I strongly believe that our subconscious minds can be used to solve many of our daily problems.
During my working years — and even now occasionally — I use a special technique when I have a particularly vexing problem. After studying the problem consciously from all of its aspects, I spend the few moments just before I fall asleep to think hard about it again. More times than not, I find that I have an answer when I wake up in the morning.
I believe studies have been done to verify that our subconscious minds are at work all the time trying to correlate data and solve problems. Anyway, it works for me.
When my first wife and I separated, we divided up our stuff equally and equitably. Among the things I acquired were some pots and pans, including a small frying pan. It came with its own cover and some mysterious accessories. The accessories were a thin metal cover that had four large holes and four smaller holes, and four small metal cup-like things that were clearly intended to fit into the four larger holes in the cover thing. (I might be losing you here, but bear with me.)
I used the frying pan and its cover, but I could never figure out what the accessories were for. And I never threw them away because I’m an obsessive collector of stuff — especially when I think I might need it some day. (I also have 470 feet of chicken wire fencing, 155 pounds of concrete mix and 125 pounds of left-over ceramic tiles that I might need one of these days.)
Anyway, from time to time, while moving stuff around in my kitchen cabinets, I would come across the frying pan accessories and spend some time pondering what they were for. I could never figure it out.
Fast forward 18 years (repeat, 18 years!). Suddenly at 2 one morning I sat up in bed, wide awake, with the answer to what those accessories were for. Keep in mind, this is at 2 in the morning, 18 years later.
So in case you were wondering, it explains what I was doing in my kitchen at 2:30 one morning several years ago, fixing a poached egg breakfast for myself using my mysterious frying pan accessories.
Ta dah! Those frying pan accessories that had haunted me for so long were a poached egg attachment, and now I use it all the time instead of dropping the eggs into boiling water where they get all messy and uneven.
— Paul Burri is an entrepreneur, inventor, columnist, engineer, guerrilla marketer and iconoclast. He is available to local organizations for speaking engagements and to local businesses for business consulting and/or mentoring. The opinions expressed are his own and do not reflect the opinions or policies of any outside organization. Contact him at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address), follow him on Twitter: @BronxPaul, or click here to read previous columns.
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