"We need to think outside the box."
No, you don't.
It's a lyric heard every minute, somewhere in the world. But the message doesn't work.
Here's why, and what you should do instead.
Your box -- your way of thinking, working and living -- has worked for you. It's the box in which you were born, a product of the DNA with which you were encoded. You can change your box about as easily as you can change the shape of your head.
You are methodical or mercurial; you are lateral or linear; you tend to be inward, or perhaps outward. But from birth, you are who you are. It's a pretty good box. Most important, it is yours -- the box in which you have operated forever.
Don't try to think outside your box; it's too hard. Instead, grow it.
For a wonderful inspiration and example, consider the story of singer Paul Simon.
Simon wrote some of our previous century's classic songs, including an album that became the background music for an entire generation: Bookends. Millions bought it, and millions more heard its songs as the background music to the movie classic, The Graduate.
Simon flourished inside his box. His box was filled with the culture of the rebellious 1970's America, torn between chasing California girls on the beach on one hand and protesting the Viet Nam war on the other.
Simon flourished inside his box -- and then he didn't. He stayed there and the box that had helped him produce classics started producing songs like "Kodachrome." ("He should be arrested for that song," a recovering Simon fan once said.) Simon's box closed in on him.
Simon solved it, but not by changing his thinking. He changed his box by bringing new things into it. To find them he ventured a world away; he flew to Africa. There, his box changed from what he felt and saw. As he wrote in one song, he saw "angels in the architecture, spinning in infinity."
Africa and its images and sounds startled, moved and overwhelmed Simon. With his head stirring with these new influences, and inspired by the African group Ladysmith Black Mambazo, he wrote "You Can Call Me Al" and one of music's truly outside-the-box creations, the album Graceland.
Simon didn't think outside his box; few people can. Simon grew his box. He brought into it new things, studied different cultures, listened to African music rather than his own.
From that he transformed himself, and flourished.
To become more creative -- always a good idea -- don't try to think outside your box. Instead, grow it. Bring new things in.
If you read Vanity Fair, read InFisherman. If you read Tattoo, pick up an Architecture Digest. If you read People, scan The New Yorker. If you attend the theater, catch a NASCAR race (not least of all, because of its immense appeal). If you'd never dream of watching ballet, listening to bluegrass, or going to a county fair, go.
Tinker with your box. Buy an orange sport coat and a pair of red suede shoes; see what changes.
Grow a bigger box.
Excerpts from Harry and Christine Clifford Beckwith's new book, You: A Field Guide to Selling Yourself (Warner Books September 2006).
It's axiomatic that if you do what you love, the money will follow. But is it true?
No. The money often follows, but often doesn't. But rule or no rule, it does not matter.
Do what you love anyway.
Doing what you love works.
First, the money may actually follow and please you. Given that we need some money and enjoy having a little more, that can happen.
As one alternative, you may find that money follows but pleases you less than you had expected. That happens regularly.
As the next alternative, the money follows but pleases you only briefly. That is the most common outcome, for a reason that may be inherent in human beings. Abraham Maslow once observed that alone, perhaps, among all animals, humans are capable of only temporary satisfaction. Once something satisfies us, we move on to our next unsatisfied desire.
Satisfaction -- as you learn when you study the satisfaction of clients of businesses -- typically lasts for only moments. Satisfaction simply raises our bar.
As a final possibility, you may find that the money does not follow, which might disappoint you.
But none of these outcomes matters as much as the guaranteed outcome. You will have loved what you've been doing. That will satisfy you so deeply that the result must either be called success, or recognized as something even more enriching.
Do what you love, and the pleasure of doing what you love will follow.
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Best close to a novel:
The Great Gatsby. In a moment of relative sobriety that would not last, F. Scott Fitzgerald revealed his barely used gift. Referring to what the early sailors found here in America, he wrote "for a transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent...face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate with his capacity for wonder."
Best opening:
Lolita. Magical, musical, audacious. The only thing more startling than
Nabokov's subject is his gift.
Favorite opening in a recent client letter:
The very first words from Julie Heggli, Sr. V.P of Marketing, CNA: "Wow!"
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Harry Beckwith is the best-selling author of Selling
the Invisible, which has been named one of the top
ten business books of all time, with over 675,000
copies sold in 14 translations. He is also author of
The Invisible Touch and What Clients Love, which
have sold over 275,000 copies in 13 translations. He has been a keynote speaker for 14 Fortune 200 annual sales meetings and the National Speakers' Association convention, and has |
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made presentations in Europe, South America and Asia. He is
cited regularly in national media including CNN,
The Wall Street Journal, Business Week, Entrepreneur,
Crain's New York Business and numerous
American, European and Asian newspapers. A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Stanford University, Harry resides in Minneapolis with his wife Christine Clifford Beckwith. He is the father of six children. |
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E-mail questions and comments for Harry Beckwith to invisble@bitstream.net.