  others. This pointed to the idea that chess masters were not remembering individual positions for chess pieces but patterns on the board.

When one does something for a time and gets better at it, one usually begins to discern patterns that weren't apparent when they were novices. So, after you discover the first level of patterns, go back and observe some more with your new level of acuity and pattern recognition. This may help you move to the next level.

Then go practice the skill or action again
Then seek out higher and higher levels of practitioners or masters. These days, with the proliferation of videos on most topics, there should be lots of material to study.

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