100 Ways To Motivate Yourself, Third Edition

52. Think outside the box

Once I attended a new business proposal presentation by Bob Koether, in which he had his prospective customers all play a little nine-dot game that illustrated to them that the solutions to puzzles are often simple to see if we think in unconventional ways. As people laughed and tore up their puzzles in frustration when Koether showed them the solution, he stood up to make his final point.

“We restrict our thinking for no good reason,” said Koether. “We do things simply because that’s the way we always did them. I want you to know that our commitment in serving your company is to always look outside the box for the most innovative solutions possible to our problems. We’ll never do something just because that’s the way ...