Issue 434
Have you noticed that some people you work with tend to be more visionary or dreamy and others more pragmatic or down to earth? Some are poets, others are prosaic. Some are full of music, some are full of methods.
Countless disputes emerge in every single walk of life over the poetic versus pragmatic approach to problem solving. You will see possibility thinkers argue with management specialists, entrepreneurs with implementers or artists with scientists.
It is commonly held that there are left and right brained thinkers in every team. The right-brainers are dreamers, poets and visionaries living in the clouds whereas left brainers are analysts, planners and action figures with feet on the ground.
Translate that into spiritual life and you can get the person of faith and miracles or the person of plans and projects. So wherever you look there is a subtext of conflict as each person’s approach is deemed superior to the other.
The left brain – right brain thinking was pioneered by neuroscientist Roger Sperry, and has helped us understand certain types of human expression, but only partially.
We, however, are trying to look into an ancient brain belonging to a man named Nehemiah. For four months (note here, this is a correction to edition four (Reading a Mind) in this series where we stated four weeks (apologies for the error)) Nehemiah has been engaged in right brain led activity – prayer, weeping, vision building, big picture thinking.
Now you see him moving over to left brain planning, strategy and pragmatic approaches. In fact, in one episode, you can almost feel the transition. His employer notices Nehemiah’s sadness. Straight away you can observe the plan.
For four months Nehemiah has been sad but not shown it. Now he chooses to show it because it is the deliberate signal he wants to express in order to gain his bosses attention. In that tiny moment Nehemiah’s mind is revealed. He is a dreamer and he is a planner. He is a poet and he is a manager. He is a dramatist and a pragmatist.
For four months he has been working with his complex mind to formulate a plan.
Step 1: let the King see I am sad. Note to self – only do this when I am ready, risky step due to possibilities of displeasing the King, losing job and possibly losing life – better be sure.
Before you move to the next steps stop and notice. The rebuilding of Jerusalem project went public the moment Nehemiah showed his emotional hand. Nehemiah knew that his life would change when he revealed his pain to his King. Hundreds of steps would follow but this was the first.
So what can you grab for your portfolio this week? Nehemiah sat with his pain but enlisted both sides of his brain to transport him to the pragmatic.
Dream your dreams, but plan your plans, pray your prayers but do your due diligence. Then when the moment comes show your hand – and be courageous enough to dare.
Make no mistake, Nehemiah was terrified and, even after four months of praying planning and plotting, when he opened his heart he was afraid. But his mind was also capable of shooting the instant desperate prayer of a moment “Help me Lord”.
Then the journey began. Check it out, the rebuilding was finally launched, not with a fanfare, but with the revelation of a sad face. This revelation was not an accident. Nehemiah had been putting this sad face on for a while in the mirror and it, like its owner, did its job.
Dig into both sides of your brain, find your dreamer and your planner and let them team up. Then you’ll be able to enlist them both to give you the courage to act.
Nehemiaih Chapter 2:1-3
2 In the month of Nisan in the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes, when wine was brought for him, I took the wine and gave it to the king. I had not been sad in his presence before, 2 so the king asked me, “Why does your face look so sad when you are not ill? This can be nothing but sadness of heart.”
I was very much afraid, 3 but I said to the king, “May the king live forever! Why should my face not look sad when the city where my ancestors are buried lies in ruins, and its gates have been destroyed by fire? ”
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Geoff Shattock
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