Episode 3: Help! I Need to Think Outside the Box!

Ever been told to "think outside the box" only to find yourself staring blankly at your screen, trying harder and getting nowhere? In Episode 3, Dr. Bethany Ranes and Dr. Norah Kennedy join host Jena Mahne to unpack the neuroscience of creativity and the aha moment, including why forcing creative thought is basically the worst thing you can do. Spoiler: your best ideas aren't coming from your desk; they're coming from your shower, your walk, your mind wandering, or any other random unstructured time. Tune in to learn how to actually set yourself up for creative breakthroughs at work (yes, even if you have a packed calendar and a skeptical boss). No hustle culture required, just science.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

For the love of God, if anybody out there thinks you only use 10% of your brain, can I please just ease your burden of that myth? If you do, see a doctor. Please go see a doctor immediately.

SPEAKER_01 0:11

Um Welcome to Firing and Wiring, a show dedicated to the neuroscience of how you think and how to optimize your mind.

SPEAKER_04 0:29

Hey nerds, welcome back to Firing and Wiring. This is a podcast brought to you by Intercept Labs where your friendly neighborhood scientists bring cognitive neuroscience straight to your ears. I'm Jenna Mani, and I'm joined as always by the uh amazing cognitive neuroscientist Dr. Bethany Rains. Hello. And Dr. Kennedy, our psychologist.

SPEAKER_00 0:55

Howdy.

SPEAKER_04 0:56

Um, okay, we're gonna go, we're gonna go to a tweet that came in from Brian from San Francisco. So Brian was wondering um if, from a cognitive neuroscience perspective, if we could give him some tips on how to increase his creativity in the workplace. He says that he wants to um be better at thinking outside the box, even though his boss just told him that there is no box. Uh so uh I would like to turn it over to Bee to see what she tells about the box.

SPEAKER_02 1:28

Um yeah, I actually think this is kind of an interesting one because this is one of those cool you can't control it things, um, which are like my favorite parts of cognition. The the kind of automatic, murky, mysterious, deeper brain stuff. Um, and so thinking creatively is not something that you can easily do with your executive network. That's super conscious. We call it the prefrontal cortex. Um, you can't really force yourself to come up with a creative idea, right? If we could, that would be amazing. Um, but usually whenever you're trying really hard to use your executive network to come up with something genuinely creative, novel, new, we call that writer's block, uh, where you're just sitting there and you're desperately trying to think of an idea and you just can't. And that's because you're you're literally using the wrong part of your brain. And the part of your brain that you need you really can't control. So um, you know, in in cognitive science, we generally call a moment of insight um or creative insight an aha moment. And people will notice that they usually show up at weird times. Um how weird. How weird. How weird. Real weird.

SPEAKER_04 2:38

How weird is it.

SPEAKER_02 2:41

No, you usually think of it just like you know, you're not gonna have very often a brilliant idea, a life-changing idea sitting at your desk, you know, or on your computer. You're gonna have it in the shower. You're gonna have it while you're playing with your kids, you're gonna have it while you're in the garden. Um, I used to have them a lot when I would sleep. Um, you get them a lot when you're sleeping. I always kind of tell people to keep a journal by the bed just because a lot of times you'll get an interesting idea while you're sleeping.

SPEAKER_00 3:05

Nah, but what you're saying, right? It's kind of like the the finger traps in the 90s, right? It's like the more, the more you try to get out of the finger trap when you're pulling out, the more the more stuck you get, right? Like this is the opposite. If you want actually to get into creative head space, you have to be creative, even getting out of that trap, right? You have to like go towards, you have to figure out like what's gonna get me unstuck. Well, like what's how am I focusing too much on the wrong thing, right? Which is like trying to do it versus giving myself opportunities for it to happen, kind of. And like that's the part we can control, right? We can't control switching from kind of one network to the other network. No, but we can control giving ourselves the opportunities for our brain to switch networks. You totally can.

SPEAKER_02 3:47

So, you know, the part of your brain that is really handy dandy when you're wanting to have an aha moment, get out of the finger trap. I love that. That's a guy you're good with the metaphors, good with the metaphors from a roll. Um is you know, your default mode network. Yeah, the old BM in. And uh it does, well, for the longest time, what was cool about the default mode network, if we didn't know what the hell it did, right? That was it was always this mystery in cognitive neuroscience and psychology, too, right? Like you guys, you guys play in that that role, and it was this important part of the brain. Um, but it's called, it's literally, I mean, look at the name you guys, it's called the default mode network. What does that even mean? And it means that when you're not really doing anything, this thing seems to turn on. Your brain is never turned off. So the default mode network, it's it's a pretty decent size, uh, it's it's deeper into your brain and it it seems to be on when everything is off. Not everything, of course. We breathe, we move, we whatever, but uh what we have realized is that this is the part of your brain that does mind wandering, it does daydreaming. Um, it handles a lot of your core sense of self and like your sort of unquestioned, un uh just unconscious assumptions about yourself. So it does a lot of that kind of automatic thinking. And when the default mode network is engaged, when you've relaxed enough to let it kind of turn on, that's when you're gonna have it start to explore and experiment new neural connections and new neural pathways. So it has a really cool sort of back-end neuroplastic thing happening, and it starts to tie things together, it starts to chew things up for you a little bit underneath your conscious awareness, just underneath it. You're just kind of following ideas, letting them flow from one to the next. And that experience is your brain just sort of like kind of playing around with some of these neural pathways, digesting them, maintaining them, exploring them. And when you do that, that's when you have two previous neural networks that didn't really click before, and suddenly they do, right? Because your brain was just surfing these waves and it was back there. And that moment, that aha moment is a conscious experience of your conscious awareness of now I have it, I've got it. Uh, it happens when you're trying to solve a problem, happens when you're trying to think of a word or a name or a face, or it happens when you're trying to come up with something genuinely novel or innovative. Um talk about a dopamine release, by the way. It's a huge dopamine search. It feels great. Everybody loves the aha moments.

SPEAKER_00 6:26

Yeah, we can all picture it, right?

SPEAKER_02 6:27

Like we ever picture what it's felt like and it's remember it. Yeah, it's like that good. So the problem with it is that you chase it. We always chase dopamine, like or dopamine monsters, and so you can't really chase that one. It has to come naturally. So yeah, I I the the problem with creativity and thinking outside of the box is you you can't really force it. You've got to let it happen.

SPEAKER_00 6:53

Yeah, and the problem for someone like Brian calling in, right, is that sometimes when we try to chase it, we again make it harder, right? And so those things like you're sitting at your desk and you need to be creative and you're getting frustrated that you can't think of that creative solution that you need, that frustration is actually the opposite kind of state that you need to be in in order to get into this type of headspace, right? And so then, like unintentionally, right? Like subliminally, you're working against yourself with the frustration and then you're pulling off of like, oh, but I got this thing tomorrow, but these things from from the past week, right? And like all these things that are drawing us away from just kind of like being there and then being a little bit more like, okay, where am I at presently, right? Like all these other factors start to play on us, and you gotta strip all that away, right? And so it's you know, that's another way in which like as much as we can just like make creativity happen, well, we don't want to be self-sabotaging either, right? And sometimes very unintentionally, no bad intentions, but we end up self-sabotaging our opportunities to think creatively without even knowing it. And we're just like, well, if we don't know how to give ourselves the opportunity to think creatively, we we'll just do what we already know and we'll do what we think works and we'll try really hard, we'll drink a bunch of caffeine and hope it hope it all works out, right?

SPEAKER_02 8:08

Yeah, there's not a lot you can do worse when you're trying to be creative and do the thing that you've already done, like over and over and over again. Right, right? What is it? The definition of insanity, right?

SPEAKER_00 8:17

Um But it's somehow we're wired, right? We're wired, like, okay, someone threw us in a swimming pool, we're wired to okay, tread water, tread water, tread water. Even if we're getting tired, we keep treading, we keep treading, we keep treading. And we're not wired to look up, look around, and say, Oh, there's the edge of the pool right there. I could have grabbed on this whole time. Like, oh man, I've been, I'm exhausted, right? We're like, we're we're wired to just kind of keep going, going, going, going, and not really look up and be meta and think about what we're doing, think about our thinking.

SPEAKER_04 8:45

So, should Brian expect to have his creative aha moments outside of work, or do you think there are ways during the workday that he can kind of cultivate the environment where he might not have to be because then he's kind of like taking work home with him in a way. Oh, there's hope. There's hope for Brian. There's hope for Brian. Right.

SPEAKER_02 9:04

Um so I mean, Nora put it really well. I think like you give yourself the opportunity for an aha moment, and you totally can do that at work. Um, it's not like you're banned from being creative at work. Uh it helps. I mean, it's rough if you have a boss who's like very old school, just sit down and figure it out. That's you're working against a little bit of occurrence. So your odds of it happening outside of work may be a little higher, but um, there's lots of stuff that you can do. Probably one of the best things you can do is take a walk. Um, walk around. Go somewhere that's kind of safe, pleasant, doesn't require you to be super vigilant, you know, so you don't want a lot of traffic, hopefully not too much noise, not too many people that might interrupt you. You want to go for one of those good meandering, you know the area, you kind of know where you're going, you've got a place, and you don't have to think too hard about it. Those are the kinds of like, you know, people think about like Einstein did that or whatever. And yeah, a lot of people do it. It's a great way to let your mind get into so that lets your executive relax, you don't need to think about what you're doing. It all goes on autopilot, and now your default mode network is fire and strong. That's that's where you're gonna get those aha moments. So if he can get away from his desk, out of his office, and maybe find a park. Um you know, honestly, a track is really great for this. I've worked in an office at a past job. One of my favorite features about it was they built a walking track that was shaped like a figure eight and it went through our office. And people would use it for walking meetings, people would use it for all kinds of things. But sometimes I would get up and just meander on it on a cold day. Thanks, Minnesota. Um, but it was just a figure eight. And I I'd have my big headphones on so people wouldn't interrupt me, and I would just let my mind wander, listen to music I already knew, or ideally music with no words, and you're really not thinking about it, and just turn it off for a while. Um, when you do that while you're also being physically active, it can also be helpful just because you're not zoning out completely, you know, you're you're still kind of active. Um keeps some of your systems going so your energy stays a little more engaged. So um it's a little bit better than just, but you can just stare out a window, right? You can just do that too. Daydream, doodle, whatever. Get away from it. Um, do that finger trap thing. Do something that's not it. Anything, you know, but do something kind of easy. Do something that's gonna give you that, you need that autopilot.

SPEAKER_00 11:23

You need to zoom in. Autopilot was like the first word that came to mind for me, right? Something that lets the two networks on equalize, good equilibrium when they're they're clearly not there when you're frustrated and trying to force creativity to happen, right? So I have to change up that homeostasis, right? Something that's gonna, I know, big science words, but we use in psychology. Um, right, something that's gonna help and and autopilot actions are good, which sometimes are at our desk, right? Sometimes it's like, let me just do this quick little data entry task that I have to do, right? Sometimes it is a staring up, something that is stimulating enough, but not so much that's gonna take up a bunch of like cognitive workload in your in your brain, right? And that's what the research shows too, and especially leans into those walks, right? Like there's such good research behind whatever a creative movement break looks like for you, but to like engage in that gets enough of our brain and body going, right? And the whole system's going that can encourage like this type of thinking to happen. For sure.

SPEAKER_02 12:21

I love that like your creative movement break, and I immediately just like thought of somebody doing like some weird dance moves or something. It's like this is my creative movement break. You do you. Judgment free zone. You do you, you do you. Maybe you need to just like do a little, like, just dance it out a little. Yeah, I mean there's there's a reason why that's a cliche, and that's exactly there's a clear mechanism for it. Um, you know, it it also kind of ties into an earlier episode we talked about flow state and trying to get into that. Uh, it's not quite the same thing because flow state still kind of has, I think like you reminded me of it because you're talking about like do a little data entry, do something kind of easy. That's a really great on-ramp to flow too. So, in addition to taking your mind away and like maybe thinking about something, sometimes when you do an easy task, it won't on-ramp you into creative thought because you're still a little bit directed, but it will get you into flow state really easy. So, like a lot of these are also things that will help you if you need to like get down to work and you're having a hard time, kind of letting your mind relax, do something like pretty easy, easy offload or easy on-ramp.

SPEAKER_00 13:23

Um, so you kind of have the flow kind of like side by side, narrowed into focus, but just because we're narrowed in our focus with flow and get into that state doesn't mean that we're not able to also do creative thought, right? It's not an and or it's not an and or so.

SPEAKER_02 13:38

I would say, you know, when you're when you're buckling down and you're like on willpower mode, like full control, I am like in full manual control, that's heavy executive. It's like super hardcore prefrontal cortex, and your default mode network is very quiet, just idling barely at all. When you're in flow, you have a balance of the two. Like you're aware enough to do a thing, but you're not self-conscious of it. You're not thinking about how you do it. It's just happening. But you want to do the thing, it's not completely undirected. And that's a nice little balance. Um, fun fact, by the way, if you suddenly think to yourself, how am I doing this? Or like, what am I doing right now? Then your executive suddenly shoots up, and that's what we call choking. Um, and that'll pull you out of flow faster than anything. So don't do that. Um, but when your default mode network kind of takes a little bit more of a lead and your executive is down here, I would say that's the difference. Is when you want that like aha moment to happen, you kind of want it a little bit more undirected. So if it's a really easy data entry task, like you really don't have to think about it, that's totally great. Um I you know what I honestly find myself doing a lot of times? I watch a show I've seen a lot of times before that I enjoy, that's comforting, and I have it on in the background, and I just let myself just sort of float a little bit because I don't need to watch it, but it's there and it's like just enough to like it's not silenced where I'm bored out of my mind or falling asleep. My brain's given some attention to a little bit of attention, a little bit of resources. I'm able to wander, and it's it's very helpful. Fun fact my show is Mad Men, but whatever show works for you.

SPEAKER_00 15:08

Um, and I think what's tough sometimes for for people we work with, right, is that their work is so executive function heavy and it it just even like job duties and tasks are kind of like set up to to use those kind of words and terms, right? Like, and so it gets it becomes so heavy in that that side of things that it can be hard to figure out like how how do we do this process ourselves, right? I don't want to trial and error a hundred thousand things. I don't have time for that, right? When someone's in like a very executive function heavy type of of work. And so sometimes it's hard to know, like, well, what does work, right? Oh, that works for you, that's great. I can't do that, right? So, like to to work with a coach like what we do, right? Yeah, it's just like, hey, we can actually kind of figure out what actually works for you, right? What's going to be tailored and specific for you?

SPEAKER_02 15:53

Yeah, and I think that that's something to kind of call out, um, because this requires something that can be really tough for people, and that's temporal space, like time, just empty time. If you're in meetings all day, you will not have time for a creative thought. That's hyper-executive, right? You don't have time to mind, there's no mind wandering. And a lot of bosses, right? A lot of people who are running an office or managing other people, they think of mind wandering as a bad thing, as a negative thing.

SPEAKER_00 16:22

Yeah, where's the productivity from that, right? How do you account for that time? How do you show up? You're not showing up, you're spacing out. You're spacing out, you're zoning out, you're slacking out. All negative connotations, right? Time to leave. Yeah, I know. You actually none there with the the art stick, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:38

Um you need that though. You need a little mind wandering time. Now you don't want so much that like literally nothing gets done during the day, right? That's not great. Um, the world is a balance beam, and there is a balance here. Um, but I think that there are some ways that you can play around with it. Um, you know, depending on your level of autonomy. Uh, one of the things that is also really frequently cited for these reasons, for the science that we're talking about, uh, is your is schedule blocking. Um now, if you want to be real liberal about it and not to like brag, uh get a whole day if you can. And that's nice, that's pretty tough. But if you run your own schedule, if you are somebody who has kind of a flexible thing, have a day where no one can block your calendar off, no meetings, no interruptions, and use that day for a blend of deep work, but also give yourself time to just be. Just do, like go for those walks, let your mind wander, do something that just lets your brain play around with those neural pathways, like and and click some things together. You don't have to do a whole day, so you can do schedule blocking with smaller people. So everyone's out there being like, that sounds great. Be happy. You can't do that better. Adopt a purely organic, block a whole day of work and no one can interrupt. Yeah, exactly. That might be the ideal. That's ideal. So if you can do that, please do that. But um, most people can't do that, and it's okay. You don't need a whole day to do this, right? You can do it. Um, this is a great thing. Grab a lunch time, um, you know, and get outside and just try and walk if you can.

SPEAKER_00 18:13

Um again, think think of how quickly we've all experienced it just by taking a five-minute shower, right? Like five minute shower. Doesn't like we can get into these kind of head spaces with pretty short amount of time. Yeah, hashtag normalize workshowers.

SPEAKER_02 18:26

Yes, amen. Um yeah, I mean not sponsored. Try and walk a little further. This sounds like at this point, we're like, these are like the steps that you have, like, or the the the tips that you have for like getting more steps in your day. But like, you know, don't go to the vending machine close to your desk. Like let yourself go a little further. Maybe just like a change of scenery. Get a change of scenery. Yeah, that's a big one too. Like, if you have been sitting there, like getting up and going to a new place can be helpful. Um, especially if it's like a it's not so different that you're like, you know, again, hyper-vigilant, but just kind of a fresh place where you don't no one's there to recognize you. You don't know the norms, so you don't have to follow the norms. Like, this is the other office, right? This is the other vending machine.

SPEAKER_00 19:11

Yeah. It can be overstimulating, right? Or it's all new, I gotta think about who's around, who I might bump into. I can't look so now I'm doing it. So that's why sometimes you do have to think about the mechanism behind it, right? Think of like what's going on behind it to figure out what it'll be to really customize, right? Like, what could this look like for you? Like, what could be most helpful for you? That's a great suggestion, not gonna work for person over here, but like, okay, come back to the drawing board, right? Which I think is a lot of the work we do with people when we're trying to help them with these problems.

SPEAKER_02 19:41

Absolutely, yeah. You can think of the science of what Jen is talking about. Like the reason that getting a new space is because again, it's activating new parts of your brain that you might not have otherwise activated, and it could help to charge that. But if those places do make you nervous, if you like, you know, are like, oh God, what if my my boss sees me over here and wants to know I'm screwing around, or like, what if these people ask me why I'm over here? If you're getting those kinds of vibes, yeah, it might not be for you. And and maybe we find something else. Um, optimally too, and if you are a leader, like the best thing you can do for your team, if you want innovation and you want fresh ideas and you want out of the box, give your people some space. Yes, lay off the gas a little bit, like give people that time to mind wander, give them spaces to mind wander. Like, that's my favorite thing. When I walk into a workspace where it's not just people, you know, grinding like that cat, you know, meme on a keyboard. Like people are up walking around. Go talk about what was on Game of Thrones last night. God, that was like, that's sorry, that was old. It came out of me. I don't know what year it is. I'm confused. But like, you know, have those little like conversations with people, get yourself out of that space a little bit, wander around, like have different types of spaces. I love to see a workspace that has like a little sitting area or a meeting room or a focus room or whatever, a desk, yeah. Um, there's a reason for that. And then when they're used properly, they're not just window dressing, they're actually really useful cognitive tools. So if you are a leader and you're listening to this, you know, lean into that stuff. They're not a waste. You know, people always make the joke about the ping pong table at the WeWork or whatever, right? Like the foosball table. But the reason that like places like Google invest in stuff like that, the reason that you see these like hyper innovative companies, it's not a reward. I mean, it's rewarding, but they don't do it because they're like, you're great, you're so smart, like here's a ping pong table. No, it's because when you're playing ping pong, you suddenly have an amazing idea for a new software feature, right? Because you were relaxing a little bit, you were just doing something automatic. So those that's what those are for. They're not gold stars, they're actual cognitive tools. So use them accordingly.

SPEAKER_04 21:56

So some of this sounds like pretty obvious, also very low. Lift and like cheap cost nothing to do.

SPEAKER_02 22:02

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 22:03

Go change your scenery, right? Yeah. And so we're not giving like any like, you know, earth-shattering tips here right now. But if Brian was your client and he was like, This is the most important thing to me, how might you keep him like accountable to this? Or in like, or like what tools would you use together to make sure that this is working for him or that it's actually he's able to stick to it?

SPEAKER_02 22:25

Yeah. Well, I think that what's important about these tips is they do sound like, okay, I've heard this before. It's a mindset shift. You're not doing this because oh, I need to do this, it's healthy, right? These are a lot of things people will hear, like, go take a walk, it's good for you. No, don't take a walk because it's good for you. Go take a walk because it's automatic and your body knows how to do it and let yourself just turn it off for a while. That you don't hear very often, right? It's less about the walk and it's more about the turning off. So I would say wherever you can turn off. Maybe it's like the bathroom, whatever. Like sneak off, find a place, you know, do what you can where you can find it. And I think Nora, you mentioned earlier, it doesn't necessarily have to take a long time. Um, you might be able to do it and get it, you know, you might see a change of scenery and suddenly inspiration strikes. You get you get up for some minute, inspiration strikes during lunch or a coffee break. Sometimes it takes longer, but the more you you capture this time and you and you unclinch that fist in your mind, you know, the you know, those little moments they add up. Yeah, they're cumulative.

SPEAKER_00 23:30

And I think that's another thing we help do, right? Is like help people realize sooner when they are stuck, when that fist is clenched in their mind, right? A lot of times like we are so good at just drilling, drilling, drilling into something, pushing, pushing, pushing. It's so ingrained in us, like just push through the problem, push through, push through. That like it can take us a little bit of time, you know, if we're if we're not being aware, paying attention, to catch, like, hey, I'm not being productive, right? Like this is not getting me to my angle, or it's getting me there, but it's taking me three times longer than it would if I were in a a different headspace, right? Like if I had a bit of a reset, if I could, if I could clear that out, right? So sometimes it's it's like, hey, what are those sensations, those cues for you specifically, right, to know so that you can catch sooner. And we work with people a lot. I do, you you're new to I'm new. Yeah, like to like to like, hey, like, like what is that for you so that you can catch that stuff sooner, so you can do something different sooner, and not then you're not wasting that time being very unproductive, and you can use time for these strategies that'll actually be productive.

SPEAKER_02 24:33

That's a break, that's a great point. Um, because I think when you're in that space and you're just so like, oh, I have to think of something, I have to think of something, you're usually doing stuff, right? Like you're brainstorming, you're taking you're doodling, you're you're you're doing something. It's just you're spinning your wheels. And I think what we're able to do for people is exactly that like point out that you're spinning your wheels, man. That you're not actually coming up with that idea. Because we know what that idea feels like. You know what an aha feels like, and this ain't it, like, you know. So I think that that's really great. I think system, you know, we can also kind of help again. This is kind of at a higher level, you know, people who are running the show a little bit more, if you're coming up with some of these processes, when are you filling people's time with stuff that's like pseudo-productive? Right? Spreadsheets, process forms, all this kind of stuff that like, you know, people are doing that you are trying desperately to kind of make something out of nothing, you know, to what extent is this actually sabotaging your effort? And like we gotta cut that back. And I think that's a big one too, is like letting people know it's okay. Like it's not this isn't going to destroy your organization. You're not gonna lose like your company's not gonna fall apart into a bunch of slackers, like it's gonna be all right. I think just kind of holding people's hands through that a little bit is also really helpful. Just to like reassure people, like, don't worry, the science is on your side. Because I think sometimes when letting go is the answer and doing less is the answer, it's a little bit of a leap of faith.

SPEAKER_00 26:07

Like it feels a little scarier than it's hard to feel like you have the support to do something like that too. Yeah. And we all have to come back to what you just said of remember, like thinking of think of all the aha moments you can remember, right? What where were you at right before then, right? If the aha's up here, were you in a really frustrated, constrained, stressed mentality, and then somehow you got all the way up to an aha? Or were you just like chilling? And were you just like, ah, taking a shower on a walk? Whoa, I didn't think that would come to me right now, right? Like, think of the distance. Literally, you have to go from like the the mindset, the mood state of how of feeling frustrated and overwhelmed and that pressure and you know everything kind of crashing down on you at once to an aha feeling versus what's what are all the other options in between? Yeah, all better options, right? All steps of the ladder that get us closer to that. Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_04 26:59

And I do think too, being in the workplace, especially if your manager or boss gave you a deliverable, I need you to do X and it involves creativity. It is it's your responsibility as the employee who's been tasked with something to ask for the things that you need in order to make that possible and to advocate for the best type of environment for yourself. And if you need to make deep work blocks, you know, you can ask for those. You can justify it then to say, this is so I can do what you asked me to do. Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_02 27:29

Tell them that you that neuroscience supports it.

SPEAKER_04 27:32

Yeah, you can say if you're working with us, you can say my cognitive yeah, my cognitive and you know, my cognitive science and psychologist, they've written me a doctor's excuse excuse, a doctor note, and I get to oh if only we had the power.

SPEAKER_02 27:45

If only I mean I could write you a note, and I am a doctor, but I feel like there's a power there. We should get like some little stationing.

SPEAKER_04 27:51

Should get a pad and slippery slope for some of us.

SPEAKER_02 27:53

Slippery slope. Yeah, yeah. It's unfortunate when you're an actual clinical caregiver. Um no, I absolutely I think self-advocacy, especially when you're taking it not from I'm tired, I need a break, or because I want this. Yes. Um, you may be tired, you may need a break. I totally but this may be not the place to do that one. But say, hey, okay, I want to do this. I know I need to do this, you want this, I'm gonna need four hours without a meeting. That's a reasonable thing, you know. I'm gonna need some space without a meeting, or I'd love to be able to like, I'm gonna go take a quick walk, clear my head and get jumping on this. I think when you come to your boss, your supervisor, your client, right, whoever that you're delivering to, and and tell them why, right? Real just, I need to get in that headspace. I want to get you a good creative idea. I think most people would respect that. And if they don't, reach out to us and we will, you know. I'll write you the doctor's note. Maybe Nora can't. She has real doctor's notes that she writes. I am a neuroscientist, we don't get that. So like I would be so excited to write you a note. Neuroscience note. I've written too many notes.

SPEAKER_00 29:00

A note for my cognitive science. They are. Yeah. But yeah, no, and just think too, if you've worked with someone, right? If you didn't spend like your whole work career trying to trial and error what these strategies could be for you. But if you've worked with someone in a very short amount of time to figure out what's going to work for you, then you can start to build that track record at work of like, hey, do you do you notice like when I have a chance to go for a bit of a walk? Or hey, boss, when you let me block that after afternoon, like I really was able to do this, you know, a day ahead of the deadline, right? Like, like this can all like we can help you move the process along quicker, help you get to that point quicker. So if you need the systemic support, right? Well, at least on an individual level, right, you've had that intensive, focused assistance to figure that out so that you know it's not this boss, I think I need four hours. Oh no, that wasn't it. That didn't work too well for me. Boss, I think I need this, boss, I think you need that, right? And that she, you know, shot in the dark, never sometimes you land on what you want.

SPEAKER_04 29:59

But you you want to normalize it within like your workplace. So yeah, if so when you're when you're presenting the new idea you had, you want to preface that by saying, I took a 10-minute walk and had this sick and got the sick idea of X. And then that way it becomes a natural part of, oh, like we should actually enforce walks for people. We should, and it just becomes the environment, it becomes the culture.

SPEAKER_02 30:23

Absolutely. Um, I call them brain walks a lot of the time. And then it's like, oh yeah, I came up with this really sick idea on my brain walk. Because now it's also like I wasn't just walking around and suddenly had a great idea, which is frankly how most of us think of an aha moment. We don't even tie it to that because it is kind of like Yeah, we don't think that we're doing this process by the aha moment, you don't think about contextually what's happening around it. When you can frame it as I was, you know, during my block day or when I was on my brain block, yeah, I had this great idea. It now is like I did this thing to do this thing, and this thing happened. Right. I do agree that, yeah, and the more you deliver on that, the more it's like, of course, this is delivering. So, um, and again, the data, the science are on your side. You will, it will result in more delivery. So I think that's a great idea. But I would, yeah, I would even take it if you're trying to normalize it at work, and I agree, this kind of stuff needs to be normalized. I think we're getting a little bit there. You know, for every progress that's made, I feel like there's like a horror story of a place that turns into like an absolute frat house because they again they don't understand that this isn't a reward or meant to be something to like just get away from work and have it be fun, fun, fun, like games. It really is supposed to be a tool. So I think unfortunately, every time there's like this horror story, like then every boss who's a little bit like ambivalent about this is like no no no no no. But I think the more you can make it a success story for yourself, obviously it's gonna draw support. Yeah, and you're gonna feel better. So right bonus refreshing. You're having aha moments, you're doing good work.

SPEAKER_04 31:54

Well, good luck, Brian.

SPEAKER_02 31:55

Um give us a call.

SPEAKER_04 31:58

Yeah, hopefully you can try some of the these and let us know how it went. So if you have any comments or questions that you have for us, please let us know. You can drop them in the comments below. You can shoot us an email. We're happy to engage. Let's you know, continue the conversation.

SPEAKER_01 32:15

If you have a question or a topic that you'd like to present at firing and wiring, be sure to email us at support at interest labs.com. Firing and wiring is produced by Interceptor Labs and is hosted by Genemani, Norah Kennedy, and Bethany Ray. Our theme music is graciously provided by Anxiety Society because all the four kids support Minneapolis music.