Thinking Right & Left

This morning I received a small surprise in the post. A parcel containing two books. Both written by the same author. Both signed. And both with a personal dedication to me.

The only problem is… I have no clear memory of meeting him.

I’ve been racking my brain ever since. Where did we meet? What conversation did we have? What prompted him to send these books to me?

Nothing.

Now, I don’t think I’m losing my marbles just yet. But it did get me thinking about how our brains actually work — and about the difference between left-brain and right-brain thinking.

Because it’s entirely possible that when I met this person, I was operating almost entirely from the right side of my brain.  Present. Engaged. In the flow of the moment.

And when that happens, the experience can be rich and meaningful… yet oddly difficult to recall afterwards.

I’ve seen this before in my own life.

When my daughter was about six years old, she had a nightly ritual. At bedtime she would ask me to tell her a story. But not just any story. She would give me two random things — perhaps a horse and a book, or a tree and a shoe — and ask me to weave them into a tale connected to something that had happened during her day at school.

I never prepared these stories. I simply let them come.

The words would arrive almost as if they were being channelled from somewhere beyond my conscious thinking — crafting a narrative that helped her process whatever had happened that day. By the time the story ended, she was calm and ready to sleep.

A few days later she would say, “Tell me the story about the horse and the book again.”

And I would look at her blankly.

I vaguely remembered telling it. But the story itself had vanished from my memory completely.

This is the curious thing about right-brain thinking.

The left side of the brain is analytical. Logical. Systematic. It categorises, organises and stores information.

The right side is very different. It lives in the present moment. It’s intuitive, creative and associative. It sees patterns, possibilities and connections.

When we’re operating fully in that mode . When we’re improvising music, telling stories, having a deep conversation, or simply allowing ideas to flow.. We are often less concerned with recording the experience. We’re simply immersed in it.

And that immersion can be incredibly powerful.

The challenge is that many senior leaders spend the overwhelming majority of their time operating from the left side of the brain.

Analysing data. Solving problems. Managing operations. Responding to crises. Making decisions under pressure.  All necessary, of course.

But if we stay there all the time, something important gets squeezed out.

• Perspective.
• Creativity.
• Insight.

The kind of thinking that allows a leader not just to solve problems,  but to see the opportunity hidden within them. And that kind of thinking tends to emerge from the quieter, more spacious territory of the right brain.

Which is why creating space matters so much.

Space to step away from the constant stream of emails, meetings and urgent decisions.  Space to think without an agenda. Space to notice the idea that suddenly appears when you’re walking, journaling, listening to music, or simply sitting quietly with a cup of coffee.

Insights often arrive lightly. Briefly. Almost like a whisper.

And just as quickly, they disappear again.

That’s why I learned to record those bedtime stories for my daughter. The moment they were spoken, they were gone.

Leadership insights can be just the same.

So when a thought arrives — an unexpected connection, a fresh perspective, a new possibility — capture it.  Write it down. Record it. Give it somewhere to land.

Because those fleeting moments of right-brain insight are often where the most important ideas begin.