I've got James Garrett with me today at Live On Purpose TV to help us know how
to find inspiration for writing.
Where does the inspiration come from?
Well maybe that's not what we're going to answer today but how do we get that inspiration?
I brought in an expert. This is James Garrett, he and I did an episode recently
t Live On Purpose Radio and James, you said a few things to me in that interview
that I thought it would be totally relevant to this particular topic. Can you see
that? - Yeah. - You're an expert in, shall I say positive psychology and how to
operate the equipment of your own brain,
is that fair? - That's my passion. Yeah, that's what I love is, how did you get
this thing to work better. - So you shared with me on the radio that there
are basically two modes of brain functioning, that simplifies it a lot and
I know that but I think it's a useful model. Could you share that with with our
listeners today? - Sure, yeah. So they're basically two primary modes of
attention that your brain goes between, right. One is like a stand task
mode, sometimes psychologists call it executive mode this is any time you have
to put mental effort into something so if you're concentrating, you're focusing
and writing that email, even in this conversation we're having an
executive mode. - Right, we're carrying out a task, it's very focused and
intentional. - Yeah, it requires you to direct your attention to something,
you're paying attention, right? The other primary mode of your attention that
your brain goes into is something called creative mode or mind-wandering mode.
- Interesting. Mind wandering, that almost has a negative connotation to it.
- Yeah, well we've stigmatized. - At least traditionally, right?
- That's right. - Okay but you're you're labeling at first creative mode
and then you've added this mind wandering part so take us through
that little bit. What is that? - So if you were to look this up, look
in the science, you would find it as mind wandering, that's what
psychologists call it. The word I like to use is creative mode, some people call it
imagination mode. Scott Barry Kaufman, a psychologist at UPenn, calls it
imagination mode but basically this is what your mind does when you don't
require it to do anything at all. - Oh, gotcha. - So if you're going for a drive,
it's not traffic, it's not stressful on a country road. - Kind of on
autopilot. - Yeah you just, you're making small adjustments to the wheel
whatever. What is your mind doing? It thinks about what you want for breakfast.
- It's wandering. - Right? And then that reminds you of a
conversation you have with your spouse and then that reminds you, oh yeah, I need
to pick up this thing at the store, it's literally just wandering around. - It's
going from one thing to the next. - Yes, so we have this kind of weird model with the brand,
like an intuitive model that we're not working, that our brain turns off like a
light switch and the correct metaphor is actually to switch the light
switch sideways and to flip it side to side so if you're in an
executive mode, the good news is your brain actually never turns
off, it always is working. - It's always on. - So it will be in this executive mode
which is where most of us spend most of our time in a given day but also when
you let it rest, when you give it a break, it flips to this mind wander, your
creative mode. Well we didn't really know what was going on until the last five or
ten years in this other mode in fact, we you know, just like you said, we kind
of stigmatized, we thought, well this must be a waste of time and in school of
course we would say, oh, that kid is daydreaming. - Because it doesn't feel
like we're on task and in fact, we're not. - We're not being unproductive.
- But we're not being unproductive, it's not on task the way we're used
to thinking about being productive so what you're saying is this is a
very important aspect of our creativity that's which ties right in to our
question, how do I get inspiration for writing?
So you're saying let your mind wander a little? - That's right, that's
exactly right and what you want to do is you want to go between these two modes
in a given day. So you want to spend say 90 minutes in executive mode and
then switch step away from the computer or your desk and go for
on purpose and go for a walk for 30 minutes, right?
Or maybe you take a big break in the afternoon when your energy is low
anyways and and if you look at artists and scientists and inventors and all
these folks who we've you know, we say wow they've really contributed something
amazing to society, you find these very similar patterns, they work really
intensely in the mornings, right. They have some morning ritual, they go
through and then they have this, you know, three to four hour block of time
where they and they'll take little breaks in between but this is their, this
is their executive mode, this is when they're in writing mode if it's writing
and then their afternoons don't look like what we usually think of
as work, they go for walks, they take naps, they socialize, they hang
out. - This is sounding fun. - That's good, right? - Hey, but that's part of the deal right?
- That is part of the deal.
- You know what James, I say this all the time, if we're not having fun, we're
doing it wrong, right? But you're saying okay, so this switches our
brain into a different mode and if we're looking for that creative edge, that
what we're doing really is empowering our own brain to provide us with exactly
what it is that we're looking for but we have to get it out of that other mode
first. - Because your brain operates differently in these two modes so
when you go into creative mode, your brain activates something called the
default mode network. Default mode network, it's a series of regions
in your brain that it basically turns on when you go into this mode and quiets
down the concentration or attentional parts of your brain. - Traditionally right behind your
forehead, the prefrontal cortex. - That's right.
So it quiets those down and activates this totally different part of your brain and
as it does that, these parts of your brain are much better at, they're much
freer with how they're organizing information, they have.. - Well they
have a different job. - They have a different job.
They're actually more playful with ideas so as your mind is wandering,
it's not linear and logical, it sort of feels random as you're doing it
but there is vast processing happening that's even unconscious that you don't
even experience and in that, but all we experience is the moment of insight,
the epiphany. - When it clicks. - When it clicks but what we don't realize is
that your brain unconsciously has been really trying to solve that problem for
hours, maybe even days, maybe even weeks. - And it's looking around in places that
you wouldn't have thought to send it. - That's right. - Because that's
what these other parts of your brain do, that's what their job is. - When you want
to do an executive mode, it's basically two things.. You want to learn the domain,
okay. So if your expertise is psychology, if your expertise is nutrition, if it's
medicine, it doesn't matter, whatever it is, you just want to
keep pumping your brain full of good information by reading, by downloading
you know, educational content, whatever that is.
So you want to learn, you want to pack with good information and you also want
to clearly define the problem that you're working on, like what..
- What structured part of all this? - Yeah, and this is why
you want to get to clear any about what you're trying to solve,
whether it's a structure for how to, whether it's the central thesis of what
you're writing about, whether if it's fiction, if it's a character that
you just know needs to be there but you can't quite figure out the dimensions or
are the complexities of that character, what is the problem that you're
fixing? Oftentimes it's more than one problem, right? But if you can define
that in executive mode and then just let it be and go for a walk. - Step back from it.
- Yeah, you don't want to keep trying to figure it out at the computer. I always
ask people, where do you have your best ideas and nobody ever says behind my
computer, right? - You know what, it usually is like in the
shower or while I'm walking the dog or just before I'm ready
to fall asleep. - Everybody says that. - And you're
saying this is because of the way our brain is organized and the
way that it functions. - That's right. Yes, so you have vast untapped powers
of creativity but because of these modes, that switch metaphor is
apt because when it's in one mode, it actually cannot be in the other mode,
they're mutually exclusive so in order to actually really access all of your
creative potential, it's like a requirement to go into creative mode or
minor mode, it basically go back and forth between
these because if you don't, if you stay at that computer and you're just trying
to figure that out, you're closing the window on the
creative side of your brain in the name of being productive. - Could you just
share one other thing with us that you've shared with me
before but I think this is important for you too because what you shared with
me, James, is that it's kind of like fueling and depleting or charging.
Remember what you shared about that? And the two different modes, could you share
that as well? Because I think that's relevant. - So your brain works a lot like
your cellphone battery so when you wake up in the morning, you basically got
a full charge, you know, if you didn't sleep well maybe you've got 70% or 80%, right?
Or maybe 50. - We're assuming they've charged up.
- Maybe if the kids are interrupting at night, maybe it's 50. - Yeah, exactly.
But in general, right, we're got 100% charge. So you wake up and then throughout
your day, you're literally using up mental energy.
- You can see the little battery icon shrinking. - Yeah, that's right.
And this is why late at night we get more irritable, this is why we
get hangry right before dinner. - Executive functioning that that
attention part of your brain is an energy hawk, it's gobbling up your
battery, that doesn't mean don't use it I mean, that's what it's
there for, that's what it's there for but it is depleting
your battery. - Yeah, and it's also responsible for self-control attention
so that all of those executive functions are all right behind your forehead
so as you're using up, you know, think of it this way, it's only
one single battery whether it's resisting brownies,
whether it's staying
focused on a difficult task for a long period of time, whether it's controlling
negative emotions and not just letting yourself unleash on somebody you're
angry at, all of that requires, all that draws on the same takes power, mental
battery, it requires physical neurotransmitters to do that work and as
you use them up, your battery goes low, this is why writers write in
the morning. Look at Stephen King or any of these really famous writers, the
reason they all write in the morning, there's a really great book called How
Artists Work which profiles a lot of very famous writers, the reason is
they've got their best most concentrated like power energy
in the morning. - In the morning. That's true for me, I've written all of my books
before 7 a.m. so I'm hearing you. We've got
another video and you guys, there's more than what I want to talk to
James about, we'll put that in another video about enhancing performance and so
you might want to check that one out as well. To wrap this one up, I think as
we understand that our brain has these two functions and we need of both,
right? This executive functioning, that paying attention it sort of drains
the battery, the mind-wandering part recharges. - It recharges the battery.
- Recharges it and so, how about we get past the guilt and shame of taking a
walk or taking a nap and there's other brain friendly practices
that we can do, we'll address those in that in the other video. How do you
get inspiration for writing? Get into that part of your brain and let it
wander around a little bit and then the executive part will structure it and
order it for you, it says it should be. - And when you're in creative mode, always
walk with a notebook and a pen. - Oh, just to capture. - Because you will have these
little micro ideas again and again and again and creativity isn't, it
doesn't hit you as a fully fleshed out idea, it hits you as thousands of
little micro ideas and if you don't capture those when you have them, you
will lose them.- Just capture, don't process.
I don't ready to please sense, it's like freeform writing but
just capture it as you're in that creative moment, it's critical. - Wow, that's
awesome. Hopefully that's going to help with the
inspiration part of things. Thanks, James. What I love about James's
material is he to learn how to operate the equipment of
our own brain, get it working for us. If you liked this episode, please share it
with someone.
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