Of all the intellectual challenges I can name, likely none is greater than thinking outside of the box in which you have been living all your life.

In contrast, being analytical is easy. So is being intellectually rigorous. Tenacity and grit? They are much easier to learn than becoming an original, unbiased thinker.

While difficult, it can pay huge dividends to deliberately challenge our own beliefs, to force ourselves to read authors who anger us or to listen to points of view that question our foundational values. Everything that made us successful conspires to blind us to or at least distort our perception of reality.

This is incredibly important, so please excuse me if I repeat that in a slightly different manner. Your values, beliefs, habits and insights are largely responsible for your success… but they also serve as blinders that obscure reality. As the world shifts, your “success formula” won’t work in the same manner. This means you must, in effect, rebuild the airplane that is your career (and life) while it is in mid-flight.

Thinking outside the box does not mean coming up with a new advertising campaign or product launch. It means recognizing just how much of a box we all live in, and consciously creating opportunities to get outside of that box to enhance our perspective and see situations in a new light.