Leadership from a different perspective – Science

Naked Leader Week – 136 (w/c Monday 26th December 2005)

Please share with those whose lives you touch

 Leadership from a different perspective – Science

 Wherever you are, whoever you are with, and whatever your religion, I hope you had a lovely Christmas.

And so we gear ourselves up for a new year, and new year resolutions. Next week I will share the most powerful ways to ensure we keep resolutions (Yes, I know it will be sent out on the 2^nd January, but if you have given up that soon nothing I suggest will make any difference!)

So, preparing for whatever you decide, and whenever you decide to do it, some leadership help from the world of science. I was recently asked on a radio programme, whether my belief that people can be anything they choose is provable in hard, scientific terms.

I answered, “No” but that did get me thinking…

What’s starting you?

Not what we so often ask ourselves – “What’s stopping you?”

This question does not “work” for me, or for people, for three main reasons:

• It focuses our minds on what may be stopping us
• When it is asked, we often feel the “correct” answer is nothing
• It encourages us to go over and over the same ground again and again

And that is why the question – “What’s starting you?” is so amazingly powerful

Because we can immediately answer, very factually, “Lots”

Starting with your bodies, ten scientific wonders that are staring you, right now, as

you read this:

From the moment of your conception, 46 chromosomes with 30,000 genes

combined to determine all your physical characteristics: sex; facial

features; body type; colour of hair; eyes and skin

 There are more living organisms on the skin of a single human being

than there are human beings on the surface of the earth.

Except for your brain cells, 50,000,000 of the cells in your body

will have died and been replaced with others, all while you have been

Reading this sentence.

Your liver is like a chemical factory, with over 500 liver functions.

Messages travel along your the nerves as electrical impulses. They

travel at speeds up to 248 mile per hour – and they have far to travel, as there are

45 miles of nerves in the skin of a human being

In a year, your heart beats 40,000,000 times

Over 8 million blood cells die in your body every second, and

the same number are born, again, each second.

Your body has about 5.6 litres (6 quarts) of blood. This 5huge quantity of blood

Circulates of blood circulates through your body once every twenty seconds, that’s

three times every minute, and one hundred and eighty times in an hour. In your

lifetime, your heart will pump over 1 million barrels of blood – that’s enough to fill

more than 3 super tankers.

You renew and discard about 10 billion skin flakes every day. Over a year this

mounts up to nearly two kilograms. The life span of a taste bud is ten days and the

cells are constantly being renewed, roughly one every ten hours.

 Your brain is full of nerve cells, but it has no pain receptors. Doctors can operate on

your brain while you’re awake—and you won’t feel a thing!”

 With love and best wishes for a great new year

David

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