Howto Brainstorming Techniques and Ideas - Every Husband has had This Experience

Every husband has had this experience. He's talking to his wife about the five-spade bid, doubled, redoubled, and vulnerable that they made the night before, when she says suddenly. "They should be green, don't you think so?"

"What?" he answers, husband like.

"They should be green, sort of a yellowish green with a touch of blue," she says in tones reserved for a rather stupid child.

"What should be green-blue with a touch of yellow?" he roars in tones reserved for a husband whose wife has just talked to him as if he were a rather stupid child.

"Why, the drapes, silly."

"What drapes?" he repeats.

"The new drapes in the living room we'll need if we get that sofa like the Eshbaughs'."

"What sofa like the Eshbaughs'?" "We were playing bridge at the Gunthers', and Jim led from his ace, and you . . ."

If the marriage is young, the conversation will go on and on as the puzzled husband tries to understand his wife's thought processes. She will explain that she had been talking about the hand when she thought of the dress Jeannie was wearing, and how it clashed with the Eshbaughs' sofa at the luncheon a week before, and that gave her the idea for just the right drapes to go with the sofa.

If her husband groans in anguish, she'll smile and say, "Why, dear, it's perfectly logical." It isn't to him, of course, so the husband will nod knowingly and comment more than a trifle smugly about "a woman's mind."

What he doesn't realize is that he has the same kind of mind, and, since you do, too - if you want to get ahead in the logical world of business, you'd better start to use it.

What had solved the wife's drapery problem was her subconscious mind, which went on working during a week in which she kept house, cooked, drove her husband to the train, attended church, slept, played bridge, ran a PTA meeting. The same 'illogical' mind can solve the problems of mortgage debt, investment, administrative reorganization, industrial design, internet marketing, advertising and so on, if it is allowed to do the job.

Many people won't let it work for them, however. They are afraid of their subconscious. Some feel, like the husband in our example, that the subconscious is somehow unuseful and out of place in the world of business and success. Others feel it is frivolous, not at all gray flannel enough for their business. Still others believe it is a will-of-the-wisp thing that can't be trusted, that it will somehow betray them, and that it most certainly can't be trained to work in the everyday business world.

They are woefully wrong.

Most businesses and professions are guided by the landmarks erected by those who have made brilliant use of their creative minds.

So – let yourself learn how to tap into this tremendous source of ideas and connections. Use it the next time you need to brainstorm a new solution to a problem.

Every Husband has had this Experience.