According to a ‘philosopher’, it is only a mad man who does the same thing over and over again and expects a different result. Imagine a student who failed an exam, what is rationally expected of him is to go back to the drawing board and fix whatever they did wrong. This is because you can’t be doing the same thing repeatedly and expect a different result.
The same principle is applicable for a businessman/woman who failed in business. Even in marriage, you cannot solve a problem with the same understanding you met it, neither can you solve a problem with the manner your friend or parents solved a problem. This is because a lot of transformation may have taken place. What works for them might not work for you. For instance, back in the days, a woman might be a housewife, but in our contemporary society, women are now feminist.
Again, your friend’s wife or husband may have a different mindset, understanding and orientation. So, it is therefore imperative for you to think out of the box, and to know what works for you.
Thinking of the box is not for any specific person. A poor mind, rich mind, young or adult mind can think out of the box. To think out of the box, you must apply common sense. We are accustomed to hearing that common sense is not common, but in reality, common sense is available for all rational minds. You don’t need to have a degree or be an expert to have common sense. The inability to think out of the box makes you poor, and poor can be defined as passing over opportunities repeatedly.
Everyone wants to be successful in their marriage, business, academic, personal and professional life, but they fail to apply the logic and philosophy that works with it. For instance, some people who were successful because time and chance favoured them or either because they attended a networking event, or a friend recommended or referred them to a sponsor. So, if you can’t have access to the high and mighty, you can get them via your grades.
As newly married couples, we were told not to have third parties in our marriage if we want our marriage to work. In fact, we were told the only third party should be God. If I may ask, is God not a third party? Question: If a couple can’t handle a problem, what are they expected to do? Why do we have elders? Marriage therapist? Counselors? Etc. Do you know that if the couple mismanage the problem, it might lead to the end of the marriage? Moral: Think out of the box.
Time and chance are very critical to success in life. You can lose money and recover it, but when you lose time you can never recover it again. Just to let you know how powerful time is, I once read an interesting illustration that aptly highlights the value of time, and why it must be properly managed and maximized. Here it is: “Imagine there is a bank account which credits your account every morning with $86,400. It carries no balance from day to day. Every evening the bank deletes whatever part of the balance you failed to use during the day. What will you do? Draw about every cent of course.
Each of us has such a bank account, and it is called time. Every morning it credits you with 86,400 seconds. Every night it writes off as lost whatever of this you failed to invest for a good purpose. It carries over no balance. It allows no overdraft. Each day, it opens a new account for you. Each night, it burns the remains of the day. If you fail to use the day’s deposit, the loss is yours. There’s no drawing against “tomorrow.” You must live in the present on today’s deposit. Invest in it to get from it the utmost in good health, happiness and success. The clock is running. Make the most of today.”
Your ability to judiciously use your time will show how productive you are. Most times, poor people think rich people are the cause of their problem, but they fail to understand there’s a secret to their success. If you are able to think out of the box by asking the right questions, offering yourself for volunteering service, going out of your way to support someone either a great man, the less privileged or even those who can’t help themselves like students, you are creating doors of opportunity.
It is important to mention that there are many opportunities for everyone; the world is in need of visionary leaders who can solve problems, add value and create jobs. But it’s quite unfortunate to note that lazy people with poor mindsets feel that the market is saturated. Let me tell you, the market is not saturated, all that is needed is for you to create a unique product. Your style might be how you communicate, engage or relate with people. Do you know that 73% of the human brain is filled with water and 71% of the earth is filled with water? That tells you that despite all the land we occupy on earth, we are yet to scratch the surface of the earth.
Do you know that there are so many problems around your environment, just come up with an improvised means of making life easy for everyone and trust me, you will get paid because many people are lazy in conducting research, so if you can help them solve that problem, you’ll get paid.
Furthermore, thinking out of the box will teach you how you can avoid burning bridges. You may disagree with someone, you may not get along with them, but then, don’t burn the bridge, instead, keep your distance because we live in a dynamic world, you never can tell where you’ll meet them or when you might need them. Moral: Maturity makes you understand that you can disagree to agree.
The same is applicable for relationships/marriages. The game (relationship/marriage) might still be the same, but the rules must have changed because we now live in a different world. For example, why we all believe in love, in recent times, we have come to understand that it takes more than love to keep a relationship, you need money, faithfulness, patience, character, understanding, compromise, technology and sex to spice up your marriage.
To think out of the box requires knowledge, information, and wisdom. What you know is the key to your transformation because you can’t give what you don’t have. Change is internal. You can’t change what is beyond you.
In conclusion, one of the greatest ways of succeeding in life is by thinking out of the box, because whatever you are looking for is on the other side of life. Therefore, I urge you today to think out of the day.
Henry Ukazu writes from New York. He’s a mindset coach and public speaker. He works with the New York City Department of Correction as the Legal Coordinator. He’s the author of the acclaimed book Design Your Destiny – Actualizing Your Birthright To Success and President of gloemi.com. He can be reached via info@gloemi.com
“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” Maya Angelou.!
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