023 The Subconscious Simmer - Sometimes Stepping Away Is The Most Efficient Next Step
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This is Dr. Tori. Welcome to the Influence Every Day show where we make every day better and we influence for good.
Have you ever been driving and you arrive at your destination and you're like, wait a minute, what happened? Where did the time go? Where? I don't really remember any of the details of the trip. Well, have you ever experienced a book where you're reading a book and you not aware about of anything in your surroundings?
You're just completely absorbed by the book. You're in the story. You're in the narrative. Have you ever found yourself sitting somewhere and you're just watching the scenery? It might be. people watching a crowd or looking out at the ocean while you're on a trip or watching the waves crash or maybe you're by a campfire and you're watching the flame dance back and forth and crackle and you're hearing the wood crackle and you're smelling the smell and you're hearing crickets in the background and you're just lost in the moment.
Well, what's really interesting about all of those moments And I would add another one in there that's really important, and that are moments of deep rapport. Moments of deep rapport are just like getting lost in a book. Moments of deep connection with somebody are just like those moments where you're looking out into the ocean or looking into the campfire.
In those moments, what's happening is deep subconscious processing is going on. That is what I refer to as the Subconscious Simmer. That's the time where your brain is making connections and connections. The Subconscious Simmer is the reason you have eureka moments in the shower or while you're driving or where you
can't necessarily pull out your phone and type the notes because you have this great idea. Those moments where these eureka moments occur, where you get this burst of energy and idea, it's because all the while your brain was making these connections. And each one of those descriptions that I just gave, that drive, that book, that campfire, that people watching, all of those are trance states.
They're trance states, like trance, like hypnosis-type trance states. But here's the thing that people don't realize is that trance states are normal. We go in and out of them all day, every day. It's normal for us to go in and out of trance states. You know why? Because our subconscious mind, our subconscious processing, is vital.
It's vital. And what I like to refer to is a deliberate Subconscious Simmer. So if you're in a conversation and somebody gives you this great idea and you, and they want to jump to work on it right now, Hey, let's talk about this thing. Whoa, dude, my mind is blown right now. Let me sit on this for a little bit.
Let me work on this on my own. Let me step away. Or you might be working like trying to bang out something for a deadline and you have to do the spreadsheets or prepare the slides or do whatever. And it's this task that's like weighing heavy on you. Sometimes the most efficient thing is to leave it, walk away from it, walk away from the problem enough to make these connections, to allow the trance states to occur.
You need to go for that walk in nature. You need to go for that walk in the city street. You need to go for that break, take that break and walk to the kitchen or get the coffee or go talk to a colleague and get some water. Take the break. Take the nap if you need to take a nap in the middle of the day, take that nap.
If you need to take PTO because your best ideas, your best problem solving is occurring at the subconscious level. So it's very common for me when I'm presented with an an idea or a new challenge or a new problem or a new major opportunity.
For me to say, wait a minute, let me Subconscious Simmer on this. Let me simmer on this. Let me step away from it. Let's talk in a few hours. Let's talk tomorrow. Let's set up a time three days from now. So you've all heard the apocryphal story of Albert Einstein saying, if I had 20 days to solve a problem, I would spend 19 defining it.
The principle is there. Like the principle is there, there's this problem. And if you don't have it well defined, Then you're probably not going to solve it. You might address it. And this is the thing. Sometimes in our workplace, there's a challenge or there's a, there's something that comes up and we jump right into a solution.
We jump right into a. red, yellow, green report card or a timeline. We're going to do this and then we're going to do this. We're going to do this. These are the steps we're going to take. That's important when it's time to make a decision. But before you make a decision, there's some work to do.
And the best work is occurring at the subconscious level. So don't just jump right in. Somebody brings a problem to you. Don't answer right away. Why are you answering right away? Let it sit. Let it, let it simmer. The Subconscious Simmer because your non conscious processing is amazing. It's amazing. and you may have heard of many different stories about the Subconscious Simmer at work. For example, you may have heard the story of Thomas Edison, where he would enter this N one stage of sleep, the non REM stage one phase of sleep. What he would do allegedly is he would sit in a chair and hold things in his hands, and as soon as he'd start to fall asleep, his hands would let go of whatever he was holding, and it would fall to the ground.
That would wake him up, and then he would write down whatever ideas he had. Or he would just at least reflect on whatever the ideas that were occurring to him or whatever he was thinking about at the moment. And so it wasn't a, I'm going to sit down and deliberately think about a light bulb. It I am going to start to fall asleep and see what comes up because he's had multiple interactions throughout the day, multiple things he studied or read or come across.
And what happens is your non conscious processing makes connections where you wouldn't have done it otherwise consciously. You may have heard the story of the bullet trains and how they got their shape.
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OK. You may have heard the story of the bullet trains and how they got their shape. Allegedly also an engineer was on break, like meaning he took. His actual PTO and went into the mountains and was by a lake and he saw a King Fisher bird dive into the water without making a splash.
And he saw this bird, he was just watching the bird glide through the air and then dive straight into the water. And he noticed it didn't make a splash and he'd watch and again, it would do it and not make a splash. And then he was like, wait a minute. What if? We shape the front of the trains to be like the beak of the King Fisher bird?
Maybe that is what will solve the problem of, an equivalent of a splash, when a bullet train used to leave a tunnel, it would create a vacuum behind it, which would create a sound or a shockwave kind of thing that would, as the vacuum collapsed break windows and things like that nearby. So they had to solve this problem.
They could make the train go fast, but they couldn't solve the problem of when it left a tunnel. And so this engineer, while on his PTO saw this Kingfisher bird and the connection occurred. Okay, so this is when Eureka moments happen. They happen when you step away from the thing. The Eureka moment often does not happen while you're doing the work.
It's while you step away and you let your subconscious mind work. So I refer to that as the Subconscious Simmer, and it's very common for me in the middle of a meeting to say, you know what? I'm not going to make a decision on this right now. I want to simmer.
I want a Subconscious Simmer to occur. And the subconscious mind making connections and intersections is ultra powerful. And there's another side to this, right? Like most of us think about the Eureka moment. You're in the shower, you get this great idea.
I got to write this down. I got to say this thing. I got to do this thing. And you run, you get out and you do that thing or you let it go and you say, I'm going to remember that. And you actually don't. But you a lot of us think about these Eureka moments and we wonder how do we create them?
The way to create them is while you're doing your deep work step away from it. Step away from it. Ideally at like regular intervals and then come back to it. Your brain will make the connections the flip side of the Eureka moment is the time when there's a negative impact and then the when there are negative impacts that are Eureka like, but they're the opposite.
There's like a moment of intense anxiety or fear or anger that occurs about something that you've been Subconscious Simmering on. You know where that's coming from? It's coming from your inputs. It's really important to be careful about what's coming in your senses. What are you listening to?
Who are you hanging around? What kind of stuff are they putting in your brain? When you're hanging around friends that are talking about the latest celebrity gossip and who wore what to the Emmys and Grammys and who's having what relationship that is, I don't have another word for it, but filth or scum.
It's like the stuff when stagnant water is sitting there and there's foam sitting off to the side and it's like just gross. That's what it is to your brain. That negative stuff or useless stuff where you're concerned with someone else's stuff is something that can negatively impact you. If you have the news on in the background, the world's ending every five minutes, there's atrocities, there's this, or there's gross propaganda or lies or Focusing your attention on one thing while something else is happening in the world like this Negative input all the time, even if it's passive.
I don't want to even say it that way It's not even if it's passive input. It's especially if it's passive input You see each of those moments where you're not paying attention to the thing is a trance moment When you're driving and you lose, Time and space and then you arrive at your destination, you're going in and out of trance there.
What's the input during that time? That's the time of highest suggestibility. If you have the news on in the background, later you're anxious. No wonder you're anxious. You're hearing, the world is in chaos and people are awful, right through your senses at the most suggestible time. It's like the anti eureka.
That anti eureka is affecting you because of the negative inputs, the gossip, the news, the, the things you say to yourself, right? So the Subconscious Simmer is what I want to bring home here. That is, when you're working on something and it's important, step away from it. That might be the most efficient thing you do because your subconscious mind will continue the work and let it do its work.
Let it explore, let it make connections. I hope you found this useful. I'll see you in the next episode.
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