Science and Magic: Bridge your inner robot and wizard. While sitting at my author table at a book event, I overheard several derisive comments about the title of my book, MINDBLOWN: Unlock Your Creative Genius by Bridging Science and Magic. Magic and science seem like dichotomies and some thought it silly because they didn’t like either magic or science.
That amused me.
What puzzled me, however, was being asked about how a musician could also be an author. It seemed silly to this attendee that someone who was a trained and professional musician had any business writing a book and hosting a table at a book fair.
Everyone tells us to embrace our uniqueness, stand out, and make a mark on the world. But the truth is this. Those same people rather you remain normal, predictable, and inside the box. To even think differently is frowned upon. But when we challenge the boundaries that keep all of us comfortable – including ourselves, a universe of possibilities opens. It is heresy to be a cook who paints, a teacher who sings, or a scientist who performs magic.
The modern-day heretics learn to thrive by sticking to the path of creativity.
There is good news. We don’t have to travel a long journey on this path of innovation and discovery. The very criticism we face while traveling this passageway offers a clue to our hidden power. We can be a musician who then passionately researches a topic and then writes a book. The robot can also be a wizard. Science and magic. We can both employ skillful logic and learn to grow imagination. Original and creative thought doesn’t stay on either side. It travels a bridge, and it’s this bridge that is the secret to unlocking creative potential.
Nearly eighty percent of us are trained to prefer what is called convergent thought. This is the robot’s way of science. We find the one, correct answer. After sorting data, all roads lead to a conclusion. All of us recall what it feels like to answer problems or questions on the tests given to young students. The other twenty percent are outliers.
The wizard’s way of thinking is called divergent thought. This is where one idea expands exponentially. Science sorts while magic dreams. Here’s the powerful discovery. Creative genius is the ability to travel between these ways of thinking.
The robot, with all of his data, can travel the bridge and become the wizard when need be. The wizard can travel in the other direction and sort dreams and inspiration into something concrete, useful, and inspiring. Researchers claim that these two fundamental ways of thought represent the brain networks most used in creativity. The faster we learn to travel between them and leverage when to travel determines how creative we are. And, it is a skill we can all grow in! We can all learn to be heretics, in other words.
There’s a magic to science and a science to magic. The next time your inner critic, or the voice of the naysayer next to you, tries to correct your way of thinking, look at it as a clue to an aptitude waiting to be unleashed. When you learn to be who you are, which is creative and innovative, you will birth a joyous, awkward and uncomfortable aura. Embrace it. It means that you are learning to travel the bridge between magic and science. The more you do this, you’ll realize your gift to the earth. You.
