Removing Mental Blocks

Understanding the mental constraints helps to identify solutions. Here’s an example of how it works. blog.mindrocketnow.com

I was at an industry conference a while back, and the most profound thing I learnt was nothing to do with next generation technogeekery. It was the nine dots problem (thanks to Gary Lauder for introducing this to me).

Imagine you have 9 dots. How many straight lines do you need to join them together?

If you thought outside the box, and said 4, well done you.

If you thought outside the dots, and said 3, clever old you.

If you thought in three dimensions, and said 1, wow – I’d like to meet you in person and bask in the glow of your big brain. (Or you’ve seen this before.)

What I learnt from all this, was that understanding the mental constraints helps to identify solutions. And you can repeat this process, to continue to identify new constraints, and therefore new solutions.