Why Right-brainers Will Rule This Century
CNN.com (Atlanta, GA), May 7, 2009
Summary:
Your left brain is logical, linear, by-the-numbers; the right side is creative, artistic, empathetic. Oprah Winfrey talks with Daniel Pink about his groundbreaking book, “A Whole New Mind”, and explores how right-brain thinkers are wired for 21st-century success.
The best part: Anyone can tap into the right mind-set.
Pink, a former chief speechwriter for former Vice President Al Gore, presents a convincing argument that our country is entering a new era — the so-called conceptual age — during which right-brained skills such as design and storytelling will become far more crucial than traditionally left-brained skills such as accounting and computer programming.
While the latter skills are readily outsourced, transformative abilities such as empathy and creativity are crucial in a new age “animated by a different form of thinking and a new approach to life,” he writes.
“What matters more now is the ability to put facts into context and deliver them with emotional impact. And that’s what a story does. We have in our head something called story grammar.
“We see the world as a series of episodes rather than logical propositions; when your spouse asks, “How was your day?” you don’t whip out a PowerPoint presentation and a pie chart. Instead, you narrate: “First, this happened, and you’ll never believe what happened after that…,” and so on.
“In our serious society, storytelling is seen as being soft. But people process the world through story. Companies are now using a product’s backstory as a way to differentiate items in a crowded marketplace.