Thinking Differently

How to Thrive Using Your Nonlinear Creative Thinking

Jan Thomas

• Publisher: Profiling Consultants LLC
• Year: 2020
• eBook ISBN: 9780578746869
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Leadership
• Index: Business

Thinking Differently is a groundbreaking guide for what it takes for nonlinear thinkers to thrive and excel in today's world.

Are you a nonlinear thinker?

• Do you find detailed lists and rules for being efficient confining and ineffective?

• Do you want to understand the big picture before starting a project?

• Do you solve problems by seeing patterns?

• Do you see innovative solutions much faster than others?

If you answer yes to any of these questions, you could be a nonlinear thinker with special, and probably unrealized, talents.

For generations, linear, prescriptive thinking has controlled what counts for progress and value. Times have changed - now different, nonlinear talents are in demand. Neuroscience findings have exploded, but little is written specifically for the practical needs of nonlinear thinkers, who thrive on challenges, ideas, visual learning, and change.

Thinking Differently lays out what nonlinear thinking looks like. Based on years of extensive research and working with nonlinear thinkers, it highlights the four distinctions that set this thinking apart. It introduces a unique set of proven FLEX (SM) Strategies - solutions that leverage how your mind works so you can navigate your environment with greater confidence and enjoyment. The book identifies the advantages of nonlinear thinking and how to advocate for what you need to transform how you live, learn, and work. You'll discover what works best for you and, most importantly, why.

PART 1

What Makes
a Nonlinear Thinker
Different?

CHAPTER 1

First NL Distinction

Orientation to the World

“To be a champion, I think you have to see the big picture.”

— Summer Sanders,

Olympic gold medal swimmer, sports commentator, actress

Graphic Chapter Overview

The nonlinear thinking process

Dave is a CPA and financial planner. He’s also a nonlinear thinker. When new clients come to him for financial advice and want to get right into the specifics, instead he takes a different approach. He hits the brakes and asks a lot of questions about the clients’ goals, dreams, family, and

short- and long-range plans. He does that because he wants to see the big picture and understand the entire context of his clients’ concerns.

Dave’s approach is somewhat like a doctor diagnosing a patient’s entire set of symptoms and seeing the big picture before proceeding to treatment. If the doctor had to isolate and gather data sequentially from each one of the 37.2 trillion cells in a patient’s body, she’d be overwhelmed by the sheer volume of data. Instead, she begins by creating an overview, by taking vital signs and observing the patient’s key symptoms.

Similarly, when a detective arrives at a murder scene, he first steps back and looks over the entire scene — the physical environment, the orientation and condition of the body, and possible suspects — to get the whole picture. He then gathers evidence, reconstructing events as fully as possible, and fits them into his puzzle. All his preliminary work helps establish context and give him the big picture — just as it does for the doctor and Dave.

Regardless of the vocation or task, nonlinear and linear thinkers process information in different ways, using different, invisible priorities. For linear thinkers to understand, they need to see the details first and build their big picture from them. Nonlinear thinkers — NLs — look to see the big picture first and work in the variety of details as they make sense to that larger view.

The Big Picture and Context

For NL thinkers, the big picture is fundamental to understanding the world and any task before them. It’s not enough to have the big picture revealed to them at the end because, without the big picture, NLs don’t know where to put the details — or how to put order to what’s presented to them.

“I get bombarded with all this detail before it has any meaning for me, and I don’t have anywhere in my mind to put it. So, it goes in one ear and out the other.”

— Dave, client

Looking at the whole picture first does take extra time. So an NL may sometimes seem to be wasting time or slow. But you aren’t slow. In fact, you frequently arrive at the solution first. That’s because — before you take action — you take the time to orient yourself to the whole context.

Your relationship to the whole is the key.

How thinking styles differ

Nonlinear thinkers remember details when they start with the big picture first.

Here’s how Dave describes it: “The core thing for me is to get the big picture before I can do anything else. When I work with clients, I’m always interested in what’s motivating their questions, what they are really asking. Often there’s something underneath driving their question.

“It’s like an iceberg, where what you see above the water is only a fraction of the whole thing. My goal is to see and understand as much of the whole picture as possible because that’s the context that will reveal the most complete solution.

“It’s when I have access to the whole iceberg that I can see the relationships and make the connections that make all the difference.”

Dave recognizes now how his natural nonlinear orientation not only affects his approach to his work but also shaped his experience as a student in high school.

Iceberg thinking

“I’m most engaged when I’m learning about one thing — but within its broadest context. For example, if I’m reading about history, I want to know the context of what’s going on at the same time in the art, politics, and economics of the period. This lets me make connections that make sense to me and helps me remember. If I don’t have those things, I have difficulty relating to and remembering information.”

Back in high school, Dave rarely got the full picture. So, he couldn’t make the connections that help him get inspired. As a result, he did just enough to get by — because without a puzzle to solve, it all seemed formulaic and limiting, not enough of a challenge. He wanted to find out new things. He loved the challenge when a solution was uncertain. Without that, he just cruised.

This need for the big picture requires its own logic; a way of thinking and problem-solving that’s both unconventional and, for NLs like Dave, wholly natural.

NLs’ Associational Logic

Traditionally, logic is considered to be analytical and sequential. It arrives at conclusions by following a methodical, linear series of deductions. When Dave sees his clients’ questions as an iceberg, he uses an entirely different kind of logic, one that’s intrinsic to NL thinking.

This associational logic is what allows NLs to be highly gifted as creative problem-solvers and visionary communicators. And this nonlinear logic is based on making previously undetected connections among seemingly unrelated elements.

This kind of thought process releases explosions of energy similar to the rapid synaptic firing of the brain when it’s learning something exciting. Making associational connections creates breakthroughs that are multi-directional, multi-dimensional, and virtually instantaneous.

How did Wilbur and Orville Wright discover the secret of controlled flight? The story goes that while Wilbur was talking with a customer in their bicycle shop, he was holding a small cardboard box. As he talked, he idly twisted the box in his hands.

The slight warping of the flat surfaces reminded Wilbur of something — buzzard wings! He’d seen buzzards gently twist their wings to soar on thermal updrafts.

Suddenly, he understood the answer to the centuries-old mystery of controlled flight. All he and Orville had to do was figure out a way to warp the plane’s wings to create something similar.

The brothers designed wires that would give the pilot manual control of wing warping so the pilot could actually steer the plane. Wilbur’s associative leap from box to bird to the critical roll control of airplane wings was hardly a straight line of logic. But his associational logic solved a problem that had stumped everyone before him.

NL thinkers are in a continual state of associating. It comes naturally from their big-picture orientation. Relationships and connections don’t emerge when we focus only on the obvious details right in front of us. It’s like the iceberg. Expanding the view to include not just the obvious but also everything below the surface allows us to see relationships and make critical connections not evident previously.

For NLs, creating associations among the diverse objects, actions, people, and events around them doesn’t stop with the present moment. Past associations and future potentialities can easily be in the mix.

So, don’t assume that that faraway look on the face of an NL friend is empty daydreaming. You might actually be witnessing unique connections being made in another mental time zone.

Associational thinking frees NLs from trying to fit their unique logic into standard, sequential threads of thought that don’t serve their natural approach. Nonlinear, associational logic is distinctly different from the common linear method in four principal ways.

The Four Features of Associational Logic

1. Organically Ordered

Nonlinear, associational thinking is organically, not sequentially, ordered.

The trunk of a tree might appear to spring vertically from the soil and grow upward until it reaches its natural height. But the tree is always growing multi-directionally and multi-dimensionally. As the trunk and branches grow above ground, the roots grow downward and outward. The “vertical” tree is really a spherical life form.

Associational thinking is invisibly and organically ordered in the way that a tree’s growth is organically stru...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Introduction
• Part 1: What Makes a Nonlinear Thinker Different?
• Part 2: Leveraging Your Nonlinear Thinking
• Part 3: Orchestrate Life Easily and Confidently
• Afterword
• Acknowledgments
• Resources