Your Amazing Brain
It used to be believed that there was a left brain and a right brain, and you were either left brain dominant or right brain dominant. Although the newest neuroscience research has proven that there is no right brain or left brain, your entire brain operates and functions together regardless of whether you are more of a number cruncher (“left brain”) or more of a creative abstract person (“right brain”).
In this chapter I’m going to use the left brain and right brain example to show the distinction between the core competencies of people and how it relates to the brain.
The best chess player finally was beaten by a computer, and, now, no human can beat a super computer at chess. Machines have slowly been taking over people’s jobs, and this replacement of humans with computers is only going to grow as technology continues to increase. Machines most commonly take over left-brain-dominant jobs, including in engineering, accounting, architecture — basically any job where a computer can do the same job faster, cheaper, and with more precision.
Jobs that involve number crunching or problem solving with equations are especially susceptible to replacement by computer. Computers can process numbers and problems millions and billions of times faster than people can, and computers are only getting more intelligent. The growth in technology is a strong enough reason to believe that jobs dominated by left-brain thinking are on the decline.
Outsourcing is a necessary adjunct to technological replacement. Many left-brain-dominant jobs can be and are being outsourced. This isn’t to say right-brain jobs can’t be outsourced, but most right-brain jobs deal with face-to-face communication, such as sales, management, and leadership positions. While creative, strategic thinking comes from the use of the right side of your brain, without the left side of your brain, you wouldn’t be able to think or function properly. Think of the left side of your brain as a text processor and the right side of your brain as a context processor. If either side of the brain is damaged, perhaps from a concussion, a stroke, or any dangerous brain trauma, you will not think the same.
If the left side of your brain is damaged from a stroke, you will have a hard time understanding text. Someone may say, “I’ve had a great day,” but their tone of voice says otherwise, almost as if he or she was being sarcastic, letting you know their day actually sucked. A person with a left-brain injury will understand the context and sarcasm, knowing they didn’t actually have a great day. However, they will be confused about the words that were used because their brain has trouble understanding text. They will be confused as to why the person said something they didn’t actually mean.
If the same situation happens to a person with the right side of their brain damaged, they will hear the words “I’ve had a great day” and think the person had a great day, not picking up on the tone of voice and the sarcasm. They don’t understand context, so they will understand only the words they hear. Tone of voice and body language no longer affects them. This will make communication very difficult for them to understand since most of communication is not in the actual words.
I mention this just so it doesn’t seem like I’m picking on people who are more dominantly left-brain thinkers. I’m showing that we need both the left and right sides of our brains to function properly. However, the future will allow right-brain thinkers more opportunities for success, as technology will eventually replace most left-brain-dominant-thinking jobs with computers. So get more in touch with your creative, imaginative, strategic-thinking side, which is harnessed in the right side of your brain. The jobs of the future rely on right-brain thinkers.
If you’d like to hear more on this, listen to the audiotape series: A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future, by Daniel Pink.
Random Fact
A duck’s quack doesn’t echo.
