If the huge popularity of the BBC’s ‘Sherlock Holmes’ has got you, like everyone else, and if you have ever wondered about this legendary character’s miraculous skills of deduction, memory, and problem solving, this blog is for you.
Do you know Sherlock (or his creator, Arthur Conan Doyle) has no secret techniques up his sleeve? Holmes simply combines many skills (that can be acquired!) and applies them to problems in a systematic manner. With the right training and some practice, you too can boost your mental ability and start thinking like Holmes.
Don’t believe me yet?
Let’s look at the ‘Sherlocking’ skills one at a time.
Key skills of Sherlock Holmes:
Sensory Acuity and Sensory Specific Information
“Never trust to general impressions, my boy, but concentrate yourself upon details. My first glance is always at a woman’s sleeve. In a man, it is perhaps better to take the knee of the trouser.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle
Sherlock’s top skill is becoming aware of what is observable – a man’s knees, a woman’s sleeve, mud on the shoes and so on. You can learn a lot about people and things just by paying enough attention to what can be objectively observed by the senses – what can I see, hear, smell, touch and taste.
Since most of us spend most of our time talking to ourselves, looking back at what has happened or worrying about what will, we are not present and paying attention to ‘Now’. No wonder, our perception is often based on guesswork, rather than objective reality. With time, we simply stop paying attention to the obvious.
So, the first thing we need to do is to deliberately and actively start paying attention to observable and objective clues about what is going on around us.
Fortunately, you need not be a great detective to do so. Regardless of what you do or the field of work you are in, objectively perceiving things based on sensory specific information, can make your life much simpler, even better!
It can improve your memory and recall, increase your problem-solving skills, and your ability to create rapport with people.
If you wish to develop your sensory acuity, rapport building and problem-solving skills faster and more effectively, our Cognitive Hypnotic Coaching™ program is a good place to start.
Deductive Reasoning
“How often have I said that when you have excluded the impossible whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” – Arthur Conan Doyle, The Sign of Four
Deductive reasoning refers to the process of reasoning from one or more general statements to reach a logically certain conclusion.
Deductive reasoning has always caught our fancy, whether it was 19th Century Holmes or his modern-day cousin, House M.D., who displays his deductive talents as a doctor in the famous TV series.
The interesting thing is, once you have sensory specific information, you can begin deducing things from what you observe.
This will enable you to ‘piece things together’ and notice where information is missing, or where people are taking imaginative leaps due to insufficient information, and you will start asking better questions (Meta Model and Sleight of Mouth Patterns) and hence, reach right answers.
Lateral Thinking
Since most of us live routine lives, we tend to get stuck in habitual thinking patterns. That means we often do the same things, in the same manner, making the same inferences and conclusions. The funny thing is, we expect different results!
To become good at problem solving, you need to expand your thinking. This is often referred to as ‘lateral thinking’ or ‘thinking out of the box’.
To develop lateral thinking, you may begin by solving puzzles and riddles. Cryptic crossword puzzles are a great idea too! Begin by reading the clues from the cryptic crossword and then the answer to start to understand how it worked. Change your routine to shift your point-of-view.
A fantastic way to hone all these skills, in one go, is to enroll for the Cognitive Hypnotic Coaching course that is based on the integration of Hypnosis, Neuro Linguistic Programming and Coaching competencies. The program focuses on not just helping you learn all these skills systematically but also practice and fine tune them.
You can start with our foundation course that can help you develop a deeper understanding of the human behaviour along with the different ways to influence yourself and others effectively.
