Today Fed-Ex delivered three copies of November’s issue of Capital Magazine, a glossy finance magazine for top leaders from the magazine’s head office in Dubai, AE. There was my feature story - on page 28 - titled, Keeping the Brain in Mind: Boosting Your Problem Solving Power. But I had to dip deeper than usual to get it there. A math minded readership takes math-related writing, and since we all possess logical math intelligence in some measure, it’s simply a matter of finding and using it.

When Capital’s senior editors asked me for a story about MITA programs and how they boost the brain for problem solving, I dipped into my rather lowly mathematical intelligence to tell a story that might work for people with a penchant for numbers. My story starts… “As strong companies vie for those hard-to-land places at the top, brain based problem solvers can compete with an impressive edge in spite of tough times.” Think my opener will pique curiosity about how to deliver remarkable results, against the backdrop of shifting horizons?

Not that I’m a numbers guru, but it’s fun to tell stories that draw from math parts of the brain, and remember … this intelligence includes logical sequences too. I started with the question, “How could I trigger interest about brain based practices, from readers who think logically or numerical?”

Corporate executives read this magazine for tools to help with the rapid changes that take place in banking, technology, human capital, risk management and, corporate finance. Look below at how numbers speak to show Capital’s estimated readership of 40,000, and you’ll see how math mixes into stories.

Readers, we’re told, include:

- President/Chairman/CEO/Board Members: 35 %
- CFO/VP finance/financial controller: 30 %
- Vice president/Senior managements: 20 %
- Consultants: 6 %
- Procurement/IT managers/Human resources managers: 9 %

Do you use numbers to add zip to your stories? Writers who say they have little logical-math intelligence can develop more through showing ideas in logical order or using numbers as I did here. Can you see how numbers and sequences give more vivid pictures that could easily be lost otherwise? Because math was taught with a narrow focus, that rarely related to real life problems, at times we lost it’s delightful flavors.

My article also drew from mathematical knowing in a sidebar list of eight kinds of intelligence that could solve barriers to productivity. I listed guidelines to show readers how to share something they figured out. And I challenged them to engage their math intelligence in new ways that would grow dendrite brain cell connections for profitability.

My story offered steps for good customer relations from the moment of meeting to closing a deal…. If you were to sequence an action plan for a staff get-together and list the ten tactics your golf club used to win… your story is math related. Simple as that.

Math mingles with life through stories much the way Syntagma owner, John Evans listed London Stock Exchange’s Excellent Results, through story at London Stock Exchange.

Or, look at the way Andrea Pawlsen over at Money Finesse, helped consumers to solve reliability problems for 2006 and 2007 cars, and you’ll see more math intelligence at its best, worked into stories.

Count how many times males and females speak on key issues, during a meeting and you have a story that invites a math response people will love. Still looking for a story topic?

Why not write about Bobbie Fisher’s tactics in a chess game and show how similar winning strategies could win a financial deal. Or look through this morning’s math news for a story waiting to be created. As in any good writing, have fun. Writing that activates your logical mathematical intelligence will play with logical order, organization … and numbers, for instance, … and your mathematically inclined readers will too! What’s your best math story?

Yesterday, I saw Stephen Frears’, The Queen, starring Helen Mirren and Michael Sheen, and was struck by the movie’s illustration of the brain’s inability to adapt. I was reminded how our familiar and comfortable routines, can rewire the brain to resist changes when we need them most. This Oscar quality story showed the Queen as a Hebbian thinker, a state which reshapes the human brain for narrow outputs and slows down a person’s ability to gain insights to solve current problems. In other words, what you do daily shapes how your brain operates for or against you.

Physical and psychological changes take place in the brain because of narrow focus and a lack of external stimuli, and these changes make it harder for people to embrace change – even innovations that bring improvements or add well-being….

Back to the movie, where I saw Hebbianism shape one moment in history, while we watched metronome patterns of habit prevent the Queen from coping in a key moment that nearly toppled her monarchy. Scene after scene showed the royals gilded cage of traditions, alongside Tony Blair’s attempt and often fail to modernize ancient institutions. Hebbian thinkers fight innovation at all costs, because, unlike non-Hebbian brains, they rewire daily to cling to traditions and familiar habits.

The Queen’s keen intelligence, over time, reduced into Hebbian habits that trapped an entire household into inaction in response to Diana’s death. This movie showed us why change is resisted by so many Hebbian holdouts in the boomer crowd today.

Have we denied ourselves use of our multiple intelligences simply because we have rewired our brains to resist them. Hebbian brains will shake off apathy and block cutting edge answers when we need them most.

Tony Blair, played by Michael Sheen, played the quintessential change agent that showed us Hebbian’s opposite. He mixed intelligence with emotion and handled the tragedy like we hoped a monarchy could have done. Where Windsor Castle locked into Hebbian routines, he caught the waves of grief and shock and rode it with subjects, offering them comfort and help along the way.

It often takes tragedy the size of Diana’s accident to shake the Hebbian reverie to the surface, and even then, only an awareness can open our eyes. The days that followed showed hundreds of snapshots of Diana’s tragedy in a Paris tunnel and the Royal family’s tragedy in a Hebbian tunnel.

People locked in that narrow, dark place tend to act as if all was well, and to ignore warning signs of danger. For days, the Royals offered no statement, refused to fly a flag at half-staff, and escaped to Balmoral Castle in Scotland, where Prince Philip took the boys hunting.

Blair, finally convinced the Royals to look beyond their Hebbian traps, and when they did they saw what the Queen had been running from in the first place. People loved Lady Di more than her, and she’d lost the mental abilities to use intrapersonal intelligence that give emotional tools to cope. It’s true that Elizabeth II had no choice in her birthright. It’s also true that she can prevent the Hebbian limitations that role created in her entire household. What do you think?

Can Royalty adapt to a world that left behind notions of Hebbian kings and queens? In one moving scene, the queen stands eye to eye with a 14-point buck in the Balmoral countryside, and you sense the reflective capabilities of this queen. When she hears hunters approach – she shoos the buck away, a metaphor for her pushing people around her into protective places, when change threatens the Hebbian lifestyle she defends.

Like the Queen, we have no choice in gene pools we are born into. We can choose though, to embrace change, by doing things differently at times. The opposite of Hebbian habits is to rewire our brains daily for change because of what we do, who we contact, or how we focus on new interests. It’s never too late for royalty, politicians, or the rest of us. New research shows your brain rewires nightly while you sleep, based on what you did during the day. Any changes for your schedule today?

Look out your window and what’s the first thing you see? A leaf glistening? A wind bent tree? Or do you see an unkempt garbage can with litter nearby?

Have you considered how your attention to beauty can cut you a pathway across a difficult day? Likely as many pictures of beauty exist out there – as there are colors, shapes and textures. Loveliness, an expression of your brain’s aesthetic response to life, takes an awareness on your part, though, before it can transform your day.

You can cut a neural pathway through a difficult area of life, by focusing your attention on snapshots of beauty throughout your day. The brain uses your aesthetic focus as a sort of magnificent oasis in the face of madness from the world swirling around us.

We each possess an innate neurology of beauty, created from genes at birth and further developed and shaped by your perspectives. Your multiple intelligences , for example, link you to beauty in ways that can add well being and motivation for living - even when storm clouds linger in one area or another of your day. How does it work?

Beauty enters your mind as an asset whenever you throw a winning solution to a particular problem that disadvantages you. Let’s say you feel disrespected in a relationship. Beauty can help you make new decisions that add winning benefits for your next meeting with that person. Start by focusing more on one beautiful visual that you value, and your mind will create more serotonin, a chemical that enables you to overwrite mental scripts by rewriting your innate worth and value. Read the amazing story of an Amish community near where I live, rewired for beauty recently to forgive a man who broke into their school and murdered their children.

Their mental rewiring for the beauty of God, of forgiveness, and of life, activated more of your intelligences, and helped this community spot splendor in their surroundings, in spite of intense suffering from loss. That’s also how the mind operates in your favor, and hands you that Eureka solution when you need it most. Beauty can transform the most difficult part of your day and can add new shades of color with a zest for living.

Think of your home as a castle for a moment, and let’s look at how beauty could lift your day and boost your spirit for new solutions in … say … a difficult relationship, or health problem.

First, play inspirational music, and your mind opens to vibrant colors of leaves, and possibly even closer friendships to enjoy. For instance, I’m playing NPR classical station at the moment, and the orchestra moves my brain waves to capture new quiet for thought. If you saw these waves through an EEG you’d see them shift from fast to slower with this music.

Next, come down to my lower floor, and see an oak tree in the backyard, where a black capped, Peregrine falcon sat recently, and watched me work. Visualize the wonder of its 40 inch wingspan. He’s not there today – but I still see his saucy stance whenever I look for beauty out that window.

From my front window you’d see a Japanese Lilac I planted when my daughter and son-in-law married last summer. It’s leaves fell last week but it looks strong and ready to embrace a winter.

Move next to my side window and take in a young neighbor’s Canadian flag - flying alongside an American flag, as a symbol for our friendship and for my Canadian birth.

When I stand in my back window, and see the winding creek, I laugh. For awhile the small bridge kept tipping into the rising waters each time it rained. On one occasion I almost fell in - trying to retrieve the deceptively heavy bridge. Have you noticed beauty at times comes through laughter?

Windows from my home show how to open exquisite views from your castle cottage. The mind becomes a castle when you draw from the beauty of many perspectives. Look out a window for some form of beauty and see splendor in your view.