p.228, 229

"A Labyrinth is a spiral walking course. When you enter, your goal is to follow the path to the center, stop, turn around, and walk back out--all at whatever pace you choose."

"Labyrinths are a form of moving meditation; labyrinths can be centering; you can lose your self in a labyrinth; labyrinths free the right brain."



"A labyrinth is an escape for the right brain," "As the left brain engages in the logical progression of walking the path, the right brain is free to think creatively"

p. 183, 198, 200

"Dr. Kataria's plan to change the world by making it laugh can seem, well, laughable." But if you visit a laughter club, as I did one damp morning in Mumbai, you can see there's a method to his mirth." Laughter Yoga is his creation and is popular among laughter clubs.

p. 101-104, p. 115 and p. 125

"Story is just as integral to the human experience as design."

"But as important as story has been throughout humanity, and as central as it remains to how we think, in the Informational Age it got something of a bad rap."

"The ability to encapsulate, contextualize, and emotionalize has become vastly more important in the Conceptual Age."

"When facts become so widely available and instantly accessible, each one becomes less valuable. What begins to matter more is the ability to place these facts in context and to deliver them with emotional impact."

"The Conceptual Age can remind us what has always been true but rarely been acted upon-- that we must listen to each other's stories and that we are each the authors of our own lives."

"Experiment with Digital Storytelling. Story is an art--but like all art, it can be enhanced with modern tools. "

p. 159, p168, p.184

"Empathy is the ability to image yourself in someone's else's position and to intuit what that person is feeling. It is the ability to stand in other's shoes, to see with their eyes and to feel with their heart."

"Empathy is not a stand-alone aptitude. It connects to the three high concepts, high-touch aptitudes - Empathy is an essential part of Design, because good designers put themselves in the mind of whoever is going to experience the product or service they're designing."

"Empathy is related to Symphony --because empathic people understand the importance of context. They see the whole person much as symphonic thinkers see the whole picture."

"Finally, the aptitude of Story also involves empathy. As we saw in the section on narrative medicine, stories can be pathways to Empathy ---especially for physicians."

"Another great way to sharpen your empathic powers is to volunteer somewhere in your community that serves people whose experiences are far different from your own.

p. 130-131

"Symphony is the ability to put together the pieces. It is the capacity to synthesize rather than to analyze; to see relationships between seemingly unrelated fields; to detect broad patterns rather than to deliver specific answers; and to invent something new by combining elements nobody else though to pair."

"One of the best ways to understand and develop the aptitude of Symphony is to learn how to draw--" So we started to learn how to draw, thanks to Maggy.

p. 75 and p. 86

Design is my favorite R-Directed aptitude.

"Design in its simplest form is the activity of creating solutions. Design is something that everyone does every day."

"To be a designer is to be an agent of change."

page 22

When I read that "the left hemisphere participates in the analysis of information..." and "the right hemisphere is specialized for synthesis" I immediately thought of Bloom's Taxonomy. I always had trouble believing that synthesis was always "higher" than analysis because to me they are so similar and intertwined. When Pink put them on the same plane, I re-envisioned the traditional pyramid that shows Bloom's Taxonomy with Knowledge holding up the foundation on the bottom of the pyramid and Evaluation being the smallest piece on the top. In my mind now, the layers are still stacked the same and it's still a pyramid shape, but above application is a thick layer that's split down the middle and has analysis on the left and synthesis on the right. Now those two are on the same plane and I feel so much better. ;-)

This is pretty crude, but here's a visual of what I'm talking about:

pages 58-59

The Rainbow Project developed by Professor Robert Sternberg, an alternative SAT, is an example of the creative thinking and design by an individual who is using his right brain to make a difference. At an early stage the results have shown that the Rainbow Project has a higher rate than the SAT's of predicting a student success in college.

What really hit home for me was that it narrowed the performance gap between white and racial minorities. There are so many individuals who have talents and have been left behind because of standardized tests that are biased. Think about all the individuals who could have made a difference in this world, if they were given the opportunity. We might even have a cure for cancer.

It's time to supplement the SAT so college admission offices have data that shows the human side of students which is a critical component to being successful in the 21st century. I hope we don't wait another half a century to make a difference.

page 2

What jumped out at me on this page was Pink's use of the terminology "high touch". I immediately thought of Neaisbitt's book Megatrends from 1982. In that book, he talks about High Touch being a reaction to High Tech (high usage of technology or high infiltration of technology into a particular aspect of human life). High Touch for Nesbitt encompasses both the high touch and the high concept that Pink describes.

It was a fun trip down memory lane to pull out my aging copy of the book and remember the 10 trends that Nesbitt saw. It was also a little eerie to see how on-target he was in 1982 predicting what we saw in the 90's and now.