Grown-ups make things way too complicated. This is the toddler’s approach to getting everything you want.

1. Mastering six words is enough
   Yes — No — Mama — Papa — That — Bah
   Those are all the words you need to get around and get things done.
   Variation in volume seems more effective than variation in vocabulary.
2. Don’t ask, just do
   If you want to do something, don’t ask, just do.
   If you want to have something, don’t ask, just get it.
3. Don’t listen, just don’t do
   If you don’t want to do something, simply don’t do it.
   If you don’t want to have something, simply don’t take it.
   Have it already? Drop it instantly.
4. Pointing gets the message across
   If you want something but can’t reach, just point and say “That”.
   If you don’t want something, point and say “No” or “Bah”.
5. Turning your body away gets the message across
   If you really don’t want something, turn your body away.
   Out of view is out of existence. Treat it as such.
6. Ardently waving and repeatedly saying “No” has effect
   If your parents decide that you have to do something and persist,
   turn away your body while waving your hand ardently at them.
   Now say “No” repeatedly and walk away.
7. Add screaming, tears and stamping your feet for more emphasis
   When your parents are really persistant,throw yourself on the ground.
   Start crying and screaming “No” loud and repeatedly.
   Stamp your hands and feet, throw stuff around.
   Slam doors and smash stuff.
   For added effect: do all of this in public spaces.

8. Make sure to spend your energy wisely
   Tantrums cost energy. Conserve it when there’s no obvious effect.
   Go full blown and flat out of your mind, when effect is guaranteed.

9. Saying “Papa” or “Mama” during a spontaneous hug afterwards works wonders
   After all of the above, walk towards your parents in a quiet moment.
   Climb on the couch, and hug them spontaneously and say “Papa” or “Mama”.
   This seems to erase all negative effects from the above instantly.

You’re faced with a situation, a problem of some sort that requires your attention to solve. You’ve worked on it a lot, but now you’re stuck. You’ve looked at it endlessly, played with it, yelled at it, growled at it, even punched and kicked it. But it’s not working. You’re stuck. Know the feeling?

Other people give you great advice: “Take a different perspective!”

Yeah, great advice, but if your head over heels in a problem that’s not easy to do. They tell you what to do, but not how to do it. In this post you’ll find a handful of actionable things to do that will help you change that perspective and may inspire that breakthrough thought.

If they don’t…well then you had a lot of fun anyway

Play in a sandbox
And I mean this literally, go sit down in the sandbox, get your hands dirty and sculpt something out of the sand. The pyramids of Chichen Itza for instance, like Lisa Bettany did on the beach. Or when you have the luxury of the beach (or a really big sandbox), why don’t you make an X-wing fighter. Or anything really.

How is the problem like crafting objects in a sandbox? In what order do you build, and how’s that related to the order of crafting a solution? What tools did you use, and how are they related to crafting that solution?

Listen to your very first cd
Go to your music collection and take the very first cd you ever bought and listen to it. My first cd was Gloria Estefan’s album “Anything for you” (don’t ask), it was released under the title “Let it loose” elsewhere in the world. You may not particularly like that music anymore, or don’t want to be remembered about that first album, but the music will bring back all kinds of memories regardless. And a different perspective.

How would you have handled the problem you’re dealing at the age you bought this album?

Go watch a movie
Movies can really take your mind of everyday life. And there are often lessons hidden in there, lessons you will recognize when you’re ready for them. But they can also help you very much when you’re stuck with a problem. First they set your mind of it and you can relax a bit while watching them. And then:

How would the hero of the story have solved the problem? And the villain? Imagine the villain was the problem, how did they catch or defeat her? How does that relate to your problem?

Doodle Doodly Doo
Grab a piece of paper and a box of crayons. Doodle like you were when you were five. Draw stick figures, trees, houses, cars, trucks, airplanes, planets, flowers, birds, kissing people, knights, castles, mountains, meadows, oceans, ships, pirates. Get the creative juices flowing, go wild with colours, be unrealistic, don’t draw between the lines.

Cartoonize your problem, and draw the surroundings. Add the things that you associate with it. Does it look something like you experience it? Now add color! Grab the vibrant colors and change the picture all together.

Play tourist
Go to your local tourist office and act as a tourist. Just ask what someone visiting only for a day should’ve done in “this town”. Chances are that they come up with ideas that may sound like the standard stuff, but you have never done before. Did you ever take a guided tour through your own town? There’s more stuff to explore than you realize, more stories to be told than you could’ve imagined.

How does a guide relate to your problem? What untold stories does the problem have?

Take your camera outside
Go grab your (digital) photocamera and play outside. Take pictures of stuff you see, change perspectives, photograph from the bottom up, from high points down on things, through holes, from upclose. This exercise will activate creative thought patterns amongst other benefits. Those will spill over to other areas.

How can you do change perspectives on your problem? Are you upclose or framing it from a distance? How does it look in black and white?

Take a route less traveled
When you go to the office, the daycare centre, the mall, the supermarket or whatever place you regularly go to. Take a different route. Heck a detour even, start by driving or walking away from your destination and take some unexpected turns. Then drive towards your destination, but don’t stop when you get there. Go past it and see what’s behind it.

Visualize your problem as a location in town, then drive away from it. Circle around it and see how it looks from the other side. How does this change it?

Write, write, write
Take some nice paper, get a comfortable pen and start writing. Just write what comes to mind, and keep going and going and going and going. It’s going to be complete gibberish, but that’s okay. Write some more. At first you’ll find all kinds of thoughts, ideas and worries on the paper. Gradually it will change to more creative and fictious writing (if it hasn’t you’re not done writing yet). Worries have been trusted to the paper, there’s room for creative thought again.

Dwell in the fiction, and then think about how the problem would fit in the story you’re writing. How would the dwarves solve it? Or the angels? Or the ants? Or the leprecons?

Get drunk
One thing is for sure, perspectives change when you’re drunk Okay…getting drunk is maybe a couple of drinks too much, but there is definitely an effect that will take away inhibitions that are slowing you down in solving that problem. Just don’t implement before you sober up again

Photos by Scott Thompson, laffy4k and Boocal

A little story for you to enjoy and some questions afterwards:

A little bird got lost while flying and ended up flying over the north pole. The air was so cold that the little bird got all cold and crashed into the ground. Shivering of the cold, the little bird uttered weak chirps every now and then, hoping someone would come and rescue him.

A polar bear was nearby and heard the chirps of the little bird. Curious as he was he looked where the sound was coming from and found the little bird, all blue of the cold and shivering. The bear felt sorry for the little bird and wanted to help him. So he turned around, squatted and took a massive dump on the bird.

This startled the bird, now he was all covered in shit. What did this bear do!?

But then the warmth of the shit was slowly warming up the little bird, and he felt happier as his blood started to flow again. To show this he started to chirps some more and even sang an enthusiastic song.

Satisfied with helping out, the polar bear took off. The little bird was happy with the warmth and continued chirping and singing.

This was noticed by a polar fox who was nearby. Curious as he was he followed the sounds and found this little bird in a big pile of shit.

Now that was a funny and sorry sight, and the fox took the bird out of the pile of shit and washed him in some water to really clean him up. As soon as the bird was all warm and clean again, the fox ate him.

The morals of the story?

1) Someone who puts you in shit, isn’t necessarily an enemy.
2) Someone who takes you out of shit, isn’t necessarily a friend.
3) When you are in shit…please shut up!

Are there management lessons in this story? Hardly, yet my experience is that a lot of people recognize this in the organization they work for, or know friends that are in similar situations.

Do you recognize this behavior? Please share your story.
Is something missing in the organization that makes people do this?
What do you think is needed to stop it?

For fun. Actions of people I actually observed during meetings and more or less in order of appearance. If you see this happening when you’re presenting, you are boring the people! Redo your story, redo your presentation or drop it altogether.

1. People start staring outside
2. People make strange faces suppressing a yawn
3. People start looking at their watch every 5 minutes
4. People start to review notes of past meetings
5. People start to discuss something whispering
6. People start processing notes in their calender or pda
7. People start to read and reply to text messages
8. People start to pour another cup of coffee
9. People start biting their nails and admiring the results
10. People are disassembling and reassembling their pen
11. People are drawing mindless drawings
12. People are yawning without any attempt to hide it
13. People start to pour another cup of coffee…for everyone
14. People start to fold papers in strange forms
15. People are cleaning their nasal cavities vigorously
16. People start daydreaming
17. People start looking at their watch…every minute
18. People are opening their laptops and start typing
19. People start to clean the table
20. People are falling asleep
21. People start to walk away

Today is Fun and Freedom Friday, the day that anything goes.

A trip down memory lane
I’m a sucker for video games. I played them a lot, starting with my brother way back in the 80’s on Apple and IBM clones with games like Apple Panic and Lode Runner. Lode Runner was really challenging, since we played that with paddles instead of a joystick or keyboard. We both had one paddle and we really had to cooperate all the time. One of us controlled vertical movement and filling of holes, and the other horizontal movement and digging holes. We had great times working our way through the levels.

Later came newer computers with newer games. We loved the adventures like the King’s Quest series, Leasure Suit Larry-series and the likes. They in fact formed a large part of our early lessons in English. We got very creative when we had to type in commands to get things done. Imagine the look on our parents faces when we were discussing what on earth we should do with a “Spanish fly”

Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe brings back great memories as well, and Wolfenstein 3D was quite a hit too. After that the magic faded in time. Sure there were Doom, Quake and Duke Nukem 3D (deathmatch on university LAN…yeah!) loads of other games, but I grew old I guess and the wonder faded. I played games a lot, but after Quake II the video games disappeared pretty much from my field of view. Got an XBox two years back, loved it for a while, but it’s gathering dust in the mean time.

Last week I stumbled upon something new

When we visited family from my wife’s side, her nieces had a Nintendo DS. On it was the “game” Brain Age. I liked it! You already know I love lateral riddles and other brain training exercises. This was so much fun to do, shout colors in the stupid thing, solve sudoku, do simple math exercises as fast as you can and so on. I have to admit I tested at 38 instead of 31. So I’m more mature than I thought But less is better (so they say). I need to practice! That’s in the game as well, but if you want more there’s also Big Brain Academy for the DS.

The same game (or similar?) is also available for the other Nintendo console: Big Brain Academy: Wii Degree. This version is meant for the Nintendo Wii, a very cool game console that sets people in motion. This is a game console that I might just buy, it would be a great combo to get some exercise and relax playing video games at the same time. And have a game to train your brain.

A very useful waste of time