1. Mindex Your Thinking Style Profile
Introduction & Overview
For Prospective Certified Users

2. History of Brain Research
Very little was known about the “mysterious organ”
Localization of Functions: Brain-Injured People (1800s - Paul Broca, Karl Wernicke)
Left & Right “Brains”: CalTech Split-Brain Experiments (1960s – Dr. Joe Bogen / Prof. Roger Sperry)
Scientists had known about a few key brain functions for a long time, mostly from studying brain-injured people. Researchers Paul Broca and Karl Wernicke in particular, in the 1800s, identified areas of the brain that control verbal thought and speech.
However, our understanding of brain “lateralization”, i.e. the specialization of left and right hemispheres, is very recent, dating to experimental surgery in the 1960s at CalTech by Dr. Joseph Bogen and others.
They surgically divided the cerebral hemispheres of patients suffering from uncontrolled epilepsy, by severing the corpus callosum, the bridge of nerve tissue connecting them. Other treatments for epilepsy made this type of surgery obsolete, but they were able to study the brains of about 100 people who had been surgically divided.
These studies, led by psychologist Dr. Roger Sperry, led to the realization that the two hemispheres divide up the work of thinking in two very different ways. These important findings were unknown to early psychologists such as Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung.
Later, (about 1980) the concept of cognitive preference began to emerge. Dr. Karl Albrecht’s Mindex is based upon these findings.
Cognitive “Styles”: (1980s – Myers & Briggs: “Type Indicator”; Dr. Karl Albrecht: Mindex Thinking Styles Profile)

3. Thinking Styles 1. Structure of Thought 2. Content of Thought
(Left-brained, Right-brained)
2. Content of Thought
(Concrete, Abstract)
Typically, the following series of slides is used after participants have filled out and scored the Mindex Profile questionnaire.
We can describe thinking patterns in terms of two variables:
1. The structure of thought (“left-brained” and ” right-brained”), and
2. The content of thought (concrete and abstract).
By combining these two dimensions, we can identify four primary patterns, or styles of arranging information in one’s mind.

4. The Mindex Model Abstract Concepts Concrete Experience Left Brained
Blue Sky
Red Sky
Concrete Experience
Using the two dimensions of structure (left-brain and right-brain) and content (concrete and abstract), we have four primary combinations, or patterns.
The Mindex model substitutes simple metaphors of color and direction, to make the theory easy to remember, and to avoid the “medical” or “biological” connotations of the terminology.
The Mindex model describes left-brain thinking (structural, sequential, analytical, numerical, verbal, and elemental) as “Blue” thinking. Right-brain thinking (holistic, patterned, spatial, intuitive, and emotionally referenced) as “Red” thinking.
The dimension of concrete vs. abstract thinking becomes “Earth” and “Sky” respectively.
No one of these patterns is “better” than any other. Everybody uses all four patterns. However, most people tend to develop a preference for one pattern as a kind of “home base” for their thinking.
We can think of these four patterns as working somewhat like software “windows” on our computers; each window does something different with the information.
Blue Earth
Red Earth
Left Brained
Right Brained

5. Red Earth Mode Right Brained & Concrete “Here & Now” Direct Experience
Uses Intuition & Hunches
Oriented to Feelings & “Vibrations”
Add your notes here:

6. Blue Earth Mode Left Brained & Concrete The “Bottom Line”
Facts & Figures
Uses Linear / Procedural Thinking
Oriented to Logical Outcomes
Add your notes here:

7. Red Sky Mode Right Brained & Abstract “The Big Picture”
Dreams & Visions
Uses Hypothetical / Projective Thinking
Oriented to Possibilities
Add your notes here:

8. Blue Sky Mode Left Brained & Abstract “The System”
Diagrams & Relationships
Uses Systematic Thinking
Oriented to Structure & Order
Add your notes here:

9. Applications of Thinking Styles
Self-Understanding
Personal Relationships
Communication Training
Sales Training
Team Building
Job/Career Placement
Add your notes here:

10. 10 Ways You Can Use Mindex…
Build your “people-reading” skills.
Make better decisions by getting more & better information from others.
Sell your ideas to others with more clarity and skill.
Reduce conflict with people and in work groups.
Add your notes here:

11. 10 Ways You Can Use Mindex…
Lead or mange others with less conflict while getting greater results.
Reduce or eliminate your “communication stress” with others.
Accept the styles of others, as being unique to them.
Practice situational shifting as needed.
Add your notes here:

12. 10 Ways You Can Use Mindex
Know when to focus on feelings, rapport, and intuition, vs. facts, data, and concepts.
Know how to adjust your approach when explaining, selling, teaching, or persuading others.
Add your notes here: