Theme.
This week on #founderhacks we bounce around ideas on the topic of reframing our thoughts to gain deeper perspectives.
Seen.
Understanding problems differently
Imagine you own an office building and that your tenants are complaining about its slow lift. How would you fix this problem? Would you fall in to the trap and focus on a cluster of solutions that share assumptions about what the problem is? Would you, like me, probably just go ahead and upgrade the lift's motor?
Or would you try and understand the problem differently and reframe it as a peak demand problem; too many people needing the lift at the same time, leading to a solution that focuses on spreading out the demand? Would putting mirrors next to the lift door or asking people to stagger their lunch breaks be a better way to solve things?
What problems are you facing that could be solved by understanding them differently?
Read.
Be careful what you dream of
Happy, a book by Derren Brown, got Ben thinking about what makes him, and others, well, happy.
Does conventional wisdom dating back to the positive thinking movement of the 1970s make people blind to the truth instead of help them face the realities of life?
Do we all rely on conventional thinking too much in our lives and our businesses and could we achieve more when we ignore it?
What about an over-adherence to goal setting? Mr. Brown quotes evidence that this can cause unhappiness too.
Should the goals you set yourself be sign posts on the road of life rather than a destination you must reach?
Learned.
Is your mind a suggestion engine?
How do you choose to deal with the chemical reactions that are going on in your brain that most people would call thoughts? What would happen if you started thinking of thoughts as suggestions instead? The next time you go for a run and your mind starts telling you to stop just before you get home might you just hold off acting on it? Maybe another suggestion to keep going, one that reminds you how good you'll feel by not stopping, is but a few more paces away?
And finally.
I learned a new word this week that made me smile. That word is ultracrepidarian. It's defined in the dictionary as, "A person who is in the habit of giving advice on matters they know nothing about".
I had my own word for people like this but thought this was far, far prettier.
Don’t forget to check out the accompanying podcast version of #founderhacks for a tantalising live experience of team atomex!
