Table of Contents

Thank you ix

Dedication x

Introduction 1

1 The way we see things 11

Borrowing the perceptions of others 23

New fantasies, new heroes 28

Spring-clean your beliefs 33

2 Awakening curiosity 39

Open-page thinking 53

New people, new ideas 57

Things to be curious about 62

3 Intuition and eureka 71

Accelerating eurekas 84

Mind the gap 88

Idleness and the environment for intuition 92

4 Paying attention 99

Taking a bat's view 116

Family rituals 120

There's no present like the time 125

5 Co-creation 131

Blue thinking 144

A question of style 148

6 Funny bones 151

Ah-aha-haha! 161

7 Simply beautiful 171

Surround yourself with beauty 183

8 Storytime! 187

Writing and living your story 200

9 Meditation 211

Just do it! 224

10 You, me, us – relationships 225

Relate! 243

11 The biggest re-think of all 247

Coda – Acting as if 255

Appendix 1 – The Re-Think research 257

Appendix 2 – Re-think resources 271

About Nigel Barlow 275

Index 277

Description

What does it take to re-think anything in your life? Sometimes nothing short of turning your whole world upside down. Slow down your thinking for a moment. What is your brain doing? Almost certainly trying to come up with a single right answer because then you can stop thinking about the problem. All too often we are not really thinking, but sleepwalking through life. Fresh angles on familiar problems elude us. Re-thinking is the opposite: it means seeing better or different solutions. In other words, thinking as unusual. Rethink shows you why and how.
What if today you were to . . . Buy a new newspaper? Take a different route home? Say ‘yes’ to everything your partner asks? Invent new rituals for your family? Surround yourself with beauty? Try a first take at the creative fantasy sleeping in the attic of your mind? Find a new hero? Discover more about your upbringing? Act as if anything were possible rather than yes-butting the new?

You’d be a re-thinker. Why not? There’s always a better or different solution to the way you lead your personal or professional life. Rethink will help you to stop living on autopilot and reawaken your sense of wonder, curiosity, and creativity.