#thinkoutsidethebox
Urban Giraffes - image Doug Flockhart
Or should we just get rid of the box?
3 questions to ask yourself about everything you do…
- What do you want?
- Why do you want it?
- How do you get it?
3 things that hold you back…
- Finance – often a reason that doesn’t let us dream
- Fear – of failure and risk can be paralysing
- Fatigue – sometimes we accept mediocrity rather than chase the dream
3 things we’ve all recently we’ve been subjected to…
- Forced change
- A period of experimentation
- Acceptance of anti-social behaviour
They say, good things come in threes! “The rule of three” principle (in Latin -"omne trium perfectum"), suggests things that come in threes are inherently more humorous, satisfying and more effective than any other number of things. Then there’s the opposite, i.e. bad things come in threes - meaning if an unfortunate event has already occurred twice, it will most likely happen a third time. Yes, and you might also be thinking on the romantic front – two’s company and three is a crowd.
Rolf Fehlbaum the Chairman Emeritus of Vitra said – “Chairs are important historical artefacts. They can represent the fashion and ethos of a particular moment in time or stand for an epochal idea. They are portraits of their users and reflect the production techniques with which they were created. You can recognise and understand an era – its social structures, its materials, techniques and fashions – by its chairs. Could we then go as far as to say that no other everyday object is so multi-faceted?”
When considering the above and the relationship to threes, I then ask myself 3 times, why do most chairs have four legs? And then note that some of the most intriguing and anti-conformist chair designs have 3 legs.
Then there’s the statement by F Scott Fitzgerald (the American novelist, essayist, screenwriter, and short-story writer) – “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless yet be determined to make them otherwise.”
Superior intelligence and intellect often allow you to see innovation, ideas, products and information better, which then fuels powerful, creative thinking. So, we shouldn’t rob ourselves of the fullness of an outcome by rushing, should we? I often say… “Let me noodle on that”.
So what’s the importance of time in all of this? Time allows us to look at the question, and to challenge from different perspectives whilst strengthening the capacity for thought and the delivery of a solution or outcome.
After sharing this, I now invite you to join me outside the box! Why you ask? Because that’s where the real adventure starts, and anything is possible!
