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?

Stories are how we learn,” Bill Mooney and David Holt wrote in The Story Teller’s Guide. Everybody loves stories told by interesting, fun, together people. “People are hungry for stories. It’s part of our very being,” Studs Terkel said. Do you agree?

NPR recognized a lively market for personal stories and invited their listeners to share their best beliefs in a story to submit anecdotes for airtime.

Story tellers draw from their intrapersonal intelligence, much like coffee draws aroma and taste from fresh roasted beans. And one way to draw on more intelligence is to write stories, and to write with you in mind. Start by writing a yarn just for you. Here’s one idea that worked well in writing classes I’ve taught.

Walk back through time, and give one piece of advice from your teenage self to the current you. Call the teenager by your middle name and write a story about what you’ll do with your teenager advice. How might that advice help you out in some way or another with a problem you face at the moment? Are you off and running yet? And what happens during the process of writing personal stories, anyway?

It depends on why you write and what you want from the process. Dr. Julie Connelly, Professor of Medicine at the University of Virginia School of Medicine, publishes stories that reflect her interest in medicine and humanities. Her stories take readers inside patients’ relationships with their doctor. Can you see why her stories spark interest for curious readers?

“At times the surface of the situation is explored as the specific details of a particular situation, the context including the “characters,” and the point-of-view of the observer are all taken into account.” It’s as if Dr. Connelly is writing her way into insider eye-openers about patient doctor relations. Can you see intrapersonal growth in this process?

“At other times, writing may expose the depths of a situation.” As a writer, the doctor’s writing process and stories help her to see more truth of medical situations she needs to solve, without interruptions from the stressful aspects of her work.

Stories come in far lighter fare too. Just read BBC’s advice for how to write the perfect lonely heart, and you’ll see how personal writing adds a sense of relief, renewal and adventure. A tale can develop a personal unfolding of emotional responses to tough situations we face. It holds problems of loneliness, anger, or anxiety, up to the rainbow to take another look. In a narrative you can rework old habits as a way to speed up a better position for yourself. Or at you can risk a new approach and predict its winning ways.

Whatever your purpose, story writing, unlike conversations with others, for instance, gives you a full-sized mirror to become and reflect more of who you’d like others to see in you. That’s because narrative shows meanings inside hidden secrets, and allows you to work out complex incidents through fictitious names, well disguised settings, and characters that help you improve self-knowledge.

Share a personal story and you tie delightful bonds to the larger world of your personal and professional self. Some people like my aunt Grace, who mails hundreds of lively slices from her life yearly, and writer Shirley Ann Parker, share their best stories through letters.

Since writing is a creative process, you’ll be surprised where your writing takes you, and at times you’ll even be shocked by the lively stirs that unexpected creativity brings. At times I share written stories with colleagues, friends and other leaders, and I am often surprised by how they see scenes that I describe.

At times your story and the process of writing it, will hand you the comfort of exchanging universal experiences. At other times, stories illumine the uniqueness of living and caring about or questioning details that differ from others you know. What’s your best story?

Stories inspire us to write from meaningful experiences. What you may not know, though, is that to write stories, is to develop new dendrite brain cell connections in your linguistic intelligence. Not a bad takeaway when you consider that writing process can also ensure you a younger brain….

What fun or moving story projects itself on the back screen of your mind, that you could write as a way to exercise your brain? I’ll start.

Ten years ago, during a skidoo race to the Igloolik Airport , I almost missed a once-a-week flight to another remote community on the north tip of Baffin Island. It was Saturday, I was 600 miles north of the Arctic Circle and the mercury was about 70 degrees below zero. For all those reasons, I counted myself lucky to get Cecilia, head of the Government Social Work, to roar up to my home in a skidoo, in a last ditch effort to get me there. Yikes! Did I tell you yet about frigid conditions on Baffin Island – up beside Greenland?

Back to my story though… ten minutes before flight time, we hopped onto a small broken skidoo seat, piled my four bags anywhere they’d stick, and Cecilia promised to race back for one bag that refused to stay with us. What a ride! We zoomed through Igloolik’s snow-packed, uneven ditches, out of town to the airport, as if headed down Aspen mountain in a ski race.

Cecilia skidded into gullies over bumps and teetered on the edge of snow banks while I held onto blowing bags, and held my breath. Inuit seem undaunted by the tundra’s’ icy obstacles, and the weaving and tipping of her race machine seemed part of the whole arctic adventure.

Unprepared for a skidoo, or the sub zero temperatures, and even less prepared for the rugged terrain we encountered, I fought to hold bags flying in the wind. Although I could see little of anything that wasn’t white, from behind frozen eyelashes, I caught Cecilia’s smile – a symbol of sheer conquest.

Moments after I spilled into the tiny airport, and tried to thaw ice that seemed to form over my eyeballs, Cecilia burst through the airport door - red-faced and smiling. Hurling a large frozen bag in front of me, she pronounced. “Hope there’s no breakables in this thing… Yer bag flew off the skidoo three times… but I got ‘em here.”

“No problem.” I shot back, “It could have been me flying off that skidoo” And it nearly was.

To write this little skidoo story today, is to relive a keen lesson I learned up past the North Pole. It’s a tale about gratitude for people’s generosity, and about the Canadian Arctic’s hidden wonder. Looking back at this yarn, reminds me a bit of the wonder many brains hide – in uncharted landscapes, now that I think of it.

New dendrite connections keep your brain alive, and writing a story revitalizes these neuron networks. You don’t have to go to the High Arctic to find that story, either. Just jot a few details to share one of your fun or moving moments, and you’ve already started a writing journey that adds youth. So what’s your story?

Your brain is a storytelling sage. It leaps onto the stage of your words in response to curiosity, and finds you new ways to engage people at deeper levels by spotting and sharpening words. It’s actually quite magical, if you take advantage of the novelty-seeking property of the human brain to facilitate your stories.

You can benefit from the fact that the last 40 years we have learned more about the human brain than in the previous 400 years. Neuroscientists now show how we literally change the brain – so that neurons become more responsive and rewire to improve your stories, when stimulated in a sustained way. Throw a title on paper and let the wiring begin to reboot your brain for a thrilling yarn….

Stories develop your brain into a better storyteller much like the piano produces prize winning melodies. Neurons act like pianos, as they respond to patterned and repetitive, continuous stimulation. Why is this important for storytelling?

Write the words… “I paint landscapes,” you are using one neural system – let’s call it call it #1.

Add a related concept – let’s say “I paint pastoral scenes” – and a slightly different, but interconnected neural set -#2 – jumps into action to help you out.

Throw in a vignette: “My aging mother, at her darkest moment, when art seemed to fade from her canvass, sat deep in the despair. Suddenly a pastoral scene returned to her personality, and she whispered for me to paint her childhood farm,” yet other related neural systems are active – call them #3 and *4.

Interrelated neural systems reboot your brain daily … when you simply write and make changes … which create memory for storytelling in your brain, across all of these neural systems (1, 2, 3, and 4).

Why not weave a brief yarn today to keep your brain alive. It doesn’t take grueling effort to grow your storytelling intelligence. Your brain grows dendrite cell connectors each time you change what you write, and new neuron pathways add zest to stories you create. Ready to rewire adventures you live into stories you tell…? If so – stay tuned for more mental possibilities for story telling, at the Brain Boomer site.

By the way, I’m still rewiring my own smarts for adding images to my blogs in this new system and am getting closer daily … so expect a bit of visual zest soon, here too.