Brain Food

There once was an Indian medicine man who made hunting maps for his tribe. When game got sparse, he'd put a piece of fresh leather in the sun to dry. Then he'd say a few prayers, fold and twist it, and then smooth it out. The rawhide was now etched with lines. He marked some reference points, and a new map was created. When the hunters followed the map's newly defined trails, they usually discovered abundant game. Moral: by letting the rawhide's random folds represent trails, he pointed the hunters to places they had not looked. Stimulate your thinking in a similar way. Open a dictionary or any book and pick a word at random. How does it relate to what you're doing? What associations can you make? How does it shed light on what you are currently doing. What patterns can you find? Look out the window and find the first thing that has "red" in it. Open a magazine and find the 8th full page ad from the front. What is its product? How does it relate to your problem? Remember: open your mind up to things that have no connection with you are currently doing.

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or the new book: A Whack on the Side of the Head