This morning at our weekly MAC Toastmasters Meeting I was asked to give a short recap of my Saturday breakout session “Pumping Mental Iron”. One of the things I didn’t get to do on Saturday, since my time was shortened (read my last blog post) from 50 minutes to about 35-40 minutes, was to do an exercise where the participants close their eyes and imagine certain sensations.  Among these are things like smelling a turkey roasting in the oven, tasting a sour lemon, hearing a bubbling water fountain, seeing a rainbow through the fog, feeling a baby’s soft skin, etc.  It is amazing how vividly the brain is able to respond to these stimuli, and when people experience more than one sense at a time, the experience is more powerful.  I was able to try it this morning with our Toastmasters Group.  Once I arrived home at my desk, lo and behold, I noticed this Podcast from Scientific American (admittedly one of my favorite magazines) and was surprised and pleased that it has now been shown that the brain is, in fact, activating two sensory areas at once, in this example.  Enjoy this 1 minute podcast, courtesy of Karen Hopkin: http://podcast.sciam.com/daily/sa_d_podcast_100503.mp3 

I wasn’t in on the study, but I’ll bet olfactory areas in the brain light up, too!  Walt Disney told his team years ago to involve all 5 senses, for the best experience. He knew the power of getting the other senses involved.  If you are in sales, you might think about what this could mean to your sales presentations.  If you are in leadership, you might think about how your can improve your relationships, meetings, style, whatever you happen to be working on. 

Where am I going with this?  I don’t know, but probably to the kitchen, because the smell of a non-existent roasting turkey is calling me to lunch. 

Tags: Auditory, Brain, brain power, Cortex, Executive Coach, executive coaching, Executive Performance Coach, Executive pERFORMANCE cOACHING, Karen Hopkin, Leadership, Sales, Scientific American, Sensory, Visual, Walt Disney

This entry was posted on Monday, May 3rd, 2010 at 11:58 am and is filed under Brain, Brain Function, Business success, Coach, Education, Executive Coach, Executive Performance Coach, Executive pERFORMANCE cOACHING, Inspiration, Leadership, Leadership Development, Leadership Skills, Learning, Sales, Sales increase, Success, Toastmasters, brain power, executive coaching, pumping mental iron. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.