Da Vinci Curiosita

Are your eyes bigger than your brain?

 You know the saying where your eyes are bigger than your stomach and you end up piling more food onto your plate than you can actually eat??

 Well Scanners are like that too - except about the things they are interested in - rather than food.

 And because they think they are interested in so many things, Scanners sometimes refuse to choose and refuse to actually do anything because it may mean missing out on another area. 

To deal with that, lets deal with this in a way that Leonardo may have dealt with this.  


Da Vinci Curiosita

1 - collect articles and clippings on whatever interests you - save to a 3-ring Binder for hard copies or copy and paste from internet and save online.

2 - carry a notebook and record questions, jokes, snippets of conversations, observations, insights, dreams, musings, anything you hear or see that tickles your fancy. Do not edit. Just allow it all to free flow.

3 - Write down everything you have ever wanted to do, or be and everything you have ever done

4 - Write down things you have done and did not like doing - so you wont waste time doing them again

5 - Write down questions that you want to know the answers to - some day



I have just dragged out one of my early notebooks, that has a long list of things I have ever wanted to do or be when I grew up!! 

This is MY Scanner list.

do a history degree
write biographies or historical fiction
medical laboratory technology
librarian
editor
proof reader
researcher
fact checker
paralegal
arts administration
museum curator
archivist
bibliophile
records management
Computer education - Web page design - software not hardware
professional genealogist
paleography - scripts and development of languages
learn to read french, spanish, italian, latin, greek, russian
type 50 wpm
piano - keyboards
production assistant for filmmakers
continuity person for film and TV - I have a very good eye for detail
desk top publishing
logistics and supply chain
archaeologist
learn how to live off the grid



This is my list that satisfies Number 3 on the above requirements for Curiosita.


I have many many folders on my hard drive holding articles of interest - which satisfies Number 1


I havent done a list of things I hated doing for Number 4. I dont particularly like writing negative stuff. Not even Angst for fan fiction online. So Number 4 is not yet crossed off my list.

You can read the results of Number 2 and Number 5 on my website. Usually if I read or hear something that tickles my fancy. I have to do the research and write up and post a page immediately, or I will lose interest and nothing will ever happen. I have dozens of half-made pages in my dashboard waiting to be completed. 

It does get a little depressing at times, but if I lose interest I have to wait until the cycle comes around again for my interest to rise so I can finish the page. This is because I am a cyclical scanner. 

I did think long and hard about being a professional genealogist. I would love to do the training and I am fairly good at genealogy  already, since  this is probably the one thing I enjoy doing the most apart from surfing the internet. 

I have an insatiable curiosity about others peoples personal histories. I love watching the TV series Who Do You Think You Are.  I love genealogy because it combines history and research at the same time.

But there is also one thing about genealogy I dont much like doing. And that is searching for other peoples family trees. At the same time I only dont like searching for them because I am not being paid. Maybe it will be different if I am being paid to do that. 




 

How to think like Da Vinci

Changing tracks again - New subject. 

My biggest Scanner hero is Leonardo Da Vinci. 

His paintings are OK, but the notebooks are brilliant and inspiring!!!

I read a book some years ago called - How to Think like Da Vinci - by Michael Gelb.

 

This book has 7 Da Vinci principles to learning how to think like a genius. How to think like Leonardo. 

As a Scanner, I think these ideas are excellent goals for Scanners to aspire to, in order to manage their interests and their lives. 

 The Da Vinci principles are:

    Curiosità – An insatiable quest for knowledge and continuous improvement 

    Dimostrazione – Learning from experience 

    Sensazione – Sharpening the senses 

    Sfumato – Managing ambiguity and change

    Arte/Scienza – Whole-brain thinking 

    Corporalità – Body-mind fitness 

    Connessione – Systems thinking 

In plain English these include the following.

Always be curious

Ask questions

Use the senses 

Be open minded and flexible, able to change your mind, your beliefs and your goals when and if necessary

Think independently, think for yourself

Balance Physical and Mental health to avoid stress

Use the brain or lose it

Improve memory and problem solving skills

Use Logic and Imagination

Learn from Experience

Be Globally aware

I will be expanding on these principles over the next few days.

The Scanners Book of Tricks

These are some tips to help make life easier for Scanners who are in a panic about what to do next or how to do everything at once. These tips come from the Book - Refuse to Choose.

1 - Make your mental to-do list and then cut it in half.

So if you need to go do shopping and run some errands, do the shopping today so that you have food, but leave the errands until tomorrow.

2 - Get more help than you need.

Scanners often claim it is a waste of time asking others to help. Usually because the person helping will just make a mess and the Scanner will end up doing anyway so they might as well so it right from the start.

I know that's how I feel when asking for help.

But as Barbara reminds us, Scanners need to take rest breaks too.

3 - Grab your time first.

I do this every morning. I wake up at 0630 and have 30 minutes of ME time before I wake the kids up at 0700 and start getting them ready for school. If I don't get my ME time, my mornings usually do not end up going well at all.

4 - Ignore everything except your favourite part - until they HAVE to be done.
(Paraphrased by ME)

There are some jobs that I hate having to do because there are some parts of that job that I hate doing. So I tend to procrastinate and not do the job at all. Eventually I am forced into doing the job when things start piling up because I hate putting things away.  Things such as ironing the clean clothes out of the laundry basket, and the putting away the clean dishes from the dishwasher, and so on.

 5 - Learn to sort things that come at you fast. Choose a category for how urgent they are and sort them immediately.

Sometimes Scanners cannot avoid a flood of things happening all at once. Murphys law says this WILL HAPPEN. So learn to decide quickly - later, tomorrow, next week, urgent, get some help, not possible, Do this now.

 6 - The set up and the 2 minute break.

Keep a project handy that you can work on for 2 minutes at a time, whenever you get a break. One example is when the family is watching TV. Every commercial break, you spend the commercial break doing that activity, and then come back to the family when the next program session begins. It's easy enough to do chores during those commercial breaks as well.

 

Commitment Phobic Part 2

Seeing as how we Scanners need to find a way to get through the commitment phobia, Barbara Sher seems to have found one. 

 I don't know how easily this will work, since I have never tried it, but she says that it did work for many scanners she worked with or spoke to. Each scanner needs to adapt this to their own situation or job. 

This method is called - LTTL - or Learn, Try, Teach and Leave

SO - In your scanner daybook, you can write up a detailed one page plan for each and every career or interest you are considering. What you want to do first, is to learn everything you can about the job, and think up improvements as well - but just write them on paper, do NOT action them yet.

The next step can only happen after when you get a promotion or a position of some responsibility. Then you can start trying out the improvements and refine them as necessary.

Step 3 is to train someone else to do your job and manage the improvements. And make sure you are being well paid for the improvements since they you initiated them and they save the business a lot of money.

Step 4 is to leave the job - hopefully with severance or a good package to live on until you can repeat the whole process again with a new job.


There will be variations of this with every job, but most Scanners can adapt this to their own situation and Barbara has found that it does work well with scanner personalities. Since they no longer have to commit themselves to being with that employer for the rest of their lives, this gives them the freedom they crave - with a  defined point in time for them to be free again. 

Naturally of course the scanner will never tell the employer these plans - but if you can leave the company after having made some substantial improvements, then you may eventually earn the reputation as the go to person for turning companies around.

When the fun peters out (or when the job stops being fun), then the talented walk out.

Smart employers know they want to keep the talented so they have to make the job fun for their employees.

Noone can expect scanners to sit there on the telephone, or pushing buttons all day long for the rest of their life. No way!!!

Change the word "commit" to the phrases "try out" or "audition"

Jobs like movies and plays that require an audition, are not permanent jobs. They last a few months but are seldom permanent. So thinking of each job as a play to audition for or try out for a shirt time, makes earning money a lot easier to manage!!



There are 3 inescapable facts

 1 - Scanners can choose many specialties - combine them, turn into an interesting job, do them all at the same time or one at a time, do them part time, or any other combination as desired.

2 - Scanners can use any decent job to support what they LOVE to do, and do it in their own time. Most self employed scanners do this.

3 - All  Scanners can invent their own careers. 

So you need to learn how to do the job, try it out and make it better, teach someone else how to do the new job and then leave. It makes a huge difference to starting any new jobs knowing that there is an exit date planned in there somewhere.  

If you wish to become self employed then go for it!! Some people wind up and close their own business after 5 or 10 years, just because they have learnt all they could from it. Others are happy to allow it to continue on. 

Commitment Phobic Part 1

What if I sign up for the rest of my life to some miserable job where I am bored to tears and it eats up my life and wastes my best abilities? Getting stuck in the wrong career is like a horror movie where I'm buried and no-one hears my screams!


What Scanners really want is a life fill of learning, exploring new fields and starting something new whenever they feel like it.

What they THINK they will get is a one duty job, one niche with NO allowance or room to expand.


Below is a list of concerns and worries that Scanners really think when they think commitment. These are what Scanners told Barbara Sher in Refuse to Choose.

1 - you must choose one and only one path in life

 2 - everything you love has to be a career - doing something for pleasure doesn't count

3 - if you are not in love with your job it will be living hell

4 - you have to get it right because every choice costs time, money and training

5 - once you have made your choice - it becomes a life sentence with no chance of parole

6 - if you are not passionate to the point of obsession, you will never be content in that one job

Guess what, says Barbara. Nothing on this list is true!!!


Below are some of Barbara's suggestions and my experiences of the above concerns. 
  
1
Most people these days will have several careers during their working life.

These days are no longer my fathers days!!! My father didn't change his career at all. He was an accountant for almost 40 years. He told me once that he enjoyed  it, but was not passionate about accounting. He even continued with doing the finances of his church and with the local community help service, after he was forced to retire due to ill health. THAT is what my dad taught me. One job, one career. For life. So to me, being a Scanner, yes it is a prison sentence!!


2
Everything you love can be done for money or for pleasure, Not all of your interests can be come moneymakers. How do you choose? 


This is Barbara's suggestion - Pick the one that makes a living and doesn't take up too much time, and do the rest for leisure. 

I think this is what Barbara calls a "Good enough" job!!

This is what I ended up having to do. I had 2 "Good enough" jobs for about 6 years each

After I emigrated to Canada, my lack of "Canadian experience" (euphemism for discrimination against immigrants by employers) meant that I didn't last long in any of the jobs I had - not more than 1 year at the most. I was never promoted nor did I ever get into management. After several years of job hopping, I was forced to stop working for health reasons and I haven't been back to any job for the last 5 years. My health concerns are still ongoing. 


3
If you are not in love with your job it will be living hell.

NOT TRUE. 

The trick is to find the right transferable skill set for you, that lets you work anywhere, and then you just need to find the right environment (employer) in which to use that skill set.

It's not the actual job or skill set that that you need to get right - it's the management or (for scanners) the environment. If you can learn a TRANSFERABLE SKILL SET, then you can go anywhere and find the right place for you!!!

In Refuse to Choose there are some good examples. 

The accountant who works on Canadian prairie ranches. He rounds up the cows by day and does the accounting books in the evenings. His passion was to be a cowboy!!

A psychologist who works for a professional football team. She wanted to play football, but being a female meant she couldn't. So she now works for a football team by counselling the players on the team.

4
You have to get it right because every choice costs time, money and training

Professional careers such as doctor and lawyers do take a lot of training yes. But most others are maybe just 1 or 2 years, and most do NOT need to have a bachelors degree. 

I personally think that employers demand applicants with degrees, because they just want to have smart people working for them rather than high school dropouts.

Scanners really need to choose a transferable skill set - one that can work with a variety of employers

I ended up becoming an administrator, since admin skills are easily transferable. I even completed a 14 month Business Administration Diploma course. But I was never able to find the right employer.


5
Once you have made your choice - it becomes a life sentence with no chance of parole.

NOT any more!! This is plain flat out FALSE. The work place no longer expects anyone to stay with the same employer or job for 40 years. Even though my father was an accountant, he had 3 different employers in 40 years. 2 employers for 16 years each and one job in between those two employers for 4 years.


6
If you are not passionate to the point of obsession, you will never be content

Forget about finding that one passion because that will never happen. Instead, do everything that interests you.  And do NOT FEEL guilty about it!!!

Epilogue.

So does this mean that scanners don't have to commit to anything??

NO,  says Barbara Sher. Scanners must commit to everything that interests them!!!!

Scanner Panic

So now that you know that you are a scanner, which explains your behaviour up until now, you should be happy, right?  Right?

So why are you panicking??

Doing what you love is not an privilege, it's an obligation. (Barbara Sher - Refuse to Choose)

You are free to give yourself permission to STOP trying to find that one passion, that one calling and that one niche that will satisfy you for rest of your life. Because that will NEVER happen.

You now have permission to stop reading all those boring books (Except the ones you are required to read for school) and leave them unfinished on your bookshelf. If you dont pick up and finish that book within say 2  to 5 years, then you can also give yourself permission to get rid of the book. Either throw it out, donate it to Goodwill, or sell it online.

You are under NO obligation to make anyone else happy - be it your parents, your siblings, your family, friends and neighbours.

Let me Repeat that. 

You are under NO obligation to make anyone else happy!!!!!

You can now give yourself permission to only do things that YOU want to do, that make YOU happy!!!.

Others may call you selfish, buit it beats killing yourself over you thinking you have to take on everyone elses problems. I spent many years doing this and I would always wake up feeling so guilty. I hated my life at that point. I was just so miserable. I was in a job that I hated, and flatting with people I hated, but I had no way to leave.

 The one thing that freed me was learning that I have the right to  say this to other people.  "It's not my problem to deal with. That is your problem."

Basically I was finally taught that NO-ONE else has ANY RIGHT to make me feel guilty for THEIR mistakes and THEIR problems.


Scanners need to learn this too.

Do only what makes YOU happy, not what makes anyone else happy.

I wish I had known of this when I left High school. My life now, quite possibly, could be quite different. 

Accept that you are a Scanner

Accepting the fact that you are a Scanner is often a huge weight off the shoulders. Now you can stop trying to fit in with everyone else, and you are now free to follow all your interests instead of just one like "normal" people do.

It's like forcing a parent to choose one of her children and feeding ONLY that child. You just cannot do that!!! No parent should be able to do that either but it illustrates the point of how we Scanners feel when we are constantly being pushed into ONE passion or one niche. We just cannot do it, or we are miserable and unhappy if we try.

God knows I have felt that way in some of my jobs!!

Barbara Sher asks two very enlightening questions in her lectures.
These are from her book Refuse to Choose.

1 - How many of you wish that you were one of those people who have always known what they wanted and followed one path with certainty and clarity?

Most people in the audience raise their hands.

Are you sure? Barbara asks. Most of the audience nod their heads. So then she asks the next question.

2 - Okay then, Raise your hand if its OK for you to do one thing and one thing only for the rest of your working life?

Pretty much noone who is a Scanner raises their hands. They have looks of horror on their faces and several comments like "That would be just awful!!".

If you also have the same reaction to these questions, then you too are a Scanner.

There are 3 reasons why Scanners cannot be forced into ONE niche.  

1 - Scanners must find a way to follow every path that interests them. They cannot have FEWER interests.

2 - Scanners dont want fewer interests.

I know this for a fact. There are times when I am bored and I actually and intentionally, surf the internet looking for something new that is interesting!!!!

3 - Scanners can, so they must explore many things.

This is one reason why the Internet is so addictive to a scanner. I call it a passion because when I am online, I can learn so many new things!!!!

So why do Scanners act this way? Scanners need variety because they have brains that process things very quickly.

I also know this for a fact because I don't know how many times I have jumped the gun in a lecture or a talk, and asked a question before the lecturer has even mentioned the  topic. The response is always - Hold on, I'm getting to that. 

The main reason Scanners are different from others and the reason they get noticed for not sticking to anything is because they learn faster than almost anyone else.

I can still remember my father telling that after I was born, that I had bright and very alert eyes. Even as a baby I was interested in the world around me.

This is me in the year I turned 2 years old. Reading this huge book on World Architecture, or at least looking at all the pictures. I'm pretty sure that this was a Larousse book too. 

The signs were there for anyone to see. But no one put all the clues together, not even me.  I did not learn that I was a Scanner until I was in my 40's!!