Thinking outside the box is more than just a business cliché. It’s a metaphor that means approaching problems in a new way, thinking differently, unconventionally, from a new perspective; in innovative ways; conceptualizing problems differently, and understanding your position in relation to any particular situation in a way you’d never thought of before.
Giordano Bruno was an Italian philosopher, he is celebrated for his cosmological theories, which went even further than the then-novel Copernican model, proposing that the stars were just distant suns surrounded by their own planets, and moreover the possibility that these planets could even foster a life of their own.
He was thinking outside of the box back in his days, and it may have caused his downfall, now historians cannot determine whether it was this theory or Bruno’s interest in the mystical philosophy that became his downfall. It is certain that the Romans thought he was crazy and burned him at the stake.
We need people like Giordano Bruno that think outside the box, we need more wild brains in our workplaces. We transform from originals to copies in our teens and early adult life, when we settled into our careers – as lawyers, engineers, doctors, etc. the box is drawn around us to what we can do and not do and how we should behave while in the box, don’t take it the wrong way, it’s great to see people who are successful and doing what they’ve studied to do…when we settle into our careers we become copies of people who we didn’t mean to copy…and many of us aren’t particularly passionate about what we became – why?
The originals
The originals have such optimism and hope toward their life, they are true to themselves, even if they are worried about what comes next! They are exactly themselves and who they want to be! We do lose them because of our own anxiety, fear, and shortsightedness, the passionate originals are often sorted out through the hiring process that is applied by workplaces, workplaces are boxes, the ones that do not even know which box we are talking about has little chance to get a foot inside the box. If a wild brain gets hired – we continuously treat them badly, we often freeze them out of togetherness, we talk about them behind their backs, we just which they retire or quit of their own accord.
We need to take chances even in our own box, you will know what your box life is, by looking in the mirror. You might hire a person who is late sometimes because the person is a night person? Would you call someone for an interview if the person had Nostradamus as the profile picture on Facebook?
Social Media
You can check out your friends on social media and you can see how your friends transform from born originals to copies, how they over time fall into a box and never look out from it. Everyone knows that we’re doing wrong, but fewer and fewer refuse to change the box mentality and think outside. All cherish their own box.
We must do this together. Dare to see the originals dare include them – there is not even any divergence between defending your country, your company or your own prosperity and surrounding yourself with wild brains. It’s the same thing.
History tells us constantly that.
The Giordano Bruno knew that one day he would get right was probably little comfort when he stood in the flames.
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