The Power of the Unconscious Mind

We tend to obsess over how much and how well we focus, but psychiatrist Srini Pillay makes the case that the time we spend unfocused is more important. Pillay is a brain researcher, an assistant professor at Harvard, and the author of Tinker, Dabble, Doodle, Try: Unlock the Power of the Unfocused Mind. He helps people understand how to manage risk, harness creativity, and access the unconscious. He talks to us about brain function (the majority is outside of conscious awareness), strategic ways to unfocus (most of us daydream ineffectively), and the key to possibility thinking (which allows for self-esteem optimization). Pillay thinks that we should all become scientists in our relationships and lives: Intuition, he says, is a hypothesis that needs to explored rather than rejected.