CHAPTER 12
INCUBATE
IDENTIFY • IDEATE • INCUBATE • ILLUMINATE • IMPLEMENT
“People used to wait in line at the checkout and daydream. Now they pull out their phones and go into the digital world. This is a missed opportunity to reflect, to relax, to be mindful of the moment. Creativity lives in those quiet spaces.”
—Adam Gazzely
W OLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART (1756–1791) IS regarded as one of the greatest composers in history. He composed seventeen masses, over fifty symphonies, and twenty-four operas including The Magic Flute , Don Giovanni , and The Marriage of Figaro . In his short life, he composed well over 600 musical works.
In the “Rochlitz Letter,” the great composer described his creative process.
When I am, as it were, completely myself, entirely alone, and of good cheer; say traveling in a carriage or walking after a good meal or during the night when I cannot sleep; it is on such occasions that my ideas flow best and most abundantly. Whence and how they come I know not, nor can I force them. Those ideas that please me, I retain in…memory and am accustomed, as I have been told, to hum them to myself. If I continue in this way, it soon occurs to me how I may turn this or that morsel to account, so as to make a good dish of it…. All this fires my soul. 111
This is an apt description of the third step in the Big Ideas Model: Incubate .
To incubate means to develop slowly without outward or perceptible signs. When we let a problem or a question incubate, we stop consciously working on it and allow the brain to slow down and make new connections.
In The River of Consciousness , neurologist Oliver Sacks (1933–2015) emphasizes the importance of mental incubation. “Creativity involves not only years of conscious preparation and training but unconscious preparation as well. This incubation period is essential to allow the subconscious assimilation and incorporation of one’s influences and sources, to reorganize and synthesize them into something of one’s own.”
It was only after French mathematician Henri Poincare put his work on hold and went on a geological expedition that he received his profound mathematical insight. His conscious brain was at rest, giving his unconscious brain, which likely already had the answer, the open window to his consciousness.
Productivity expert Ray Williams says, “Researchers have found that resting minds are creative minds. Numerous studies have shown that people tend to develop more novel, inventive, and innovative ideas if they allow their minds to wander…. Some companies such as Google recognized this fact and provide professional growth courses such as ‘Search Inside Yourself’ and ‘Neural Self-Hacking’ and also mindfulness meditation where the goal is to recognize and accept inner thoughts and feelings rather than avoiding or repressing them.” 112
Our best ideas don’t come when we’re sitting in front of a computer straining to make a project come together. It’s when we get up for a break or take a walk around the block—precisely when our attention wanders away from the task at hand—that the missing piece pops into our heads. Insight almost always comes when an intensely focused mind wanders free, uninhibited by active thought.
How many times have you hit a mental block in the evening and found the answer the next morning with hardly any effort? The idea of “sleeping on it” truly does help creativity. We should never decide on a serious issue before we’ve had a good night’s rest.
Some people have found it’s easy to let their thoughts wander by wandering. Many of history’s most creative thinkers and innovators used daily walks as a way to slow the brain and find new ideas.
 Philosopher and theologian Soren Kierkegaard found his daily walks so inspiring he often hurried back to his desk and started writing, still wearing his hat and carrying his walking stick or umbrella.
Inventor Nikola Tesla’s idea for alternating electric currents came to him in a flash of inspiration while he was out on a leisurely stroll. So not to forget his idea, he used his walking stick to draw a picture in the dirt, explaining to his partner how the currents might work. 113
Writer Charles Dickens religiously took three-hour, twelve mile walks every afternoon. What he observed on these strolls often found its way into his writing.
Russian composer Tchaikovsky made do with a two-hour walk but wouldn’t return a minute early, convinced that cheating himself of the full 120 minutes would make him ill.
Beethoven took lengthy strolls after lunch, always carrying a pencil and paper with him in case inspiration struck, as it often did.
Composer and pianist Erik Satie did the same on his long strolls from Paris to his working-class suburb, stopping under streetlamps to jot down notions that arose on his journey. It is rumored that when those lamps were turned off during the war years, his productivity declined as well. 114
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900), the famous philosopher, once wrote, “All truly great thoughts are conceived while walking,” a tradition that goes all the way back to ancient Greece and the Peripatetic school, literally the walking school, founded by followers of Aristotle. 115
A recent study by Mary Oppezzo and Daniel Schwartz of Stanford University determined that creativity levels are consistently and significantly higher for those who walk for as little as five minutes before engaging in problem solving compared to those who do not. 116
We might think it’s a waste of time to interrupt work to take a short stroll, but it’s actually an effective way to unleash our creativity.
Inspiration can and will come any time, even during hectic and busy days, but only if you’re doing the things to invite and receive it. As we’ve mentioned before, the Big Ideas Model is not a rigid step-by-step process you implement in numerical order. At every step of the journey, it is important to get into alpha mode several times each day, so your brain can recharge with sodium and potassium and consolidate information.
During the summer of 1905, Austrian composer Gustav Mahler (1860–1911) hit a roadblock in his efforts to complete his seventh symphony, one he had begun the previous summer. “Two weeks long I tortured myself to distraction, as you may well remember…until I escaped to the Dolomites! There the same struggle and finally I gave up and went home in the conviction that this summer was lost to composition.”
In a struggle similar to Einstein’s, it seemed no matter how hard Mahler worked in beta mode, he couldn’t get unstuck. It wasn’t until he gave up and let his mind wander that the light finally broke through. He got into a rowboat to cross Worthersee Lake, and his mind slowed sufficiently to allow disconnected neurons to come together. “At the first dip of the oars I found my theme of the introduction to the first movement—and in four weeks the first, third, and fifth movements were done.” 117
Another example of getting to alpha and reaping the benefits of a rested brain comes from Herman Von Helmholtz (1821–1894), one of the great minds of the nineteenth century. Von Helmholtz made significant contributions to the fields of science, physiology, psychology, and philosophy. His contributions include the principle of conservation of energy, the measurement of the speed of nerve impulses, and the invention of the ophthalmoscope used to examine the inside of the eye.
Helmholtz trained his brain by gathering information and then getting into alpha mode and letting ideas incubate:
Often ... [ideas] arrived suddenly, without any effort on my part, like an inspiration.... They never came to a fatigued brain. It was always necessary, first of all, that I should have turned my problem over on all sides to such an extent that I had all its angles and complexities ‘in my head.’ Then…there must come an hour of complete physical freshness and quiet well-being before the good ideas arrived. Often, they were there in the morning when I first awoke. But they liked especially to make their appearance while I was taking an easy walk over wooded hills in sunny weather. 118
In Anatomy of Inspiration , music historian Rosamond Harding (1899–1982) emphasized the benefits of resting your brain:
There is much to be said in favour of laying a work aside to mature; for one thing, it gives the judgment time to operate; the mind is able to return to the work from time to time with a fresh outlook; and check it from many different angles. It follows also that if new ideas are to be set aside to develop and newly finished works left to ‘mature,’ there must be several things on hand at the same time in various stages of development. The continuity of attention is purposely shorted and interrupted partly on account of the rest this gives. 119
CONSIDER THIS BIG IDEA
Develop the practice of “not thinking” by meditation and mindfulness. A wealth of evidence and research suggests that if you spend time in a meditative state, your brain will function more efficiently, and you’ll be less anxious, more creative, and healthier.
Work on a problem by “not working on it.” Define the problem, find out everything you can about it, learn and study, then let your brain rest so it can make the connections you need to receive powerful solutions.