Caring and the power of the subconscious
Deep caring — where we have a determination to achieve a goal — operates constantly, working in the background when our minds are elsewhere.
Caring and engagement are so obvious that their impact is often overlooked. When we don’t really care, we miss vital clues that might lead to breakthroughs. Caring — deep caring, where we have a determination to achieve a goal — operates constantly, working in the background when our minds are elsewhere. You have probably experienced an idea popping into your head, seemingly from nowhere. But that happens only when you truly care about something.
Experiments have proved that conscious thought is most effective when there are no more than a few bits of data to piece together — for example, I look at a map, see two viable routes, and choose one of them. The subconscious is better for solving all the really interesting problems, when the information is ambiguous, tangled, complex and confusing in its profusion. This is when we need to process multiple streams of evidence and impressions from many separate and contradictory sources, using information from all of our senses and emotion as well as reason.
It works by churning over any problem that is important to us
For example, rational thought is unable to tell you whether to start (or end) an intimate personal relationship, but the subconscious can. It works by churning over any problem that is important to us, operating slowly but surely, before eventually flooding our conscious mind with solutions when we least expect them. The philosopher Bertrand Russel had one of his greatest conceptual breakthroughs while buying a tin of pipe tobacco. Henri Poincare, the great French mathematician, solved a highly complex problem that had defeated him for years while boarding a bus and talking to a friend about something completely different.
The subconscious is extremely economical because if works away for free on your behalf while you concentrate on another, more mundane tasks. It provides fresh, creative and quirky ideas that wouldn’t surface if you were reliant on your plodding, linear thought process. Yet most founders/executives don’t make full use of their subconscious lever because they don’t care enough about the problems it tackles.
Care about what you do 10/10
Caring generates its own energy. When he was getting on in years, the great choreographer George Balanchine said, ‘I’ve got more energy than when I was younger, because I know exactly what I wanted to do.’ He cared about one very specific thing — becoming the best choreographer he could be. Caring is also closely related to meaning, which in turn leads to happiness. Your life has meaning if you care passionately about something, and none if you don’t. If you don’t care about something that takes up half your waking hours, you are half dead. You are only half as happy as you could be.
If you care about what you do 10/10, you can start to make full use of your fantastic subconscious thought processor. Keep it well fed, so it’s always chugging away in the background. As soon as it solves one complex problem, send it another. This becomes a virtuous circle, ensuring that you always care about something, and it continues to operate without any effort whatsoever.
