INNOVATION: Change your internal chip
"Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius — and a lot of courage — to move in the opposite direction." – Einstein
Yesterday I was with a client proposing some new initiatives and as always there’s a bottleneck to new ideas. Someone’s ego prevents them from seeing other alternatives to how things can be done and is so set in their traditional views that anything new is irrelevant. In thinking about this fact with some of the people there I said: Like computer chips that evolve and get better all the time, so must we.
Voila!
Do you remember how in the movie Terminator 2 Sarah and John Connor take out and modify the Terminator’s internal cpu so it can can learn and not be following preset rules? Well that’s exactly what we have to do with ourselves and people who are impervious to ‘there’s always a better way’ speak.
‘There’s a better way’ chip
Honestly I think most people are just afraid of improving their lives and find it hard accepting that changing their ‘internal chip’ (mental model) sounds like black magic but the magic is not the chip, it’s in letting go of their ego. First you have to understand that we’ve all been programmed to think how we think, our past experiences determine our beliefs and therefore how we see and think about everything around us. We bring with us assumptions that limit us from seeing other alternatives that might lead to a better opportunity but then again you already knew this.
The truth is everything we believe to be real is in our heads, it’s in that thing we call brain. That ‘organic chip’ that helps us make ‘safe’ decisions is sometimes best to throw away and use another one. This sounds crazy and it doesn’t require surgery, it requires a willingness to adopt other people’s mental models.
So how do you ‘change your chip’? Here are few things I think you can do:
- Borrow someone else’s chip. Hang around people with a different set of chips than yours and see how you can use some of their abilities for your own advantage.
- Make your own chip. If you could put together abilities you’d like to have from other people which would they be? For example, combine the abilities of Steve Jobs + Picasso + Leonardo Da Vinci and what would you have? How do you integrate them into your thinking?
- Improve your chip. Hack yourself and see where there are holes that you can improve on. Like computer chips that evolve and get better all the time, so must we. There is no governing rule like Moore’s Law that limits our own thinking!
Changing minds, hearts, and behaviors is key to innovating and a mind full of differing perspectives is better than one with just one perspective, tomorrow I’ll share with you a mind trick I use to be able to shift my thinking from my own egotistical perspective.
The important takeaway is we don’t have to wait another 50 years to have implanted chips in our heads that help us think better, we can start right now. In fact why would we even want to be plugged into a computer telling us what to do, it’s better to think for ourselves.
What do you think, how do you improve your own thinking?
Categories: Creativity, Greatness, Innovation, Thinking Tags: Innovation, terminator, think better
There are View Comments. Leave a comment!
¬ jorgebarba
#531 January 27th, 2010 at 9:45 pm
INNOVATION: Change your internal chip: “Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violen… http://bit.ly/cSzkMa
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
¬ jorgebarba
#533 January 28th, 2010 at 12:51 am
New Blog Post: INNOVATION: Change your internal chip – Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, a… http://ow.ly/16rcf4
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
¬ blumaya
#534 January 28th, 2010 at 12:51 am
New Blog Post: INNOVATION: Change your internal chip – Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, a… http://ow.ly/16rcf5
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
¬ SteveKoss
#535 January 28th, 2010 at 1:05 am
Gloriously spot on @jorgebarba INNOVATION: Change your internal chip – Any intelligent fool can make things bigger… http://ow.ly/16rcf4
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
¬ timkastelle
#538 January 28th, 2010 at 1:36 am
Nice idea RT @SteveKoss @jorgebarba INNOVATION: Change your internal chip Any intelligent fool can make things bigger… http://ow.ly/16rcf4
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
¬ ralph_ohr
#537 January 28th, 2010 at 1:37 am
Changing the chip as personal innovation RT @jorgebarba: New Blog Post: Change your internal chip http://ow.ly/16rcf4
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
¬ Tim Kastelle
#536 January 28th, 2010 at 1:35 am
Nice post Jorge – and good way to visualise empathy!
¬ AnalPoet
#540 January 28th, 2010 at 6:38 am
#Noosphere #FractalSovereignty #EcoEgo #VVV RT @timkastelle: Nice idea RT @SteveKoss @jorgebarba Change #YourInternalChip http://ow.ly/11fqU
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
¬ jorgebarba
#542 January 28th, 2010 at 6:56 am
RE: @timkastelle Hi Tim you hit the nail, It is about being deliberately empathetic and leaving your ego at the door. … http://disq.us/a2pjk
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
¬ Jorge Barba
#541 January 28th, 2010 at 6:56 am
Hi Tim you hit the nail, It is about being deliberately empathetic and leaving your ego at the door. Thanks for stopping by!
¬ GiancarloGC
#544 January 28th, 2010 at 1:00 pm
POST – #INNOVATION: Change your internal chip http://bit.ly/bybtPg So how do you ‘change your chip’? Here are few things I think you can do
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
¬ Tweets that mention INNOVATION: Change your internal chip | Game-Changer -- Topsy.com
#545 January 28th, 2010 at 6:25 pm
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Jorge Barba, Jorge Barba, Jorge Barba, Paul R. Williams, Paulo Alves and others. Paulo Alves said: RT @ralph_ohr: Changing the chip as personal innovation http://ow.ly/16rcf4 [...]
¬ Must read innovation stories of the week: Mental models determine business models | Game-Changer
#772 March 26th, 2010 at 10:58 pm
[...] Your business model will only change if you adopt different perspectives and this means you have to start with the culture in your organization and how they view the world. You need to work on the questioning assumptions your culture has about how the world works so it can start thinking about how it can work better for you. [...]