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Let us think about 'Thinking'

By Anil K. Agrawal, Mentor

We all think!

Or, do we, really? And, who is doing the thinking?

In fact, our mind thinks. When I sit in meditation, my mind often goes in a thinking frenzy. When 'I' become aware of my mind's activity, I acknowledge it, and return to my meditation.

Am I thinking? No, my 'mind' is.

When 'I' think, I think deliberately — focused on a theme or a subject matter; in deliberate thinking, I have a purpose — I am primarily generating IDEAS.

Thought
Focused on a theme
with a purpose
Idea

What happens when two persons think together?

Thinking multiplies — thoughts expressed bounce each other's mind and trigger more thinking. This results in what is known as 'brainstorming'. Brainstorming refers to a deliberate thinking process focused on a theme or a topic, or on a desired outcome. Objective is to generate a lot of useful ideas to work with.

We can harness IDEAS [harvest, sift, and develop plans, and take action] of our teams and clients — ideas about how to increase revenues and profits, how to maintain the margins, how to cope with tough times, how to keep costs within reason, how to retain customers, how to solve problems, how to respond to changing market conditions, how to be one-up on competition, how to ..., how to ... ?

Seth Godin, in his book "Ideavirus" writes: "... ideas are driving the economy, ideas are making people rich and most important, ideas are changing the world ..."

And, Roger Von Oech, author of a 'creativity' book "A Whack on the Side of the Head: How you can be more creative?" asserts: "Either bemoan the fact that things aren't as easy as they used to be, or you can use your creative abilities to find new answers, new solutions, and new ideas ...."

Change is rooted in IDEAS!
Ideas are seeds for new solutions, innovation, improvements, and better outcomes.

Thinking and Creativity

Creativity is a matter of outcome-focused thinking that leads to ACTION — See the progression of thinking in the diagram below:

Thinking
Deliberate Thinking
Outcome-focused
Thinking
Thoughts
Ideas
Actions

Different levels of our thinking produce different output as seen in the following mindmaps — see how we can create desired results:

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