95% of people cannot do the Blank Piece of Paper exercise, and that leads to 80% of people being in a job that they hate. They are trapped! Are YOU?
Trapped in your thinking? In your life? In your job? Do this 9 Dot challenge and you will be awakened to new opportunities.
I want to share with you a challenge which I set for my students as part of the Fantasizing phase of our 7F journey towards achieving your success, however you define it.
As you read down this blog post and begin the challenge, please try not to look at the images below where you are reading – That would be cheating!
There’s no contents list for this blog post because it is just one exercise for you to do – One that 95% of people cannot do because our education systems have not taught us to ‘Think Outside The Box’. (I am already giving you a clue!)
If you are feeling trapped in your life, your job, or in your thinking, please know that you are not alone! It's a common problem and one that can be easily remedied with a little bit of creativity and out-of-the-box thinking.
Why is the 9 Dot Challenge for Me?
If you're like most people, you'll probably find this exercise quite difficult.
Studies have shown that 95% of people cannot complete the 9 Dot challenge!
But here's the thing: those who can't complete the exercise are also those people most likely to be stuck in jobs they hate because they're not used to thinking outside the box.
So, if you're feeling trapped in your life, give the 9 Dot exercise a try. You might just find yourself awakened to new opportunities that you never would have thought possible before!
Why the 9 Dots?
The 9 Dot challenge is a simple yet profound way to break out of the box of limited thinking. So many people are trapped in jobs they hate because they can't see beyond the box of their own limitations. The 9 Dots challenge is a simple way to escape the trap of linear thinking.
The 9 Dots as a Lever
This challenge opens new possibilities and allows you to see the world in a whole new light.
It works as:
The first step to achieving your dreams
The power of thinking outside the box
The secret to unlocking your potential
The path to greater creativity, and
A simple solution for when you feel trapped
It explains:
How to get out of your comfort zone
How to overcome your fear of failure
How to unleash your creativity, and
How to turn your ideas into reality
The 9 Dots as a Means of Escape
If you can't escape the box of your own limitations, you'll never be able to reach your full potential or find true contentment and satisfaction. But if you can learn to think outside the box, you'll be amazed at what you can achieve.
This challenge may seem impossible at first but keep trying! When you finally succeed, you will have broken out of the box of conventional thinking.
There is a simple solution, I promise you, and you will be most surprised when you understand how simple the solution is, and how much your status quo thinking limits your mindset.
Remember from the Changemaker blog post: Your mindset is the way you think. It’s your fixed, your normal, way of thinking that determines your attitude, your responses to situations, and your actions. Your habits and your behaviour are determined by your mindset.
So, give the 9 Dot challenge a try - It could change your life!
Let’s start with a quick example of how and why people have become trapped.
The Monkey Trap perfectly illustrates the situation many people are in today:
The Monkey Trap
A Monkey Trap is a cage specially designed to prey on the weakness of the monkey - don’t forget we humans are that species too.
The cage entices the monkey to stretch his arm out and put his hand in the cage either to collect a handful of rice or a banana.
The hole through which the monkey puts his, or her hand is just big enough for the empty hand. As soon as the monkey collects its reward, the rice or the banana, it cannot get its hand back out!
Why? Because the hand is full of the reward and the power of greed overrides reason and even freedom!
The monkey will not let go of its harvest and before long is released only by the human who seeks to exploit or eat it.
Many of us are caught in the Monkey Trap of life – the salary, the demands of a tyrant boss, loans and debts, a possessive partner, social media... the list is endless.
I accept it is difficult to let go and escape, but please ask yourself:
At what cost you are risking everything?
Personal health, finances, family, relationships, inner peace, careers, personal growth and learning all suffer because of greed in one direction or another.
My objective is to get you to recognise when you are caught in a Monkey Trap, and of course to ultimately, get you to let go of what is keeping you trapped in order to value your freedom!
Ready?
You need a pencil and lots of scrap paper
The 9 Dot exercise is a simple challenge that can help you break out of restrictive thinking and be more open to new possibilities.
Think creatively!
The Challenge:
You may have seen this before, especially if you have been in one of my classes – Please don’t share the answer!
On your paper, please draw a 3 x 3 grid of 9 Dots. Like this:
Now, join the nine dots with four straight lines without taking your pen off the paper.
Most of you reading this blog post will have some form of qualifications so should be able to solve this very quickly!
To repeat join the nine dots with four straight lines without taking your pen off the paper.
(A circle is not a straight line, and whilst you can cross the lines you cannot go back over the same line.)
Boxed Thinking
Ok... I can see how you are thinking, classic mistake, you are seeing a box. One, two, three, four lines... and you made a nice box but the dot in the middle is not joined.
You can see a box because we are taught in boxes and because governments want to put us in boxes:
You are white
You are Christian
You are an ethnic minority
You are a woman
You are unemployed
You are... and the list goes on!
Put us in a box and we can be labelled and controlled.
YOU don’t fit in a box. Entrepreneurs do not fit inside a box.
In fact, my mission is to get you out of the box.
Just imagine that the dot in the middle is YOU!
Do you belong in a box?
Do you want a label?
Do you enjoy being in an enclosure?
Clue 1
Your only clue, (which I already gave you earlier in the blog post, if you were paying attention!)
The answer is outside of the box...
Have another go.
Now this is not a clue; it is an instruction:
You are still not thinking differently!
I never told you to ‘stop’.
Check out what you are doing
... top line, you are joining the dots, one two three, and then you stop...
Why did you stop?
It’s like that in life.
You want to do something, but your parents say you cannot, so you stop.
Three dots down the right-hand side, one two, three and you stop again.
Why did you stop again?
It is like in life, you may not have listened to your parents, so you decided to go ahead and do what it was you wanted to do anyway - but then your friends said don’t... So, you stopped.
Why are we so influenced in our lives by the views of others, by processes, and even by policies?
And worst of all, influenced by social media when we cannot even tell the difference between fact and fake.
Innovation, your true self, your true potential that leads to your success, cannot be found inside that box...
You need to think outside of the box. So don’t stop!
Where would you go?
Where will the line of destiny take you?
Ok, I can see you are struggling, so I am going to leave you to do this for your homework.
I will give you the solution in the next blog post!
I will leave you with a quote, and a true story.
“Fantasy is escapist, and that is its glory. If a soldier is imprisoned by the enemy, don't we consider it his duty to escape? ...If we value the freedom of mind and soul, if we're partisans of liberty, then it's our plain duty to escape, and to take as many people with us as we can!” - J.R.R. Tolkien
The Car Park Attendant
Ok, this is a really naughty, but allegedly, a true story which highlights how thinking outside the box and just doing something could mean you get away with it!
I am not in the least promoting such activity, but I do admire this man.
This is the story of a Bristol Zoo parking attendant. The story was published in the London Times.
Outside England's Bristol Zoo there is a parking lot of 150 cars and 8 buses. For 25 years, its parking fees were managed by a very pleasant attendant. The fees were for cars (£1.40), and for buses (£7).
Then, one day, after 25 solid years of never missing a day off work, the very nice car park attendant just didn’t show up for work; so, the Zoo management called the city council and asked it to send them another parking agent.
The council did some research and replied that the parking lot was the Zoo’s own responsibility.
The Zoo advised the council that the attendant was a city employee.
The city council responded that the lot attendant had never been on the city payroll.
Meanwhile, sitting in his villa somewhere on the coast of Spain or France or Italy... is a man who’d apparently had a ticket machine installed completely on his own, and then, had simply begun to show up every day, to collect and keep the parking fees, ….
estimated at about £560 per day for 25 years.
Assuming seven days a week, this amounts to around £5 million... and no one even knows his name.
This gentleman did not get lucky - He thought differently about the possibility of doing what he wanted to do, he accepted there would be risks but my guess is his actual fantasy was about having a great retirement and having the means to do it.
He had an idea, which he put into action and created his luck! He did not just dream about it, he did not FTI (fail to implement). He did it!
And now, he is probably sitting in his beachside house somewhere, smiling to himself, and enjoying his retirement!
Madi No Excuses!
Many of the exercises I am sharing come from my book: “Madi No Excuses”. The objective of the book is to turn 7 Billion Ideas into Action - Including YOURS!
If you would like to order your copy, with FREE delivery please use this link Madi No Excuses!
You will become a member of our Paying It Forward Community.
Our website and blog will keep you updated and informed with relevant guidance to support your continued development.
We will also provide you with templates, e-books and downloadables that we have created to add momentum to your quest – Meaning: You will achieve your ambitions faster, overcome any challenges, and be ready to grasp new opportunities as they appear before you.
Gandhi said, “You must be the change YOU want to see”
Madi says, “You must be the change YOU want to see – NO EXCUSES!”
Founder Madi Group www.madisharma.org
Founder Women’s Eco-nomic & Social Think Tank www.westtworld.com
Author Madi No Excuses! www.madinoexcuses.com
Entrepreneur, International Speaker, Freelance Journalist
Listed as 1 of apolitical’s 100 Most Influential People in Gender Policy in 2018
@MadiSharma1
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