The strongest currency in the world 2022

To become a successful entrepreneur in your field requires some - or a lot - of innovation and ingenuity, it requires you to have the skill to think outside the box, away from adherence to the usual standards and practices, to be creative means to have the ability to come up with creative and unique ideas, and respond flexibly and creatively to challenges Difficulties and problems facing your business.

The story of e-commerce giant Amazon is one of the inspiring stories in the world of business that truly express what it means to think outside the box. In 1994, Jeff Bezos left his job as Vice President of D. E. Shaw & Co. , a company on Wall Street, and moved to Seattle, where he began working on a business plan to launch the first online bookstore to sell books, at a time when the use of the Internet was not widespread among people, Bezos presented to many investors the idea of ​​​​Amazon, but they refused on the pretext of the limited use of the Internet in At that time, and because it was an unusual idea for them, Amazon at the time was the idea of ​​the future. Years later, Amazon diversified and moved to become the largest retail store in the world and the second largest company in terms of market value1 as it reached in the first half of this year 777.8 billion dollars, immediately after the company Camel.

Thinking outside the box can make you the owner of a company with a market value of hundreds of billions of dollars, how can you have the skill of thinking outside the box? Here are some ideas:

What is thinking outside the box?

It is one of the terms widely used in work environments and it means thinking creatively out of the ordinary. According to Wikipedia, thinking outside the box is a metaphor that means thinking differently, unconventionally, or from a new perspective. This phrase often refers to creative or new thinking. The term is believed to derive from management consultants in the 1970s and 1980s.

Who put your mind inside the box?

The box is not something that man is born with, Abraham Maslow says:

 

Creativity is a characteristic of all human beings at birth.

But many factors compete to place a person within a specific box from the moment of birth, for example: the family, the environment, social norms, and the education system; As human consciousness is directed in a certain way through education systems, but in the business world, other different factors can put you inside the box, the most important of which are:

• The rules of the game in any industry are set and determined by the big players, while new entrants in the market have to follow the rules of the big ones, which makes it difficult to think of new ways and ideas to rebuild business boundaries in the market.

• The experiences of others play an important role in placing the human being within a limited box. We tend to give in to the ideas of those in high positions under the pretext of their experiences and experiences at work, but the context of their experiences may not be applicable at the present time. We can benefit from the experiences of others, but nothing prevents us from modifying them Thinking outside its limits.

• Our assumptions play a big role in shaping the world around us, but they may be incorrect assumptions. A person should be trained to challenge assumptions by asking questions: Why? And why not?

• If you are an employee in a company, some rigid cultures in some companies that do not accept thinking easily, may impose a certain style of thinking on you.

Thinking inside the box hinders business growth and prevents it from transforming with development and changes, if you want to develop your business don't let the environment in which you grew up, stereotyped education ideas, assumptions, experiences of others, education prevent you from thinking outside the box, here are 3 ideas to do that.

Reading should be a necessity

One of the things I love about reading is that every book opens up new horizons of knowledge and exploration - Bill Gates

 To learn to think outside the box, reading should be a daily habit and a necessity. There is still a firm belief among many of us that reading is a luxury or a secondary thing we do in our spare time. Scientific research confirms that reading is beneficial to humans on several levels. A study conducted at the University of Toronto 2 revealed that Reading fiction books can help a person to be more open and creative.

The common characteristic of successful people is that they read every day. Hundreds of successful CEOs annually share lists of books that have helped them get to where they are today. For example, Bill Gates does not give up the habit of reading to enhance his understanding of the world. He blogs every year on the list of books he read and benefited from, which amounts to 50 books annually.

In an interview in the New York Times, Gates said, “These days, I can also visit interesting places, meet scientists, and watch a lot of lectures online,” but reading is still the main way I learn both new things and test my understanding”.

This year, Gates says, I enjoyed reading Richard Dawkins' The Magic of Reality, which explains different scientific ideas for teens. "Even though I already understood all the concepts, Dawkins helped me think about topics in new ways, if you can't explain something." Simply put, you don't really understand it.”

Warren Buffett, along with Bill Gates, Oprah Winfrey and many other successful personalities, also recommends titles that have influenced their lives and businesses tremendously.

Continuous self learning

Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one learned in school - Albert Einstein

 Formal education can give us the tools we need to become lifelong learners, but self-education gives us the tools to become lifelong actors and creators in different fields. There is a long list of the most successful people in the world who have relied on self-education to develop their creativity, and in the business world The strongest companies and the most successful and wealthy entrepreneurs such as: Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs and many others.. relied on themselves to develop their potential, and enjoyed a great deal of self-education skills in acquiring knowledge, which confirms that it is the key to real success.

Self-education is a vital part of an individual’s growth and development, it focuses on building your awareness and knowledge, helps develop talent, improve personal skills, and thus effectively manage yourself that drives you to continuous motivation and inspiration, it helps you to be the best version of yourself, and contributes to strengthening the skills of thinking outside the box, By asking questions and trying to find answers and creative solutions to problems.

Continuous learning is very important in activating the brain and maintaining its health. Working on developing yourself through continuous learning is not only necessary to improve yourself, but can also help you achieve professional success, as it opens new horizons for innovation and creative thinking.

You can learn more skills through education sites spread across the Internet, for example, Hassoub Academy includes many lessons and explanations, questions and answers, and high-quality courses in various fields such as: entrepreneurship, programming, marketing .. and others.

Building positive habits

There is no doubt that negative habits can greatly affect the creativity process, from negative habits that can destroy creativity, for example: to give in to others' opinions of you by believing that others' opinion of you is your reality, to be characterized by the habits of procrastination, delay, laziness, Comparing yourself with others, having great ideas without intending to implement them, fearing criticism, fearing failure...etc.

To enjoy the benefits of thinking outside the box, you should seek to destroy the habits that kill your creativity by building a set of habits and behaviors that enhance your creativity; PJ Fogg, a professor at Stanford University, has developed a theory of how behaviors change. He describes three reasons why people change their habits:

1. Absorption: the occurrence of something that harms a person that leads to a complete change of perception and forces him to change behavior, for example: he obtains the results of the tests and the doctor tells him that he has a certain disease, which forces him to change his diet.
2. Changing the environment: When the environment around you changes your behavior will be forced to change, for example: when you move from one job to another, you will have to make friends with a different group of people who have different habits and standards that affect your behaviour.
3. Small steps: You can change your behavior by making small changes to the desired behavior so that these small changes become part of your new behavior.

How do you know you are thinking outside the box?

• You use the accepted rules only to increase the productivity of your company, and add ideas of your creativity to it.
• You love to experiment, learn, and implement what you have learned.
• Don't be afraid of change or trying new ones.
• You value creativity and allow the free flow of different ideas into your company, and are open to any new ideas.
• Always stay up-to-date with what's new in your field to discover innovative ideas.
• You believe that the products or services you have can always be improved upon.
• You always seek to see and read a variety of things that are not related to your field of work.
• Share your ideas with others to allow you to make improvements to your initial ideas.

Thinking outside the box is an acquired skill, but it requires curiosity, resilience, courage, self-confidence, and openness to new ideas around you. Your ability to innovate and solve problems that confront you through thinking outside the box can contribute to the success of your business.

Do you have your habits to develop outside-the-box thinking skills? Tell us about it in the comments.