Cool Down (14 page)

Physiologically, the reason blue-skying is called what it's called is because letting your eyes come to rest while they are open is actually quite difficult. The eye and the entire optical sensory system are programmed to move ceaselessly from object to object. Most people are unaware of just how many times per second their eyes move from one item to another, pulling in thousands upon thousands of bits of information to be processed and prioritized by the brain. It truly is fantastic. There are way too many distractions in a typical workplace for blue-skying to occur.

Blue-skying requires a visual panorama that can encompass the entire field of view, including your highly sensitive peripheral vision and that commands soft focus, not hard focus. An actual blue sky is the easiest and most obvious choice, but there are others:

A second form of blue-skying is also available when you create a soft-focus visual panorama through the physical preoccupation of the rest of the body: Jogging and swimming are good examples, and so are using an exercise bike or treadmill (so long as you do not read or watch TV while doing it). Outdoor cycling is not an effective blue-sky technique, since the eyes and mind need to be on constant lookout for danger.

It is probably obvious by now that one of the central tenets of this book is this: Slowing down long enough to stare at the sky presents greater benefit for personal success in both the short and long term than does attending to more immediate visual priorities. That's indeed the theme of this battle. People are hesitant to give themselves permission to blue-sky. It's alien to the event-to-event mentality they have been conditioned to accept. Getting permission to blue-sky is difficult enough when you have something to think about. But what if you do not know what blue-skying will bring you? How can you hope to justify it then? To those people I offer the image of a spider spinning a web. When a spider chooses a place to spin a web, the first line of web she produces does nothing. No creature will be caught by a single line of thread. The same applies for the second line she produces, and the third, and the next 100. At this point she has not created a structure strong enough to trap her next meal, just feeder lines that drift in the air currents until they find something solid to stick to. Should she continue? Yes. Although a quickly honed collection of strands will do nothing except exhaust her, it becomes the foundation for a full web that itself can only come about through slow, diligent effort. Yet for this spider, even when she has finished her web with its hundreds of strands and thousands of connections, she will still not be sure exactly what it might catch—what the next great “thing” will be. But she knows it will be something, because something always comes along. Thus it is with blue-skying. Sometimes the right thought pops up immediately. Sometimes, however, you have to let your mind get used to its new liberty; to get in shape, as it were for this newfound opportunity to be creative. Even when no profound thoughts appear, there will still be positive action happening below the surface: synapses connecting, patterns emerging, the thought process flourishing.

Let me tell you a story: I was attending an event with a team of chartered accountants once, when I was approached by a student who was in the midst of studying for an exam that would count towards his professional qualifications. He was exhausted. He looked exhausted, he did not smile, and he did not even want to be at the convention. This is sad, because professional conventions can be (and should be) prime learning and networking opportunities. But because of the amount of studying he still had to do, all he was aware of while attending the event was the study time he was losing. This student asked me for any tips and tricks I might have for improving his study habits. He was falling asleep too much, he said, and the things he was studying were just not staying in his head.

I asked him what he used to do for fun. What sports or activities did he once enjoy? His answer was tennis, and I could tell it was true. For a brief second, his eyes lit up as he remembered his days on the court. So as a “prescription” I told him to go out and play tennis for an hour each day, at a suitable time for his studies, for instance, between chapters. I suggested he slow down the pace of his studies and re-insert his favorite sport into his routine. Naturally, he was shocked at the thought of abandoning his books for something that was actually fun, until I redefined the act of playing tennis not as an avoidance of work but a chance instead for the knowledge to seep in and stay.

“Have you ever watered a plant or vegetable garden?” I asked him.

“Of course,” he said.

“Well,” I continued, “when you see the water start to pool on the top of the soil, do you keep on pouring?”

“No,” he replied, “I let it drain in.”

“Why?” I asked. “Wouldn't it be quicker to keep on pouring?”

“No,” he retorted, “it would just run away over the sides. You have to pour slowly to keep the water in, and stop when it's enough.”

“Well, there, you are,” I said. “Go play tennis.”

He did well on his exams, by the way, and called me to say thanks. In terms of blue-skying opportunities, racquet sports are among the best. They therefore become a third category for you to consider. They are physical and aerobic, like those in the second category (jogging, exercise bike, etc.) but rather than incorporating a vague visual field, they incorporate a distinctly specific visual stimulus, which involves following a ball around a court. A stringent focus on the ball eliminates all other visual distractions from the field of view. Creative thought is free to roam amidst the eustress of the game. As one squash player once told me, “When you are chasing that little ball around the court, nothing else exists in the world, save for that little ball.”

So if you're looking for a more socially acceptable opportunity to blue-sky and let your creative mind run free, one that the working world is more familiar with and therefore more accepting of, consider joining a local lunchtime league for a half-hour game of squash, racquetball, tennis, ping pong, badminton, or even volleyball. Just remember to take a pen and paper, a voice recorder, or your cell phone with you to get those good ideas down when they come. Because they will, if you let them.

One of the greatest opportunities for progress through blue-skying can be found within a ritual that has been part of life for over 500 years: taking coffee at a coffee house. Coffee has proven itself over the centuries as a productive tool for cooling down since it provides the ultimate social drink for business.

Coffee is so popular that it is now recognized as the second most traded legal commodity on earth, after oil and petroleum products.
¹

It is said that when coffee first became available in 16
^th
-century Europe, its intellect-sharpening properties were not enthusiastically received by the church, which is not surprising given that the church of those days was an organization whose power was rooted strongly in discouraging creative thought and interpretation among its “client base.” Coffee was referred to by some Christians as “the devil's drink.” In Rome, a sample of coffee was presented to Pope Vincent III, who had decided to taste it before banishing it. However, as the story goes, upon taking his first sip, he was won over, and he actually baptized it instead.

Coffee, when taken at a coffee house or coffee shop represents another socially acceptable opportunity for blue-skying when it is performed correctly, since it gives the partakers a focal point beyond themselves and their business upon which to reflect for 10 minutes or so. Taking coffee as a blue-skying exercise is best defined by what it is

NOT:

Instead, coffee-shop blue-skying is about setting the stage for liberating the mind, whether you take your coffee alone, or with others (clients, colleagues, or managers).

For many coffee-shop customers, blue-skying is accelerated through the positive sense of control that comes from placing the order itself. This may sound strange, but it is one of the many reasons for the success of the Starbucks chain. CEO Howard Schultz stated that in creating his coffee-shop empire he wanted to create not just a place to get coffee, but an experience. Interestingly, Mr. Schultz is also on record for saying, “I'm not a big emailer … it's a crutch that hinders person-to-person communication.”
²

To the uninitiated ear, a large, multi-feature order such as a “grande low-fat, extra-hot, double-foam, half-sweet soy mocha latté” may sound excessive, especially when the same order is echoed back by the employee behind the counter, as if confirming a captain's order on the bridge of a ship. It's a far cry from “coffee, black.” But within these minor theatrics, lies a great deal of psychology. The employee—the barista—is first and foremost making sure the order is correct, a fundamental element of establishing customer satisfaction and loyalty. But beyond that, the choice, delivery, and acceptance of such a complex order (how does one measure double foam, exactly?) also helps deliver a dose of esteem to the customer.

Now that may sound silly, psychoanalyzing the transactions of a coffee shop down to elements of self-esteem, but take a moment to place this ritual within the context of the high-speed world outside, where control over time and self-determination are the first things to be wrested away from the average hard-working person. The need for esteem is an essential building-block of self-identity. All humans need to feel it. It is estimated that there are 19,000 possible variations of drinks that can be created from a Starbucks menu, enough to satisfy the specific esteem requirements of each customer, who may not even realize, on a conscious level at least, just how rare it has become to exert such control on a daily basis. By delivering the perfect drink, served at the perfect temperature, in clean, consistent, recognizable surroundings, Starbucks and coffee shops like it help reinforce this sense of esteem, which comforts and satisfies the customer. This makes the customer feel good, of course, which allows the blue-skying process to continue.

A person who sets up her laptop or unpacks her notes at a coffee shop is not fully partaking in the blue-skying process, since her mind is not free to roam—it is looking at notes, But she will still foster great creativity by having stepped away from the ambient momentum of her workplace, replacing it with a neutral noise, the white noise of other people's conversations. This isolates her and gives her a zone of creative space. Access to reliable Wi-Fi systems, of course, makes it easier than ever to focus and to do business away from the office. So all in all it's a productive,
cool
approach to getting work done.

The best approach to blue-skying, however, still has to be when a person just sits still and either watches other people or watched the steam rise from her coffee. This is the antithesis of the high-speed work ethic, of course, but it is where ideas for great new developments are born. It's where problems get solved. Though the temptation is to bring the laptop along, I strongly believe that at least once a week, every busy person should sit down, order a coffee (or tea, or low-sugar soft drink), and just stare into the middle distance.

Tea, similarly is a refreshment whose benefits go well beyond its actual ingredients and move quite definitively into the beneficial aspects of
slow
. In Japan, the preparing and pouring of tea is considered a high art form, called c
haji
, and great honor is found in being the
teishu
, the house master and tea pourer. The value of
chaji
is not so much in the tea itself, of course. The ceremony gives recognition to the fact that every human encounter is a singular occasion that will never recur. Every aspect of the tea and the ceremony is relished not just for the tea itself, but for what it gives the participants. The classic British cup of tea, similarly, presents most of its value outside of the pot. The biggest selling brand of tea in the UK is PG Tips, a basic, strong blend, made by a subsidiary of Unilever. But it is the ritual that makes British tea what it is: Boiling the water means you have to have a kettle, which means you are somewhere that people can sit down and feel safe, if just for a few minutes.