Think Outside The Box to Get The Outcome You Desire
In another Popsicle Stick Pull, I received the word(s): Tiki bar. At first, I was like “Put it back. No one will know.” but then I was like “Let’s see where this takes us.” So, in a strange turn of events I found a story about Disney and his use of military grade weaponry for the Tiki Room (I know…it’s not a bar per se, but it’s close enough) and figured I could relate that back to the ingenuity and cleverness of looking outside of your bubble to revolutionize the way things are done.
Long story short: Back in the 60s, a dude name Wernher von Braun (friend of Walt) and a batch of smarty pant scientists developed the Polaris missile after creating a bunch of other stuff and one of the key pieces to the Polaris missile was it’s audio control system. It used a magnetic tape of pre-recorded audio cues to control the missile. It was this technology that Disney used to create his revolutionary Tiki Room so that instead of having live animals and humans, he could use audio controlled animatronics! The magnetic tapes would control the mechanical birds, lights, and floor show and it’s even said “The computer system filled the entire basement under the Tiki Room and, because of the heat generated by the machinery and the need to keep the system cool, the Tiki Room became the first air-conditioned attraction at Disneyland.”
This story is important because Disney thought outside of the box to make a revolutionary change in theatrics. He brainstormed with his science buddy and instead of utilizing live animals the way other amusement parks were, he was now able to build and control mechanical ones simply with specific audio cues. What we can take away from this story is the brilliance of looking beyond what we know to be possible. Looking and learning from other genres, businesses, models, inventions and asking ourselves - what would it look like if I applied that to my genre, business, model, invention? And not necessarily having to execute the answer, but rather to dream of the possibility. When I was at Body Image Bootcamp, I told the attendees and friends one of my talents was seeing pictures in my head, so if you told me 2 different things that had nothing in common, my brain would put them together and I would draw hilarious drawings of what my brain showed me. Our businesses can work the same way: What if I took the pricing structure of an airline and used that in my photography business? What if I took the movement of a dolphin and applied that to a pose? What if I took this marketing plan from an insurance company and applied it to my creative business? What would it look like? What would happen? Would it be revolutionary? Would it be weird?
It also encourages us to have friends outside of our industry who are also creative, forward thinkers. Getting in rooms with folks who are like minded but not in the same business can help you make changes that no one else is making and make connections with other brilliant people whom you can support as well - it’s a win win!
So, start dreaming outside of the box and see what creative ideas you can come up with!
