The answer is in your neurons
To understand why a methodology like Torch is so useful, let’s refer to chapter 2 of “The Torch Methodology” (The electric mind) and briefly explore one of the ways in which our brain works.
Think of your brain. One hundred billion neurons. Each of them can receive inputs from up to 20,000 different sources. The Torch Principle tells us that we can have over one million billion connections just in the cortex alone. That’s a lot of complexity, and to deal with so much complexity the brain has some tricks up to its sleeve.
Let’s try to summarize in simple ways a very complex topic. A neuron gets activated when it receives enough stimulation from a number of other neurons. That level of stimulation is a threshold that you need to reach.
Now, pay attention to this. Once that threshold is reached, it gets lowered, and that lowering of the threshold lasts for a certain time. What this means in practice is that during some time it will take less effort to activate that neuron again. Basically, the more often you activate a neuron, the easier it gets to activate it again (for a certain period of time).
Going into the scientific details, we are talking about a process known as LTP (Long Term Potentiation). Neurons contact with each other at their synapses. When neurotransmitters appear in the synaptic channel that connects an inactive and an active neuron, some of the pores of the membrane in the inactive neuron will open readily, but others, which are called NMDA receptor sites (N-methyl-d-aspartate) are more difficult to open and will only do so if they receive stimulation for a long time. But once they open, they will respond to weaker signals for some time. Basically, they will be easier to activate for a certain period of time.
This is how we create habits and how we learn. That’s the positive side of it.
The dark side
But there is a dark side. The way these thresholds work, encourage the formation of patterns of activation and habits in our thinking. This is why we tend to think in directions that we have used before. And this is why it is so hard to change the way we think and behave, to get away of the typical mental patterns we regularly activate.
This is why we tend to think in directions that we have used before. And this is why it is so hard to change the way we think and behave, to get away of the typical mental patterns we regularly activate.
But, if instead you want to innovate and be creative in your professional and/or personal life, if you want to open new paths and ways of thinking, to deviate from the typical, to find solutions that are more original, that help you differentiate yourself from your competitors and that provide value that last for longer… then you need to find a way to deal with what we have described above.
When your analytical muscles are much stronger than your creative ones (typical in most adults), that is, when your capacity to reactivate already known mental patterns is much bigger than your capacity to open brand new ones, innovation and creativity suffer.
Torch to the rescue
Torch provides a methodology with strategies, techniques, exercises and tools specially designed to strengthen and exercise your creative muscles , that is, your ability to generate brand new paths and routes in your mind that deviate from the typical ones.
By doing that, Torch helps you reach a better balance between your analytical and creative strategies (both of them are equally important). This accelerates your capacity to innovate and generate more disruptive ideas and solutions that can put you ahead of your competitors and keep you there.
Javier Ideami
Founder of Torch
For more info on that:
Contact us at info@cookiebox.es with any further question or to arrange a Torch event for your company, institution or group.
The Torch Principle book: https://www.amazon.com/Torch-Principle-Light-Your-Mind/dp/0997247703
The Torch Methodology website: http://torchprinciple.com
