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Does it matter how you think? Are you making the best use of your mind? Were you ever taught how to think? Is there any connection between how you think and what you accomplish?


Overview


Zoom Thinking is a structured process that leads to better thinking. Some of the elements may be familiar. Others may not. The combination is certainly unique. Perhaps more important, the very idea of a training in thinking is unusual.


Far more time and money is poured into training the body, whether through yoga, martial arts, Pilates, weight lifting or some other discipline. Yet most of us use our minds more than our bodies to do the work we have to do.


Why not seek optimum mental performance, too?






It

So why do we never stop to think about how we think?                                      

There’s a better way to think.


This is the simple premise for

the Zoom Thinking seminar, an experiential process that taps the unused potential of the mind.


Here you can read a brief introduction to Zoom Thinking and inquire about the next event.

A Note About the Image:


The source of this wonderful map of the Internet is unclear. I found it through Google Images on a forum for Xbox enthusiasts.

  

What Zoom Thinking

Is NOT

    All of these have their place.      

    None of them is Zoom Thinking.


  1. •Brain training exercises

  2. •Philosophy

  3. •Mind mapping

  4. •Positive thinking

  5. •Lateral thinking

  6. •Out-of-the-box, whack-on-

  7. the-side-of-the-head creative        

  8. stimulation

What Zoom Thinking Is


Zooming Thinking is a process for increasing mental mobility, because mobility is the universal characteristic of true intelligence. The more freely and spaciously the mind flows, the better the outcome.


The aim is not to impose new techniques, but to uncover the mind’s natural, optimum efficiency.  There is an astonishing richness of thought that is always in reach, yet for most of us remains frustratingly out of reach.


The purpose of Zoom Thinking is to access this inner treasure house of possibility.


The Four Maneuvers: A Map of the Process


Zoom Thinking is a constellation of four “Maneuvers” that together generate mental effectiveness.  They can be used “negatively” to solve problems or “positively” for creative endeavors, in a variety of ways:


  1. •As specific tools to use when circumstances demand

  2. •As “training wheels” for strengthening valuable functions of the mind

  3. •As an organic process that becomes, over time, spontaneous and unconscious

 

Each Maneuver comprises five components.  Brief explanations can be found on the Maneuvers page of this site.

4.  EXPAND


Disruption

Wholeness

Spontaneity

Invention

Emptiness

2.  SWEEP   


Singularity Zooming

Scanning

Clustering

Weighting

3.  DELVE


Frames

Empathy

Questions

Negation

Reversal

1.  IGNITE


Direction

Reflection

Feeling

Dumbness Chaos

How This Came About


The Zoom Thinking process was largely derived from “reverse engineering” successful thinking projects. That’s possible because the underlying principles reflect natural functions of thinking rather than new inventions.


Other sources include a long emersion in the literature of business strategy, and even longer readings in psychology and philosophy.


A more recent influence is the internal martial art of Taijiquan as taught by Chris Fernie of the Institute for Internal Transformation.


These disparate tributaries have flowed into one river to produce the process called Zoom Thinking.

The Seminar


Most recently, I have been teaching Zoom Thinking to entrepreneurial students of Lucky Napkin. Please return to this site for news of the next public event, or contact me at jon@jonward.org

The astronomy of mind -- a map of the Internet