Finding Solutions

January 19, 2010

Turning problems into solutions requires that we adjust our perception, suspend our judgments, and remain open-minded to all possibilities. In other words, it means seeing reality for what it “really” is and for what it “really” isn’t.

Since our brain filters through volumes of random data each moment, selecting and rejecting evidence to support our beliefs, we need to consciously define and focus our attention on what it is we are seeking.

Look at the following words and quickly say the actual color aloud (not the word).

If you’re like most people, even this simple challenge requires effort to reprogram your brain. With practice, this task becomes easier once you focus more on the color and less on the actual word.

What we believe and focus on… becomes our reality. If you go out looking for trouble, you’ll find it. If you focus on happiness, it will appear. Once you decide what you’re looking for, your brain will go to work to find it and make it your reality. Whether you’re focused on problems or solutions, it doesn’t matter… your brain will subconsciously gather evidence and make it your reality.

Remember, evidence that could disprove our beliefs is marginalized or blocked by our brain filters, while weaker or even false evidence is distorted or enhanced to support them.

Since labeling something helps make it so, why not start by labeling a “problem” as a “solution”? While this may seem counterintuitive at first, successful people have been seeing problems as solutions since the beginning of time. Read more

Stay Focused on Solutions

October 23, 2009

How many times has a great solution stared you right in the face, yet somehow you missed it? It always seems amazing after the fact, doesn’t it? So how do we start seeing the endless solutions that surround us each and every day? Before answering that question, let’s understand how we miss them in the first place. In part, it’s due to a phenomenon psychologists call “perceptual blindness” or “inattentional blindness.”

Consider the following example: Professor Daniel Simons and his psychology students asked volunteers to watch a short video. In the video, team members (one team dressed in black shirts, the other in white shirts) passed a basketball back and forth. The volunteers were told to count the number of passes made by the team wearing white. At some point, a person in a gorilla suit appears during the video. When the video ended, researchers asked if anybody saw anything unusual. Only half of the volunteers reported seeing the gorilla. The other half reported to have seen nothing unusual.

Here’s a video based on the original study:

How could people not notice the gorilla in the room? Mostly because they weren’t looking for it. They were focused on something else. Magicians have known about this phenomenon for years… so have politicians.

Here’s another example called the “Door Study”

This helps explain how experts can be more susceptible to perceptual blindness than beginners, and why “outsiders” often find solutions that experienced “insiders” miss. Beginners and outsiders are usually more open to possibilities because they don’t make common assumptions. By extension, they’re often better at finding solutions the experts have stopped seeing.

Perceptual blindness sheds much light on why we miss obvious solutions… especially those we mislabel as problems. By focusing on one thing (a problem), we miss something else (a solution). So why not refocus on solutions? This is one of the topics in my upcoming book: “Pink Bat: Turning Problems Into Solutions.” It should be available for the holiday season… I’ll keep you posted.