Hunting for opportunities

People possess an innate tendency to get used to day to day life. Which means they tend to see and experience things in a same familiar way. And we need to know that this will not lead to innovative thinking and creative ideas. But there are some ways to learn to experience familiar things in an unfamiliar, new way. And this is the reason creative and innovative entrepreneurs have seen opportunities throughout history that most of us have missed.

A famous example is the story of Velcro. A Swiss engineer named George de Mestral decided to take a closer look at the plant blades that clung to his clothes after a walk in the woods. He took out his microscope and saw that there are a series of hooks on the blades. The hooks were attached to tiny loop fibers on his dress. And so the alternative to the zipper, the Velcro, was invented.

To become such a creative thinker in your life and work, deliberately look at things from different perspectives. Do not just name what you see, but choose new names for them. Don’t just look at the whole thing, try to see it in different ways.

Remember Sherlock Holmes, the famous detective, he once told Watson: You see (you look) but you do not observe (you do not pay attention carefully) and these are two different things. Our brains are designed in a way that prevents us from paying too much attention to detail. Neurons stop firing as soon as they receive enough information from an immutable stimulus. This means that the mind becomes accustomed to familiar images and no longer pays much attention to them. Do not let this happen to you.

We can try not only to think differently, but also to observe differently. And this is a way to deal with our desire to look, to see and to experience things in a familiar way. This is the way creative people and entrepreneurs adopt, and as a result, are able to change the world. This method teaches us to see differently, to see things that others have not yet seen, and ultimately, this is how the future is built.

This post is also available in: Persian