From The Chronicle Review,
The amazing influence of unconscious cues is among the most fascinating discoveries of our time—that is, if it’s true
Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2013 James Ament From Neurotic Physiology (scientopia.org):
If you’re reading this sentence, chances are you’re reading it silently (if you’re reading it out loud, hey, that’s cool too). Your lips aren’t moving, you’re not making any sound that other people can hear. But are you making “sound” in your head? Many people who read silently do so by imagining a voice speaking the words they are reading (and often, it’s your own voice, so there’s even a specific “tone”. I wonder if this is what makes people react so strongly to some blog posts). This could be because when we learn to read, we associate symbols with verbal sounds until the association is effortless (as for reading learning in the deaf, it may occur another way).*
Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2013 James Ament Examples of my understanding of the definition of an elevator speech:
You’re a bright young businesswoman with credentials waiting for an elevator on the first floor and you’re on your way to the eleventh floor for an important meeting at a high class firm. The door opens, and as you step in, Warren Buffett appears behind you, enters the elevator, and pushes the button for the tenth floor. You’re the only two people in the elevator. He notices you and not only asks you what you do for a living but is interested in your career goals. The elevator starts to move. What you say is your elevator speech–and you’ve got a very short time to impress him.
Or…you’re an unpublished novelist and a similar situation occurs but this time it’s your favorite writer, one that you know has influence and helps new writers get in the door with major publishers. You introduce yourself and tell him you’ve written your first novel. He is gracious and then says, “What’s it about?” You’ve got maybe thirty seconds to knock his socks off.
So here’s my elevator speech: Continue reading
If the formative years of one’s life have a huge influence on how one turns out, as some experts in childhood development suggest, then a brief examination of my early years may explain a few things about my worldview.
My parents were people of the Great Depression, having started their young life together in 1934, during tough times. They had no car and lived in a small rental house—along with a Mexican tenant—near the railroad tracks in my father’s hometown, close to where my father worked. My mother fed hobos off the back porch until the traffic got too heavy; their house had been “marked.” She recalls these tramps in their big black coats, hungry for food, and remembers seeing the campfires by the tracks at night. These were desperate times for my parents, but their lives were whole. They had decided to be happy. They eventually acquired a Ford, and with my older sister, moved to a highly mortgaged country home in my mother’s hometown, a small Northeastern Ohio farming community of about 200 people—that is, if one were to count the farms within a three or four mile radius. Our town had a general store, a one-room schoolhouse built in 1810, a post office, and a Presbyterian church built in 1851. The schoolhouse, where my older sister attended, was eventually closed and converted to a larger post office during my time there. Both the church and post office still stand, the church being an active part of the local community to this day. I was born in 1942 and spent my first ten years in that little village, built on the old stagecoach route to the West.
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