Don’t be embarrassed by how much you don’t know.

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Imagine you are asked to listen to a simple story and then answer a few questions about it. Here’s the story: a little girl named Mary goes to the beach with her mother and brother. They drive there in a red car. At the beach, they swim, eat some ice cream, play in the sand and have sandwiches for lunch.

Now the questions: what colour was the car? Did they have fish and chips for lunch? Did they listen to music in the car? Did they drink lemonade with lunch?

All right, how did you do? Let’s compare your answers with those of a bunch of British schoolchildren, aged five to nine, who were given this quiz by academic researchers. Nearly all the children got the first two questions right (“red” and “no”). But the children did much worse with questions three and four. Why? Those questions were unanswerable – there simply wasn’t enough information given in the story. And yet a whopping 76% of the children answered these questions either yes or no.

Kids who try to bluff their way through a simple quiz like this are right on track for careers in business and politics, where almost no one ever admits to not knowing anything. It has long been said that the three hardest words to say in the English language are “I love you”. We disagree. For most people, it is much harder to say “I don’t know”. That’s a shame, for until you can admit what you don’t yet know, it’s virtually impossible to learn what you need to.

Think like a child

When it comes to generating ideas and asking questions, it can be really fruitful to think like a child. Because they know so little, they don’t carry around the preconceptions that often stop people from seeing things as they are. When it comes to solving problems, this is a big advantage.

Kids are not afraid to share their wildest ideas. As long as you can tell the difference between a good idea and a bad one, generating a boatload of ideas, even outlandish ones, can only be a good thing. You may find that only one idea out of 20 is worth pursuing – but you might never have come up with that one unless you were willing to blurt out, childlike, everything that wandered through your brain. So when it comes to solving problems, channeling your inner child can really pay off. It all starts with thinking small.

Why? For starters, every big problem has been thought about endlessly by people much smarter than we are. The fact that it remains a problem means it is too damned hard to be cracked in full. Sure, there are some truly brilliant people out there and they probably should think big. For the rest of us, thinking big means you’ll spend a lot of time tilting at windmills. Here are a few reasons why it’s much better to ask small questions than big ones.

1. Small questions are by their nature less often asked and investigated, and maybe not at all. They are virgin territory for true learning. 2. Since big problems are usually a dense mass of intertwined small problems, you can make more progress by tackling a small piece of the big problem than by flailing away at grand solutions. 3. Any kind of change is hard, but the chances of triggering change on a small problem are much greater than on a big one. 4. Thinking big is, by definition, an exercise in imprecision or even speculation. When you think small, the stakes may be diminished but at least you can be relatively sure you know what you’re talking about.

Here’s another cardinal rule of thinking like a child: don’t be afraid of the obvious. If you are willing to confront the obvious, you will end up asking a lot of questions that others don’t. As Albert Einstein liked to say, everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.

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How to Think Like a Freak – Read the powerful book review at the link

below! http://www.mindpowernews.com/ThinkLikeA

 

Let go of the problem. Don’t work on it. Forget it. Do something else.

 

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Sometimes ideas do not appear when you are concentrating your attention and mysteriously appear when you are not.

Modern science recognizes this as a result of incubating the problem in your subconscious yet can’t account for why it occurs.

A majority of scientists, artists,  and writers report that they get their best ideas and insights when not thinking about the problem. Ideas come while walking, recreating, or working on some other unrelated problem. This suggests how the creative act came to be associated with divine inspiration for the illumination appears to be involuntary. 

The more problems, ideas and thoughts that you think about from time to time, the more complex becomes the network of information in your mind. The more work you put into thinking about a problem, the more thoughts and bits of information you put into random motion.

When you quit thinking about the subject and decide to forget it, your subconscious mind doesn’t quit working. Your thoughts keep colliding, combining and making associations. This is why you’ve experienced suddenly remembering names, getting solutions to problems you’ve forgotten about, and ideas out of the blue when you are relaxing and not thinking about any particular thing. 

THOUGHT EXPERIMENT 

Work on a problem until you have mulled over all the relevant pieces of information. Talk with others about the problem, ask questions, and do as much research as you can until you are satisfied that you have pushed your conscious mind to its limit.
 
Write a letter to your unconscious mind about the problem.

Make the letter as detailed and specific as possible. Describe the problem definition, the attributes, what steps you have taken, the problems, the gaps, what is needed, what you want, what the obstacles are, and so on. Just writing the letter will help better define a problem, clarify issues, point out where more information is needed, and prepare your unconscious to work on a solution. The letter should read just like a letter you would send to a real person. Imagine that your unconscious is all-knowing and can solve any problem that is properly stated.
 
Instruct your unconscious to find the solution. Write “Your mission is to find the solution to the problem. I would like the solution in two days.” Seal the letter and put it away. You may even want to mail it to yourself. 

Let go of the problem. Don’t work on it. Forget it. Do something else. This is the incubation stage when much of what goes on occurs outside your focused awareness, in your unconscious. Open the letter in two days. If the problem still has not been solved, write on the bottom of the letter “Let me know the minute you solve this” and put it away. Sooner or later, when you are most relaxed and removed from the problem, the answer will magically pop into your mind. 

ADS ON EGGS
 
An advertising agency was under pressure to come up with an innovative marketing campaign to introduce a television networks new shows. Stymied, Bert, the creative director, wrote the following letter which he addressed to his subconscious mind. He called his subconscious mind “Secret Expert.”
 
How are you Secret Expert?

I haven’t heard from you in some time, so I thought I would write you a letter. I need your help with a problem. I need to come up with an exciting new marketing program to introduce a new season of television shows. The shows include programs about criminal forensics, contests for prizes, lawyer shows and comedies. I’m interested in coming up with some kind of campaign that will capture the audiences attention more than one time. The approach of the campaign should be unique, fresh and unexpected. 

What do people need and keep? Is there something they need that we can advertise on? What kind of goods, products, foods and services should we investigate? What producers, distributors and retailers should we study? Can we combine our services with another company? Do we need to share revenue? I need a fresh approach to advertising. Your mission is to give me a new idea on how to advertise television shows. I need the idea in two days. Help!!! 

Thanks, Bert”

Bert mailed the letter to himself and two days later received it. When he read what he had written, he got his brainstorm, which was to advertise on “eggs.” Somehow an association between “foods,” “need,” “producers,” and “fresh approach,” inspired the thought of using “fresh egg to advertise?”

He arranged to place laser imprints of the networks logos, as well as some of its shows on eggs-some thirty million. Some of the slogans that will be imprinted on the eggs are “Crack the Case on CSI,” “Scramble to win the great race,” “Hard-boiled drama,” “Leave the Yolks to us,” and “Funny Side UP.” 

The consumers look at a single egg at least a few times. When they open the carton at the store, when they transfer them to the refrigerator, and when they crack them open. It’s unlike any other ad medium in the world, because you’re looking at it while you are using it.
 
Try the experiment yourself.

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By Michael Michalko / Source: Psychology Today

 

 

Some TRUTHS you don’t want to hear.