What’s on my mind? Taking notice.

After three pretty intense days in Colt House, with our executive leadership team for our quarterly operational review, I took the team out for dinner.

Over some pasta and a little wine, our conversation got onto the following question; what is the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given? One of the answers surprised me, and that was to 'notice'. We talked a little more about this, and it turns out this one simple word, notice, is pretty darn powerful.

Despite having an amazingly complex brain, how much of our day do we spend on autopilot? Do we notice how often we check our phones or say 'Yeah, I agree, 100%' in conversation without even thinking?

In fact, our brains while dealing with the millions of inputs they receive each minute of every day, build hardwired shortcuts to avoid having to consciously process habitual tasks. Here’s a little demonstration. Count the numbers of F’s in the following passage:

Finished files are the result of years of scientific study combined with the experience of years.

Studies show most people count two or three, in the words 'Finished files' and 'scientiFic'. But there are actually six. If you’re stumped, most people fail to count the Fs in the word 'of' which appears three times. It just doesn't register because we often don't think or process the word 'of' as a complex word, and the F sound is pronounced more like a 'v' sound (ov).

Actively trying to take more notice can break that hardwiring, allowing your brain to engage with the world in different ways. It’s the foundation of learning and has even been proven to help stave off brain diseases like dementia.

Making an effort to switch off that auto pilot and notice things around you can also be hugely inspiring. Whether that’s looking at the interesting buildings on your walk into work, observing the birds outside your window, or really looking at an amazing piece of engineering - this approach can pay dividends.

Swiss engineer, George de Mestral, created velcro in the 1940s after he found, while out hiking, that the hook-like structure of burdock burrs allowed the seed pods to stick to his dog’s fur. He decided to explore the potential of creating a clothing fastener using the same technology and the rest is history.

Taking notice is also the basis of much of the recently popular boom in mindfulness.

Social psychologist, Ellen Langer, has been studying mindfulness for thirty-five years. She argues that while rigorous meditation or yoga practices can be great, they aren’t the only ways to access the benefits of mindfulness. Instead, she invites us into “the simple art of noticing new things.”

She says when we engage in active noticing, we bring ourselves into the moment. This is the opposite of anxiety which tends to fast forward our thinking into uncertain scary futures. This is no small thing says Langer, “When you actively notice new things, it’s engaging, and it turns out, after a lot of research, that we find that it’s literally, not just figuratively, enlivening.”

So, I'm going to take that advice and be much more deliberate in noticing what’s going on around me. It’s good for my mental health, it reduces anxiety and who knows maybe I’ll be inspired like George de Mestral.

In the meantime, I’ll be over here stopping and smelling the flowers for a second, happy noticing.

Did you enjoy reading this article? I’m proud to announce that “What’s on my mind?” has gone live! This week, I caught up with Robert Swan, the first person to walk to the North and South poles. If you missed it, you can catch it on demand here: https://www.dhirubhai.net/events/what-sonmymind-live7057711866264870912/about/