Sir Arthur Conan Doyle regards the brain as an “empty attic”. He recognized the need to fill it with metaphorical furniture, the choices of which are left to each individual. Two important cognitive functions that occur in that attic of yours are listening and being creative. Here are some tips for polishing these two metaphorical pieces of furniture.

LISTENING
“The essence of genius,” according to William James, “is knowing what to overlook.” And author Mitchell Posner urges us to be “ecologists” when it comes to information. Here are exercises to help you “be” when it comes to listening, to help you avoid verbal contamination.

In the center of a blank sheet of paper, draw a circle. Ask a friend to find a dense paragraph from an article. (Or just go on and on about some topic for a few minutes.) Then extract three key words from the verbally inflated paragraph that he or she said out loud. Write those words in the circle. Now that you have the gist of what you heard, use the three words to remember the most important things you heard. Check with your friend to see if she has captured the main points.

This exercise not only sharpens your listening skills, but also your verbal fluency skills. Ask a friend to talk about a pleasant experience and stop unexpectedly after a few minutes. You should take a word from the last sentence spoken and use it to start talking about something that he likes to do. Stop unexpectedly and have the other person continue the conversation using a word from the last sentence you said.

Next, give some thought to the barriers that may impede the listening process. Can you list 20 of them? Then consider which of these you can control. Finally, engage in a dialogue that refutes Dr. Leo Buscagli, who said, “Most conversations are just back-and-forth monologues; the question is, are you really listening to yourself?”

CREATIVITY
Creativity is the result, to a great extent, of the belief that we are creative. To develop your creative muscles, periodically ask yourself, “What if…?” and “What can this be used for?” Questions.

Convergent responses are typical, expected, logical. For example, if asked how one gets to heaven, he would probably say something like “Follow the golden rule.” However, ask a divergently oriented child this question and you might hear, “Go to hell and turn left!” Or, “You need God’s elevator.” Or, “You need to buy a really big trampoline.”

Think divergently about these questions:

Which number does not belong to the others?
3810 6024 4816 1452

Which letter belongs in the blank space? GEFJASO ____

Which letter belongs in the blank space? OTTFFSS ____

What national holiday do these letters represent?
ABCDEFGHIJKMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

CHALLENGE YOURSELF
Think about the symbolism associated with causes and colors. For example, we tie yellow ribbons to trees to show our support for the hostages in Iran. If the director of your organization asked you to create a new ribbon design, what would it look like? What message would he express? Which initials would be significant? What color?

One of the best ways to generate creative possibilities is to put things together that are not normally aligned. (Anne Geddes did this with babies and vegetables.) Make a list of ten disparate items: “peacock” and “eraser,” for example. Then search through those items for a solution to a workplace problem or an improvement to an existing situation.

Remember that Einstein considered imagination to be more important than knowledge. He tries to come up with some unique metaphors to describe his workplace or his neighborhood or his life.

A PLACE FOR NONSENSE
Building those brain cells can be hard work. To offset the fires of cognitive development, it’s okay to indulge in mental “junk food” from time to time. Take heart from Dr. Seuss, who admits this indulgence. “I like nonsense,” he admitted. “Wake up the brain cells.”

Answer: 1-.4816, (if you add the digits of the other three numbers, they add up to 12. 4816 adds up to 19). 2-N. (The other letters are the first letters of the twelve months of the year.), 3-N, again. (The other letters represent the first letters in a counting sequence from One to Eight.), 4- Christmas, because there is no “L” in the list.