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Testing the Waters

By Peter Lloyd

If you've already read about Robert McCoy, in the previous Right Brain Workout, then you know he's the professional skeptic and founder of the Museum of Questionable Medical Devices. He listed a number of worthless products on the market today. Products that would never last without a lot of people faithfully dialing flashing 800 numbers.

If you ever feel tempted to try some so-called innovative weight-reducing, hair-growing, virility boosting, get-rich-quick, creativity-building, memory-enhancing cure all, keep in mind McCoy's quick quack profile:

"They make promises that seem to good to be true and don't want you to check with other sources and to get a second opinion. And if they offer information that seems unbelievable such as some magic thing will occur to you, which you know is against your better judgment."

So much for quacks. What about sincere creative thinkers who spend their lives chasing dreams that go nowhere? How do we keep our own intuition from going off the deep end?

"Well," Robert says, "you have to test the waters carefully. You have to do some research saying is this so or not? But I think the most useful thing is to have a trusted friend. Share these intuitive ideas, maybe enrich them, and get some encouragement or some suggestions and maybe think twice about this."

In other words your right brain depends on good solid information from the left. And we know the left brain won't work unless the right brain works.

Peter Lloyd is co-creator with Stephen Grossman of Animal Crackers, the breakthrough problem-solving tool designed to crack your toughest problems.
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