Thinking Outside the Box

Thinking Outside the Box

This has been a great week delivering Mental Resilience presentations to Hallam Internet staff and Rolls Royce staff. Both sessions were great fun to deliver and the feedback has been really positive.

This was my first session with Hallam Internet, where I delivered a one-hour presentation twice with different staff in each session. The feedback was great, and the staff now have new tools to help them deal with stress and pressure more effectively. This is the first of 3 sessions in my new Mental Resilience programme so hopefully the others will follow.

Great accountability

The managing director of Hallam Internet is Stuart Ross who I have known for several years and he has been helping me develop my business over the years. In fact, Stuart helped my write my book which is proving to be a big hit with many people.

Stuart held me accountable by instructing me to send him 2,500 words every fortnight on a Monday otherwise I would have to pay a huge fine to a chosen cause. I remember many Sunday nights where I worked late just to avoid the fine – but it worked. Thank you, Stuart!

Rolls Royce

I have delivered many sessions to Rolls Royce staff and this was one of the recent sessions – we even had people attending the session from Canada via great technology. I love working with Rolls Royce and always receive great pleasure from these sessions.

May I also take this time to welcome all those who I met on the Queen Mary 2 and New York, also Hallam Internet and Rolls Royce. I would be great to hear that you have received this blog so please hit return and let me know.

I came across this story about creative thinking which made me think and smile:

Thinking Out of the Box (Creative Thinking)

In a small Italian town, hundreds of years ago, a small business owner owed a large sum of money to a loan-shark. The loan-shark was a very old, unattractive looking guy that just so happened to fancy the business owner’s daughter.

He decided to offer the businessman a deal that would completely wipe out the debt he owed him. However, the catch was that we would only wipe out the debt if he could marry the businessman’s daughter.

Needless to say, this proposal was met with a look of disgust.

The loan-shark said that he would place two pebbles into a bag, one white and one black.

The daughter would then have to reach into the bag and pick out a pebble. If it was black, the debt would be wiped, but the loan-shark would then marry her. If it was white, the debt would also be wiped, but the daughter wouldn’t have to marry the loan-shark.

Standing on a pebble-strewn path in the businessman’s garden, the loan-shark bent over and picked up two pebbles. Whilst he was picking them up, the daughter noticed that he’d picked up two black pebbles and placed them both into the bag.

He then asked the daughter to reach into the bag and pick one.

The daughter naturally had three choices as to what she could have done:

Refuse to pick a pebble from the bag. Take both pebbles out of the bag and expose the loan-shark for cheating. Pick a pebble from the bag fully well knowing it was black and sacrifice herself for her father’s freedom.

She drew out a single pebble from the bag, and before looking at it ‘accidentally’ dropped it into the midst of the other pebbles. She said to the loan-shark;

“Oh, how clumsy of me. Never mind, if you look into the bag for the one that is left, you will be able to tell which pebble I picked.”

The pebble left in the bag is obviously black and seeing as the loan-shark didn’t want to be exposed, he had to play along as if the pebble the daughter dropped was white and clear her father’s debt.

Moral of the story:

It’s always possible to overcome a tough situation through out of the box thinking, and not give in to the only options you think you have to pick from.

There is often another way

Creative thinking is something which can be very powerful. We sometimes think that we only have one option when in fact we have more. If we believe that we only have one option, that is what we will experience but if we believe there are other ways then we will seek those out.

Thoughts for the week.

1. What do you do when you are faced with a challenge?
2. Do you just dive in a hope you can sort it out?
3. Next time you are faced with something take a step back and think of other options.
4. This is something which takes time to develop but is very worthwhile.
5. Thinking outside the box pays real dividends.

Well that’s it for this week have a wonderful weekend and keep believing.

Warm regards

John

Off the Wall – How to Develop World Class Mental Resilience available HERE
http://www.jdmindcoach.co.uk/product/off-the-wall-how-to-develop-world-class-mental-resilience/ (Special offer. Put in code 10POUND when prompted to receive a signed copy for £10 including postage and packing – UK only)