By Peter Jeff
The Leadership Mints Guy

Here’s an idea to help you overcome a few headaches you may face today.

It’s a beautiful summer day. The steaks are on the grill. You’re all set to dig into that juicy steak and suddenly you hear BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ SLAP! Stung by a bee. Oh, it hurts.

You probably just winced at the thought of a bee sting. You may even still feel the pain of that bee sting. Oh, the power in a painful bee sting. But the power in the brain of a honey bee is even more amazing.

The honey bee can perform 50 different thinking acts that require memorizing or predicting.

Memorizing: The bee memorizes the location of five different flowerbeds.

Predicting. The bee predicts the exact hour that each of those flowers come into bloom.

All of that ingenuity with a brain - the size of a grain of sugar - a grain of sugar. Now if a brain the size of a grain of sugar can do all that, imagine the power in a brain the side of a grapefruit - The Human Brain: 100 Thousand times larger. Packing 10 million times more cells for a total of 10 billion cells.

I take some solace any time I come across amazing statistics on the human brain. Somehow appreciating the anatomy of the human brain bolsters my thinking when I am facing a particularly perplexing problem.

Let’s take a minute together to celebrate the awesome power of the human brain. Next time you’re struggling with a headache just recall how strong your brain really is and you just may more fully flex your problem-solving strength. Imagine 10 billion cells in your mind shaking, rattling and rolling around between your ears to help you lead in especially challenging times. Ten billion cells!

How much is 10 billion? Well if you counted one cell per second, it would take you 320 years to count to 10 billion. That means if you started counting 85 years before the start of the American Revolution (in 1691) you would complete your count to 10 billion this year in 2011.

Your Brain is Firing Messages at 250 Miles Per Hour.

Your brain has so much power that right now it’s firing, flashing and flaring at an enormous rate:
Your brain is firing messages at 250 miles per hour.
Your brain is flashing 100,000 chemical reactions every second.
Your brain is flaring 60,000 thoughts ever single day.

No wonder your brain is so powerful your skin can blister with just the thought of a hot knife. Heck, I can gain two pounds with just the thought of a cookie.

And when it comes to memory, your brain dominates any computer. Researchers tell us that in your 70-year-lifetime, you will be able to store enough information in your brain to fill the entire 32,000 page Encyclopedia Britannica 500,000 times. (And now you know why you can’t find your keys-they are lost in all that information.)

All of the memory is wrapped in a gray matter that is so intricately woven together that if you stretched all the gray matter in your brain from end to end, it would reach 6,000 miles.

No wonder one researcher called the brain the Enchanted Loom where leaders weave together their thinking threads into a quilt like mosaic pattern of innovative thought and imagination.

Today’s ImproveMINT Appreciate the awesome power of your brain to keep your leadership thinking in mint condition.

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