Four-stage ingenuity. Here’s how it always goes: 1. Something bothers you. 2. You ask yourself the question, “If this didn’t bother me, what would I be doing?” 3. You visualize a new course of action. 4. You complete the action.
Wordhippo.com defines Ingenuity as ...
- The ability to solve difficult problems, often in original, clever, and inventive ways.
- The ability to make considered decisions or come to sensible conclusions.
- An acquired or natural skill at doing something.
- A willingness to undertake new or risky projects.
- Sly or cunning intelligence.
I don't know if it's for you, but I'll take all of the above for $200, Alex.
And, you are telling me that all I have to do is 1. Be mindful of when something bothers me? 2. Ask myself a simple question? 3. Come up with a new course of action? And, 4. Do it?
Could it be this easy?
That wasn't rhetorical. Let's experiment with this idea and see how many "bothers" we can turn into an ingenuity-habit this week.
Let's try reframing "bothers" as "setbacks" to be dealt with. In other words if anything bothers us we will consider it a setback, because we don't want to go through life being bothered or letting bothers derail our train, right?
At the end of the day we can score these setback-bothers on a scale of 1-5 for our emotional response to being bothered, and 1-5 for the elegance and effectiveness of our workaround (course of action). We will not only become more ingenious, but also more response-able.
If it works 50% of the time, maybe we should memorize today's quote?
