Mindset Stories - Hair Brain, Tortoise Mind.

In my early teenage years, I’d sit alone in my bedroom, surrounded by magic books, playing cards and coins, dreaming up impossible ideas. Like, how could I push my finger through a coin someone just handed me?

To even begin answering that, I had to visualise what I wanted. It started with imagination, mixed with playful curiosity. That’s the strange burden of a magician: to make the impossible look effortless, we have to solve a problem that shouldn’t have a solution… in a way that leaves no evidence.

So every day became a cycle of creating, developing, tweaking, and practising. Repeat.

One evening, determined to make real progress, I set a rule for myself: I wouldn’t go downstairs for dinner until I’d improved the illusion. That simple decision sparked something powerful. Under pressure, I was forced to shift gears - to revisit what had been done before, question old ideas, and rework things until they looked and felt like real magic.

I was late for a LOT of dinners. Mum would shout from downstairs, growing increasingly frustrated. But I was learning to shut out distractions and stay with a challenge, not for hours, but until something clicked. And even the tiniest breakthrough felt like winning.

Layman's neuroscience:

What I didn’t know at the time was that I was training my brain in something neuroscience now recognises as iterative creativity. When we toggle between imaginative, open-ended thinking (what John Cleese calls the “Tortoise Mind” in his amazing little book 'Creativity') and structured, analytical thinking (the “Hare Brain”), we’re activating different networks in the brain, especially the prefrontal cortex, which helps with decision-making and planning, and the default mode network, which kicks in during daydreaming, imagination, and problem-solving.

This back-and-forth loop is where original thinking thrives.

Years later, I still find myself using this mental loop, only now it’s for strategy, leadership, and innovation, not just illusions. I set boundaries of time and space when I need to think. I still ask, “What’s a better way?” And I trust the process, knowing that the most elegant solutions often emerge when you sit with the problem long enough, let the mind play, and resist the urge to rush.

These days, I'm the one shouting that dinner’s ready, but I'm empathetic to what my kids might be doing, causing them to ignore me!

And every time I hit a roadblock, I remind myself: nothing will ever feel as impossible as trying to push my finger through a coin. But even that illusion found its solution - eventually.

So… how do you approach creativity in your business?

Are you more Hare Brain, or Tortoise Mind?

Alex Moffat is an experienced leader, a NeuroLeadership practitioner, a multi-award-winning magician, and a highly sought-after keynote speaker in Sydney.

With audiences from Sydney to London, Alex is renowned for helping leaders and their teams rewire their mindsets with neuroscience and magic.

Alex is available Australia-wide and beyond.