There is a story about an adventurer traveling across the desert searching for his fortune. But not the Paulo Coelho one. It goes that one night the traveler was visited by a Genie in a dream. In the dream the Genie told the traveler that in the morning if he walked in the direction that the wind was coming from he would after a few hours stumble across an old wooden and brass chest. In the chest were all sorts of riches – jewels and gold and all the traveler had to do to gain access to the chest was not to think of the colour blue as he opened it. But he would only have one chance.
This reminds me of an experience of my own when doing a police motorcycle training course organized by the Chertsey traffic center in the mid ’70′s. We were told in this course to avoid manhole covers in the road because manhole covers are slippery when wet, and that reminds me of another story but perhaps not now. The problem for me was try as hard as I could not to, I went straight over the manhole covers. I told the instructor this and he asked me where I was looking, "Well at the manholes" I said. "You will always go in the direction you place your attention, look to one side" said the copper. It worked.
When the traveler woke in the morning he set out in the direction of the wind and sure enough he found the chest. As he sat cross legged in the sand with the chest in his lap. As he tried to open it he said to himself "Don’t think of the colour blue". Of course he didn’t get the chest open. You see, before you can’t think about what you don’t want to think about, you have to think about it.
I watched Adrian Sutil as Lewis Hamilton came up behind him last Sunday and hoped that he was not trying not to think of Kimi Raikkonen slamming into the back of him at Monaco last year and loosing a points finish for himself and his team. I was hoping he had a clear picture of the chequered flag in his mind. I wonder?