Any problems tripping up your world today? Can you imagine a week without one problem to solve? Let’s say you have all you want in life and it’s paid for by now. You have no challenging friends or family because they, too, are problem free. What would you do with your mind? How would you spend your day?

Alvin Tofler reminded us to stay alive to creative solutions when problems strike. Going even further, Tofler warned that the illiterate of the twenty-first century will be those people who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn. The cognitive scientist shows how we relearn, by engaging unused intelligences. What one problem you do see that could draw a solution from your multiple intelligences today?

Would you have an answer for instance, for people who recognized a need to:

Help an overweight community to check their ideal weight based on a standard formula? Here’s one solution that allows people to check out your ideal weight and keep track.

Offer a talk radio blog for those who’d rather listen daily than read blogs. Click to download a podcast for iPod and MP3 players, created so you can play blogs right on your computer.

Address the fears of many that black holes can swallow the earth. Their solution?

Challenge teachers to stop boring the tears out of their high school students. Watch John Stossel’s video “Stupid in America” to see his solutions that could just work.

Help end the more than 1200 suicides from the Golden Gate Bridge since the bridge opened in 1937. That problem sparked Eric Steel’s documentary film, titled, “The Bridge,” which heightens people’s awareness of suicides there. Check out the video.

Problems create the impetus that plunges creative minds into the pleasures of new possibilities for change. People who draw from their multiple intelligences to solve problems, will likely agree with Einstein’s conclusion… “The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.”

No wonder the new definition for intelligence focuses on a person’s capability to solve problems, and come up with innovative solutions that others use to create change. So, what’s your problem today?

Think about what you do at work currently, and then consider what you feel called to do. Do these two correspond? One feature, Taking the Money, from October 24th New York Times, showcased people in midlife who took buyouts, with their best in mind. For some boomers, careers come alive in mid-life, through aspirations they’d always dreamed of.

“Phil Bonfanti, a regional sales manager for Ford, took a buyout for his family’s sake.

Bobbie Battista, a CNN anchor, did not like the direction the company was going in.

For Doug Vance, a Delta pilot, it was the least damaging choice in a situation he could not control.

Enrique Rosselli, who took three buyouts in four years, saw the third as a sign to find a new line of business.

And for Betsy Werley, it was an early push into a career move that she wanted to make later if not sooner.“

For people who want more from mid-life, it’s simply a matter that an end of one career - looks more like an opportunity for a new start. Whatever the reason, one leg in their lives ended. In each case, the human brain kicked into high gear to create changes later in life. Shifts that bring new beginnings, unavailable to them in their youth. How so?

Folks who believe the best is still out there, tend to launch new foundations with tips and support from lifelong friends in a field they admire. These friends tell other friends. Ideas from new places prime their career-minded pumps. Encouragement from people they know goes a long way toward successful career moves yet to come.

If you’ve seen yourself locked into a mold lately, that’s merely collecting mold … why not plan to start again. Los, a character in William Blake’s poem, Jerusalem, said it best … “I must create a system, Or be enslaved by another Man’s (human’s). I will not reason or compare, My business is to create.”

Los likely speaks to every mid-lifer who senses the best is yet to come. Downsizing or retirement can kick start your brain for the career you’re really called and gifted to launch. Is the best visible in your future?

Victim or adventurer – which way is yours? The human brain is capable of casualty or quest - in even the most ordinary day, and what you do decides how the plasticity in your brain wires for or against you.

One boomer I know took photographs last week of a Porsche Racing Event, and plans to submit these for fun and profit. He’s looking forward to seeing several people he knows from the race, flashed across the media … in response to BBC’s invited perspective to publish more of what folks think can happen as they age.

Adventure for this retiree, is woven into the art and science any day can bring because he’s leaving home with wonder and expectation in mind. He admits he’s not much of a photographer, and yet equipped with a new camera, he’s off to capture news he feels proud to submit. His muse might lead Gerry to chat with project leaders, sip hot coffee near the site, research a new addition to digital pictures, or jot down captivating quips to go with digital images he snaps of cars on the fly.

Another boomer I know described a day like this… “I got up late, looked out at the rain, thought about two friends who didn’t call back last week, and decided to stay inside. He watched TV, ate too many carbs and slugged up his brain until it seemed to all of us, as if the song Worms, was written to describe his mournful state. Have you ever lived these words as this man wired his brain through victim choices…?

“Nobody loves me, everybody hates me,
Think I’ll just go eat worms.
Big fat juicy ones, Eensie weensy teensy ones,
Watch how they wiggle and squirm.”

Adventurers look more to inner motivation … while victims, on the other hand, see themselves as more vulnerable than the rest of us, and live their day around that belief. That’s pretty much how the brain rewires through what a person does in a day.

People alive to adventure inspire the rest of us to see similar visions of hope. Like lighthouses they flash…beam … flash … beam … beyond life’s choppier waters, so emotional problems look like mere challenges to call them deeper.

Any adventure for you today? The human challenge is simply to make career choices that count, and the brain’s work is to steer those choices in.

Any discord in your life at the moment? I’m talking about that zinger from a relative or friend that pops up to show your shortcomings … just when you figured your differences had blown over. It’s easy to find yourself baffled by the same tension you felt when clashes came in the past, especially if you’re lost for a way out. What you may not know is that parts of your brain come equipped to help win you calm after a conflict. Or, on a good day, even help you celebrate new directions with a disagreeable person. Sound like anybody you know?

In either case, you’ll get more from your brain if you take skirmishes a step at a time, and that likely means say nothing at first. It sometimes takes a year or two as a dedicated conflict confronter to find your pathway into that magical realm where you feel inexplicably free. To step back allows you space to rethink your tactics and reboot your brain for one that works better than the hammer in your hand. It’s also a way to avoid common mistakes that likely developed discord in the first place.

Remember the time you tried to change somebody? How did it work? How did the other person react? Through that trial and error process, many of us came away with the brain’s better way to get past conflicts. We saw that we can share truth with one another, and can even expect that mysterious process of peace.

Yet how could we replace problems that come with confronting the truth in a difficult relationship? Remember that confrontation with expectation is manipulation. And so when we speak our truth as a way to find mutual benefits, we may not get the reaction we want. Luckily, experts can help.

Just try to imagine one pressing conflict you face… as it might be solved by experts at the Association for Conflict Resolution at their international celebration, held annually on the third Thursday in October. I’m always delighted to come across posts by Dr. Tammy Lenski at “I Can’t Say That!” where I get facts for every fracas out there – hopefully before one broadsides me at a table over Thanksgiving dinner. For Tammy it’s all about defining what it means to win.

She cautions… “If your definition of “win” is short-term in nature (prove I’m smart, get the upper hand for once, show him he’s not so hot after all, put her in her place, etc.), “ then you’ll want to be careful not to “trade short term gratification for long-term success.”

Here’s one tactic that draws more resources from your intrapersonal intelligence, which is your mental reserve that could ratchet up your success rate. Why not call up that unused cache, when the next person nails you so hairs stand up on your arms and your brain frosts over. Ready?

Ok… imagine yourself in that other person’s shoes until you see the problem completely from that person’s view. When we do this at brain based conferences, solutions often amaze me. You can capture another angle of the most pressing problem by writing an open, honest letter from that problematic person to you…

Don’t write a word until your mind firmly establishes you as the other person. Then start with these words, “Hey … you’re really a terrific person and I’d like to give you a view of this conflict from where I sit… Become that person in your mind, and simply write for 10 minutes. This is not a time for spelling and grammar – so skip the mechanics in favor of the intrapersonal heart of the matter.

Look over your letter and find one starting place from the other person’s perspective. Keep it secret what you did, and invite the person for lunch and to show thanks for the new insights you drew from your newly discovered intrapersonal smarts.

Should get you a fair to middlin’ solution, without imposing expectations that manipulate, and without sharing those spelling mistakes in your letter from that person to you – created by you. Expect to find a few cool lessons woven into your own words, written from another person’s perspective. By the way, intrapersonal intelligence works best when you be good to you first! And if it doesn’t work … check back for more on this topic later….