Category Archives: Brain Training

2016 – The Year of AI

Well the long festive season is over and I’m back at my desk  after a well deserved break and contemplating this New Year with renewed energy, vigour and excitement. This is going to be a great year for ideas and making new connections and sharing common visions to discover your purpose. Which leads me onto my first topic of the season and one which is going to make a lot of ripples in knowledge based industries.

Microsoft has hailed 2016 the “Year of AI,” according to its annual trend list. Microsoft asked 16 members of its technology and research team to forecast the biggest breakthroughs for 2016, and AI was the area generating the most excitement. Virtual assistants, conversation assistants, AI-enabled user interfaces and customer service AIs were some of the user cases described.

The tech giants see this era as an important step to  focus on artificial intelligence, and they’re predicting major breakthroughs in 2016 — we shall see more evidence of this technology’s rapid advancement from deceptive to disruptive growth phases as the year progresses..

In 2015, artificial intelligence went mainstream. Major tech companies including Google, Facebook, Amazon and Twitter made huge in roads into AI, almost all of technology research company predictions included AI, and declared that AI-driven technologies were the next big disruptor to enterprise software.  This makes it likely that in 2016, new inventions will increasingly come to market from companies discovering new ways to apply this wonderful technology versus building it. With game changers now having access to cost effective quality AI platforms to create new products, we’ll also likely see an explosion in new startups using AI.

Smart machines will assist employees being more productive, not replace them. Analytics industry leader, Tom Davenport, predicted that “smart leaders will realize that augmentation—combining smart humans with smart machines—is a better strategy than automation.”

Business leaders will be given the choice to use these intelligent vehicles so that AI sourced information has the option to present solutions and explain how they arrive at their answers to common problems and allow better, more efficient decisions be made as part of a companies growth.

AI-powered applications will start to infiltrate companies other than technology firms. Employees, teams and entire departments will champion process re-engineering efforts with these intelligent systems whether they realize it or not. As each individual app eliminates a task, employees will automate many of the mundane parts of their jobs and assemble their own stack of AI-powered apps. Teammates eager to be  competitive will follow, along with team managers who are looking to execute on cost-cutting efforts.

With innovation progressing rapidly within large organizations in sectors such as retail, finance and pharmaceutical will focus even more efforts on remaining competitive and discovering the next big thing by forming innovation hubs. Innovation laboratories have existed for some time, but in 2016, we’ll begin to see more resources devoted to innovation  and more technologies discovered in these think tanks actually implemented across different company functions and business lines.

2016 will be a big year for AI. But what is even more significant, 2016 will bring about a major shift in the perception of AI. It will cease to be an intimidating, hypothetical set of notions and theories and will be better understood and accepted as more people realize the advantages of AI to supplement what we do to make our lives even more rewarding.

To your Success in 2016

Steve

A Negativity-Free Day – Control Your Thoughts

Here’s a Brain Training Exercise take away for you this week : –

We all know that sound of the little voice in our head that has endless chatter going on about the world around us. Thoughts and reminders of the Past, Present & Future that bounce around all day long when there is a lack of focus or feeling of procrastination. They enter our head like little gremlins running around like wild coyotes.  Like ego drones we soak it up and are unconsciously captured & mesmerised to the negative side of news, views of others and water cooler chit chat going about our everyday chores & fall almost into a dream like state. I think you know what I mean having mentioned it in a previous post.

Well help is at hand..

A very transformative exercise I use to activate a clear mind is to go an entire day without saying anything negative to anyone …….

On your negativity-free day you should avoid stating anything negative about :
*Circumstances in your life
*Other People
*Observations you make about the world around you
*Yourself
….

A basic method I use for controlling what goes into one’s head is by nullifying your mind. – By what I call “No-Minding”.  You achieve this by composing yourself and empty your head completely of any thoughts for a short period of time; for instance start at 30 seconds and build up slowly to 5 minutes …then 15 minutes then 30 minutes thinking about absolutely nothing. Like a crystal clear pond of water. Try and control this process by blocking out any conscious feed or stimulus. eg – that car just drove past, fly on the wall, I must do my expenses, I’m hungry, what’s the time, why did he say that last night etc etc ..I think you get the gist!

Find a quiet place to do this where you will not be disturbed., I find early in the morning is best before anybody else has woken up. It gives you enough time to be on your own. It’s almost like a semi meditation. You may find it difficult to start ..this is normal. But persevere..as eventually you will find that by doing this your brain naturally tunes into all the good stuff going on around you and you have more control over the thoughts that benefit you.

One simple summary step is say to yourself — Does this thought help me towards my goals & desires or hinder me….observe them but don’t judge them …then change your focus ..disrupt the thought … observe nature … stay calm, hold positive thoughts and create no-mind..go back to thinking about nothing.

You’ll be surprised at the results and the source of clarity your mind enjoys.

After sometime I have found that I can control all thoughts for 60 minutes or more.

Give it a go & Try it !

To your successful mind.

 

Steve

Life Begins —————————–At The End of Your Comfort Zone

I love this one..its so true and yet most people just don’t get it .

The reason why is that it takes just as much effort to stay where your are …”Stuck”….. as it is to cross that eternal divide and make a change.

There’s a great meme you’ve probably seen this before – “Do what other people won’t so you can live like other people can’t” – This is so true ! Being an entrepreneur takes effort ..there’s no two ways around it. Effort in ….Freedom Out!

You expel just as much energy doing nothing and staying average as like everybody else ..and yet you’d be surprised that once you make the jump it becomes second nature and you end up using less energy to start something new. It’s like building a muscle …the more you exercise it the stronger it gets .

If you think of life as the journey towards our purpose, our true calling, is the fulfillment of our true potential.

Most of us live our lives within the limits that we have set for ourselves regarding what we are capable of achieving.

These limits are born out of fear, anxiety, social upbringing and staying with the pack. We dread what lies beyond what we already know. People are not even ready to imagine a situation where they overcome these fears & chase their dreams. They’re all to quick to find excuses as to why they can’t do something.

You need to get it into your head  that there is no human endeavour that is impossible for you.

You don’t need to always stand on the sidelines and admire those triathon runners( I used to be like this). You could be running it too. You can write a novel. You can do a speech and receive a standing applause from admired followers( I’ve done this). You can learn to fly an aircraft( Done it already)  ..you can start that business idea thats been knawing at you for years( yes do that too) ..  you can a make a million dollars …..Yes Definitely.

The first step is to step over the fear. Get out of your comfort zone. Everything you have is within you.

Most people live out their lives in their comfort zones. Afraid to change, afraid to step out, afraid of the unknown, they stay where they feel safe and where they know all the rules of the game.

The best way to beat this is to embrace change even before it comes knocking on your door.

When you realize that you’ve been in the comfort zone for too long, when you recognize that your growth is stagnating, when you realize that you have not done anything new or exciting with your life for the last year. That’s the moment you need to make the leap of faith. There is a famous quote by Theodore Roosevelt which sums it all up ;-

” Far better is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take ranks with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the grey twilight of mediocrity that knows neither victory nor defeat”

One of the best ways to avoid falling prey to the lure of comfort is to use it against itself. Be aware of the time when life seems to be too comfortable. Look at the situation with the understanding that you are capable of achieving anything.

Most of the time, what we call comfortable is what our mind conditions us to believe is comfortable. Most of the time, we settle in our comfort zones, we are settling for that mediocrity. Those boundaries that your mind constantly reminds you to not cross, those were placed there by your mind itself, and they do not in any way represent your potential.

And when you recognize this, and deliberately push at the limits you have set for yourself, you start seeing that there is a whole new sphere of life out there, that is far more personally rewarding than what you were satisfied with earlier.

Make changes enormous changes to your life. Learn where you want to take your life and move in that direction. Start with a few steps at first ..maybe by altering your daily routine …shake things up a bit by introducing an element of risk.  Do something everyday, each week that scares you …you’ll get a sense of feeling alive. I’m not suggesting you immediately go out & try sky diving… even though you’ll value life a whole lot more. But try things that raise your heart beat …go speak with a stranger, sprint to work instead of walk, drink water instead of coffee…… 

If that calls for a career change, do it. If that calls for a change in a relationship, do it. If that calls for a change in where you live, do it.

Make the changes that you were afraid to make all along.

Realize the limits you have placed upon yourself. Push them. Break them.

Let go of the limiting beliefs and thought patterns that don’t serve you in attaining your goals.

“Remember, what ever makes you comfortable… never lets you grow”.

To you all making a success of yourselves

 

Steve

Your Heads’ In The Clouds

This post will literally blow your mind …And I mean ….Literally!
It has been predicted recently that not far from now, our opportunity & capacity for learning and gaining knowledge will grow exponentially to stratospheric heights.

” In the 2030s,” said Ray Kurzweil( a brilliant scientist from Google), “we are going to send nano-robots into the brain (via capillaries) that will provide full immersion virtual reality from within the nervous system and will connect our neocortex to the cloud. Just like how we can wirelessly expand the power of our smartphones 10,000-fold in the cloud today, we’ll be able to expand our neocortex in the cloud.”
Having your head in the clouds” will no longer be a term used for ridiculing unrealistic thinking.

Just give a thought to it for a moment ……2030 is only 15 years away…
Directly plugging your brain into the internet? Upgrading your intelligence and memory capacity by orders of magnitude?
This post is about the staggering (and fascinating) consequences of that possible future.
The implications of a connected neocortex are quite literally unfathomable. As such, any list one can come up with will pale in contrast to reality… But here are a few suggested ideas to get the ball rolling.

Head-to-Head Communication
This will deliver a new level of human intimacy, where you can truly know what your lover, friend or child is feeling. Intimacy far beyond what we experience today by mere human verbal exchanges. Forget email, texting, phone calls, and so on – you’ll be able to send your thoughts to someone simply by thinking them.

Yahoo on the Brain – Instantaneous knowledge at the speed of thought!
You’ll have the ability to “know” anything you desire, at the moment you want to know it. You’ll have access to the world’s information at the tip of your neurons. You’ll be able to determine complecated maths formulae in seconds. You’ll be able to navigate the streets of any cities, naturally. You’ll be able to hop into a helicopter and fly it perfectly( no mean feat). You’ll be able to communicate in different languages effortlessly.

Scalable Intelligence
Just imagine that you’re in a bind and you need to solve a problem (rapidly). In the future world, you’ll be able to scale up the computational power of your brain on demand, 10x or 1,000x, 10,000X… in much the same way that algorithms today can spool up 1,000 processor cores on Web Servers.

Living in the Virtual World
If our brains can truly connect at high bandwidth, you will be able to circumvent our current sensory internal organs (eyes, ears, touch) to the point where brain’s sense of reality can be driven completely by a computer gaming engine – a multimedia world. Likewise, the connections would exist in the motor cortex of your brain as well. When you move your limbs, picture a corresponding set of virtual arms moving perfectly in the virtual world.

Extended Immune System
Ray goes onto suggest how we already have intelligent scientific devices, the size of blood cells that kill disease. They are called T-cells. They can recognize an adversary and attack it; In the future, nanorobots will be able to communicate wirelessly, download applications when new pathogens arrives, and attack cancer, cancer stem cells, bacteria, viruses, and all the disease agents. They can also work on metabolic illnesses like diabetes. They could also protect healthy levels of everything you need in the blood, including nutrients, and basically heal and fundamentally replace weakened organs.

Downloadable Expertise
The old derogatory saying “Jack of all trades, master of none.” Will be a thing of the past as we will become experts in everything – We’ll be able to do anything. Need to perform unexpected emergency surgery? Just download the ER doctor program. Need to learn a new foreign language? Download it. Want to repair your old car motor engine? Download the mechanic module. In fact, you probably won’t even need to download it (which takes up memory), you’ll probably just “stream” resources from the cloud.

Expanded and Searchable Memories
We’ll be able to always remember everything that ever happened to us (because we’ll store our memories in the cloud), and we’ll be able to search that memory database for useful information. When our memories will become searchable, we’ll also be able to make them contextual by cross-referencing our diaries, journeys, mediacal info, current news, weather conditions, and anything else that might be relevant to that particular moment in time.

A Higher-Order Existence
Ray talks about how a connected neocortex will bring humanity to a higher order of existence and complexity – expanding our palate for sensation, culture, humour, creativity, expression, and individuality. He says, “We’re going to be funnier. We’re going to be sexier. We’re going to be better at expressing loving sentiment. We’re going to add more levels to the hierarchy of brain modules and create deeper levels of expression. People will be able to explore very deeply some particular type of music in far greater degree than we can today. It’ll lead to far greater originality, not less.”

While this future may sound imaginary to many, let’s remember that exponential technologies are initially deceptive, before they become disruptive.
And today, there are many labs around the world working on molecular machinery, that allow us to edit our own genome, and brain-computer interfaces (through cortical implants and in the field of optogenetics).
So what if these fields of technological progress double every 18 months? In 15 years (2015 – 2030), we will have a 1,000-fold improvement over today. What does a future one thousand times better look like? Perhaps it’s what Ray predicts…
If this future becomes reality, connected humans are going to change everything…You’ll be able to fulfil your potential in every area of your life!
We need to discuss the consequences in order to make the right decisions now so that we are prepared for the long-term.
This is the sort of conversation that really lights my fire and one I’d like to explore further within a mastermind group. So come and join me.

To you all “slipping the surly bonds of earth” and soaring amongst the clouds

Steve

The Scourge of Negative News – – – – – No good for an Abundant Mind

I don’t subscribe to a newspaper or online news service and have’nt done for over 20 years. Even though I have been priviledged to have worked for some of the best newspapers & broadcast networks on the planet. I still think the FT( Financial Times) is the best newspaper in the world. The reason being I’ll come back to later.

Did you know that humans pay over 10x more attention to negative news than they do positive news. The media knows this and feeds us the same addictive content day in day out.
I’ve built up my own resistance to it by filtering out the headlines that grab your attention with that cerebral message of scarcity. I’ve become adept with a trained eye at filtering out only the good stuff that matters.

But this negativity …It’s like a drug , It’s so unhealthy… The Amygdala a small gland in your brain responsible for emotional reactions ( your in built early warning system)  responds to it like glue in a zombie like state. That whole feeling of overwhelm on scarcity, poverty, bad news, tragedy is what sells newspapers and we the public get suckered up into it.  This is not balanced news reporting and the Red Tops ( Tabloids) know this.

News networks are run by depressed stressed out executives that realise they are losing market share to highly competitive, disruptive media aggregators. Chasing the ever decreasing advertising dollar to prop up the negative merry go round.

Wouldn’t it be great to have a news service that reports nothing but positive news of abundance, innovation, science, achievement, etc without the spin. How do you think your Amygdala would  make you feel then … fantastic, great,  on top of the world, full of energy, self belief. Imagine a news network that reports wonderful stories of “goodness” that nourishes your mind. On subjects like Artificial Intelligence, Human Innovation, Robotics, the latest 3D printed mobile phone etc. The abundance of opportunity that lays around us. That’s why I hold the FT in high regard as it reports news in an unbias way and says it like it is.

What I’m trying to say here is don’t join the pack and fill your head with scarcity thinking and suffer the “procrastination trap” like everybody else ;  go get creative and nurture your mind. As the mind matters. Think about what you are putting into it. As Tony Robbins once said in one of his seminars. If you treat your mind like a garden “Do you want it full of weeds” or as a “landscaped masterpiece”.

Having an abundant mindset is going to get you out of the funnel of limitation. I can promise you that!

 

To your success.

 

Steve

 

 

The Secret to Innovation – Bad Ideas !

What do I hear you say …what on earth is Steve talking about ..

Hear me out just for a second here. There is a hypothetical soloution for new ideas.
Consider this …. you had meeting after meeting as a team bouncing ideas around the room to solve a problem and getting nowhere fast. Times ticking and you’re all feeling the pinch of the deadline looming on the horizon and the pressure is building. We’ve all been there. We’ve all done the brainstorming and then crash the ultimate in writers block hits you all and there is a general feeling of malaise of where do we go next to come up with a salient point that will stimulate momentum… That feeling of pressure to come up with “the right” idea to move forward  has vanished. And you’re all looking at one another with that blank look of dispair.

 

Well here’s a novel method to get back in the flow. Ask your panel / team / committee to come up with a crazy idea no matter how stupid or far fetched. It could be totally unrelated from the topic of discussion.

About a new type of beer from fig juice / sports shoe , food additive/ new fuel for cars run on sweet wrappers ..anything ..Get it out of your head and exercise those crazy brain muscles. As Tony Robbins has said in many of his seminars to change your mental state you need to move your body your physiology. Well think of it like this.. moving your brain to a different kind of tempo. It’s fun and could become part of a scheduled down time to keep you energised.

This action helps dispel the road blocks in your head and gets you going again.. It’s like a reboot for the brain…

Try it out next time you feel your creative wheels spinning ….take time out to reset your clock.

These are the type of topics I want to discuss to help nurture a new community

To your success

 

Steve