What Harry Potter Learned About the Power of His Brain to Solve Problems

I was listening to a chapter of HP and the Half Blood Prince last night whilst in the kitchen (like the books or not, Stephen Fry is awesome at narrating) and there was a scene where Harry is in the hospital wing after a Quiddich injury.

It’s during the night, in the piece in quiet, where his brain is wandering, that the solution to his ‘problem’ snaps into his mind, clear and complete, to the point he exclaims to himself that it was so obvious, why didn’t he think of it before?

I know it’s a fictional scene with fictional characters, but it got me thinking…and JK Rowling’s creation of how the scene played out was spot on.

For the first time, Harry was in a position where he quietened his mind…where he reduced the noise of action, busyness, living in the past, living in the future, fear, doubt, worry…

…and linked up the associative power of his brain, to finally ‘hear’ his creative intelligence speaking to him, with the answer to his question.

In the scene, Harry is desperate to find out what another character called Malfoy is up to. Harry is convinced it’s something sinister, it’s been on his mind for months, and it’s in the hospital wing where he has the peace and quiet to allow his mind to wander as he again poses the question, and ‘watch’ his associative thoughts unfold.

Harry eventually ‘wonders’ what it would be like if he has powers of the minister of magic to be able to assign someone to tail Malfoy and report back on his movements when the solution pops into his mind…he can do that!

How? By using a fortunate connection, he has to a couple of House Elves.

I’m not going into the details of that, because that’s not the point of this…

…the point being that when Harry was able to turn down the volumes on that part of his brain that prattles on a lot of crap all day long…and be in a receptive state to hear that much larger, infinitely more powerful part of his mind…he was able to hear it communicate to him and provide the solution he needed.

“Why is it I always get my best ideas when shaving?”

The above is a famous Einstein quote – and it makes total sense through today’s understanding of our creative brain. Einstein would have been allowing his mind to wander free, whilst engaging in a daily ritual of shaving, which would have created ‘space’ for his unconscious mind to hand over the creative ideas and solutions to the problems he’s been grappling with.

Although he doesn’t say it in this quote, if Einstein had been standing there looking into his mirror, worrying, fretting about the day or a challenge, he would not have been able to effectively and reliably connect with his creative mind…

…shaving was a ritual for Einstein that allowed his conscious mind to slow down, quieten down and become receptive to inspiration

Gillette’s Research and Development Head gets his product innovation ideas for shaving…whilst shaving

Same thing for Jim Clark! Focussing on a simple, low brain bandwidth daily ritual, allowing his mind to slow down and wander is the key here.

I’ll let Jim explain himself…

“You know those ProShield™ strips that lubricate before and after the blade? Just popped into my head one morning while unfogging my bathroom mirror. FlexBall™ joints that respond to every contour on your face? Another random shaving brainwave! The infamous Mach 5™? Sure, I may have had fighter pilot lingo on the brain from watching Top Gun the night before, but the idea for that fifth blade didn’t hit me until my groggy creative mind was stimulated by the meditative strokes of a nice clean… you guessed it…. shave!”

Dr Win Wenger’s Genius Code approach

In his amazing programme, The Genius Code (and his preceding programme, The Einstein Factor), Win (clinical psychologist and rather prolific author) outlines various ways and “protocols” for you to get past your “squelching conscious mind” and connect to that awesome part of your Brain/Mind that can pretty much solve any problem.

It’s the part of the brain that geniuses and successful people in human history have connected with for all their breakthroughs and eureka moments…

…and as I’m sure you’ve worked out already, given you’re still reading this…

…it’s your Unconscious mind

Your Unconscious mind is stronger than Mike Tyson right hook

Win tells you to do the following in his audio version of The Einstein Factor (it’s on Audible by the way):

·  Look down at the ground under one of your feet

·  See the size of the space – that represents your Conscious mind

·  Now look at the rest of the ground in the space of the room you are in

·  That represents ‘just some of the rest of the resources of your unconscious mind’

Relax your way to success

One of the best descriptions I heard of the conscious mind, and the self-importance of your ego is “It think it’s the Oval Office, when really it’s just the Press Office”.

Your conscious mind and ego thinks it runs the show, that it’s the brain and the braun, that it makes all the decisions and has all the power…

…when your conscious mind only has a tiny remit with limited (albeit important) responsibilities

Your conscious mind’s ability to solve problems is limited

While your unconscious mind ability to solve problems is virtually unlimited.

Your problem…and challenge… is to post clear questions to your unconscious mind, clear problems to be solved, give it space to do so, and then create the mental space to allow yourself to connect and hear the answer to your problem.

That’s what Harry eventually did in this scene…invertedly as he didn’t know what he was doing…he was in a place of minimal distractions, with a quiet mind…he was like Einstein or Jim Shaving, he was like Newton relaxing under that apple tree

Try these steps when solving your next problem

1 – clearly consider and write down your problem to solve or the outcome (if you know it) you want. state current situation and desired outcome.

2 – Put the problem out of your conscious mind, get on with other things – this gives your unconscious time to get to work making the connections and coming up with solutions

3 – Create time each day to sit down, quieten your mind, and observe/listen with a ‘relaxed expectancy’ that your mind will communicate the answer to you. You may find as you go about your day, ideas just pop into your mind, or you get a feeling or a sense

4 – Take that next step your brain suggest; look at that book, send that email, make that call, get to work on that idea. Do it quickly, or you may find the ‘solution’ fades from your memory in its clarity, and you can’t quite remember exactly what or why

Image Streaming – a daily practice to strengthen your connection to your super powerful unconscious mind

In his book and audio course (by the same name), The Einstein Factor, Win introduces the reader to his process called Image Streaming, which is a cool and powerful way to strengthen the connection to your unconscious mind.

The steps to image streaming can be found on Win’s website here:

http://www.winwenger.com/imstream.htm

However, the gist of it is you sit back and get comfy in a chair, close your eyes and you start describing out loud what you see in your mind, your visual pictures as they loop and link around and change and merge – you describe in vivid sensory based detail, so that someone listening to you would get a pretty good picture in their mind of what you’re seeing.

It shouldn’t be logical, shouldn’t be a linked story, don’t try and control it, just describe what you see and stay flexible and go with the flow

The more you do this, the more you engage with your vivid inner imagery through this process – and describe these sensory impressions out loud – the clearer your images become, and Win’s research indicates that your thinking will become sharper, more fluid, quicker, deeper, and importantly for us here, your connection to your unconscious resources will become stronger and you’ll more easily hear what it has to tell you.

Give it a shot.

And remember, sometimes the answers and ideas come so quickly and in a large quantity that you better right them down quickly.

Want to go deeper into Image Streaming and explore Win’s work?

The Einstein Factor is a great audio programme by Win and it’s on Audible now (was published by Nightingale Conant initially, lots of their older programmes are on Audible).

The Genius Code was published through a US company called Learning Strategies. And you can find out more here:

https://www.learningstrategies.com/Genius/Home.asp

Hit me up in the comments with your examples of creative and instant solutions to problems

Cheers

Paul