Breaking news: Your best ideas are being held in a conservative boarding school. Jailbreak thoughts follow!
Yes, you heard right. Your grandma once turned leftover rice into an almost Michelin 7-course meals, made sweaters from scrap wool, and managed a household budget with the precision of NASA. She didn’t call it “Design Thinking.” She called it Wednesday. Yes, her. The original OG of Wide-Open Thinking. Was Marie Kondo before it was cool. Did lean innovation in a 2 Bedroom Hall Kitchen with 7 kids and no YouTube tutorials.
Wide open thinking urges you to leave your mind to find the magic. If your mind were a door, would it be a revolving one letting all sorts of wild ideas spin through, or more like that heavy medieval thing with the giant padlock that hasn’t been oiled since the Dark Ages?
Hey there, fellow brain-owners! Here’s attempting another slice of mental nutrition that’ll have your neurons(hopefully) doing the electric slide. Let’s dive diving into the cosmic pool of wide-open thinking–that delicious state where your mind is less like a filing cabinet and more like a trampoline park for ideas.
Most of us walk around with our thinking wrapped in mental Spanx – everything squeezed into acceptable shapes, no room for the jiggly bits that make life interesting. We’ve been programmed since kindergarten to color inside the lines, give the “right” answers, and for heaven’s sake, don’t be the weirdo who suggests we could solve traffic problems with trained dolphins. (Though honestly, I’d like to see the feasibility study on that one.)
Picture this: You are in a meeting where what was needed was a fresh approach to customer service strategy. The room was quieter than a library during a power outage. Finally, you blurt out, “What if we treated every customer complaint like a marriage proposal?” Confused stares ensue. But then something magical happens – people started riffing:
“We’d need to get down on one knee…” “We’d have to consider it an honor they chose us…” “We’d remember every anniversary of the complaint…”
That ridiculous metaphor unlocks a completely fresh perspective. By dinner, you had overhauled your entire response protocol with genuine appreciation at its core.
Wide-open thinking isn’t just about being random – it’s about creating space for connections that your tightly-wound, efficiency-obsessed mind would normally filter out.
Mental nudity is a thinking style that they don’t want you to try. Let’s cut the foreplay: most of us are thinking with our clothes on. We’ve been intellectually domesticated, taught to keep our wildest ideas properly covered and never flash our most provocative thoughts in public. We sit in meetings like mental virgins, terrified someone might notice our unorthodox bulges of creativity.
Intellectual promiscuity is a virtue. Our brain should sleep around with ideas from completely unrelated fields. Ever thought about the connection that brand Michelin(the tyre company) would have with fine dining and chefs? The connection makes no sense to our hardwired for default set up mind until suddenly it’s the best idea they’ve ever had, clothes off, lights on.
Here’s the dirty truth, friends: our brain came factory-equipped with all these kinky capabilities, but somewhere along the way, society convinced you that intellectual modesty was the way to get ahead. It’s like owning a top-shelf pleasure palace but only using the guest bathroom.
Wide-open thinking isn’t some exotic technique – it’s your natural state before the world made you put your mental pants on. Your childhood self knew it. That uncensored kid would announce that clouds looked like butts and ask why the neighbor’s breath smelled like daddy’s special juice. That kid wasn’t worried about intellectual decorum. Wide-open thinking isn’t just mental skinny-dipping – it’s about removing the chastity belt from your creativity and letting it get properly satisfied.
It is playing the ‘ what-if ‘ game with gay abandon. What if gravity worked in reverse every Tuesday? What if we solved this like we were pirates? Time travelers? Kindergartners? The magic happens not in the absurdity but in the connections your brain makes while romping through these mental playgrounds.
Toymaker, inventor, and author Roger von Oech on wide-open thinking: “The amount a person uses their imagination is inversely proportional to the amount of punishment they will receive for using it.”
The quickest way to slam shut an open mind is with “but,” “however,” or “that won’t work.” Instead, try responding to ideas – even the seemingly bonkers ones – with “Yes, and…” Watch what happens when you water seeds instead of stamping on them.
Multiple gratifications that emerge from wide-open thinking includes but not restricted to problems dissolving by themselves even before you begin to tackle them. Because instead of starting at the four walls, you are seeing around corners. As Rita McGrath puts it, when spring sets in and snow begins to melt, it melts at the edges as that is where it is most exposed. Your dopamine and joy levels skyrocket simply because you are making connections that nobody has thought of before. And not in the least, you become a magnet for other interesting humans. Open-minded people find each other like those weird fish with the glowing bulbs on their heads find mates in the deep sea. It’s science. So permit yourself this intellectual debauchery, as often as possible.
Ever had one of those days when your brain feels like it’s running on Windows 95? You stare at a problem, blink like an over caffeinated owl, and think,“Surely, there’s a better way… or at least a funnier one?”
That’s when Wide-Open Thinking barges in—wearing a Hawaiian shirt, holding a margarita, and asking, “Why so serious?” Wide-Open Thinking is the art of ditching the mental guardrails and letting your brain do double somersaults.
So, here’s the deal, a Cosmic Close, if you may-our brain came with all these fantastic features pre-installed, but somewhere along the way, somebody convinced us to operate at minimum capacity. It’s like owning a Ferrari but never taking it out of first gear. Wide-open thinking isn’t something you need to learn – it’s something you need to remember. Your five-year-old self was an expert at it. That kid knew that a cardboard box could be a spaceship on Tuesday and a submarine on Wednesday. That kid wasn’t worried about looking foolish or wasting time on impractical ideas.
Wide-Open Thinking is giving your inner rebel a megaphone. It’s ignoring “best practices”– because nothing revolutionary ever came from a PowerPoint slide titled “Synergistic Paradigm Shifts.” It is Leaning into the absurd– Like pitching a “Netflix for Naps”startup and accidentally inventing the next billion-dollar laziness economy. Or Laughing in the face of “professionalism”– If your brainstorming session doesn’t include at least one idea that makes HR nervous, you’re doing it wrong.
Wide-open thinking isn’t just a mindset—it’s a lifestyle upgrade. So ditch your mental sweatpants and start stretching your brain in ways that make life richer, funnier, and infinitely more rewarding. Remember: Someday isn’t a day—it’s just never wearing a tuxedo. Choose Today.