For the market access strategists and those who are trying to think “outside the box” in order to solve a problem, here’s a profound excerpt from Benjamin Zander’s Art of Possibilities.

A shoe factory sends 2 marketing scouts to a region of Africa to study the prospects for expanding business. One sends back a telegram saying,

Situation hopeless stop no one wears shoes.

The other writes back triumphantly,

Glorious business opportunity stop they have no shoes.

We all tell ourselves a story—not just some of it, but all of it. And remember, too, that every story you tell is founded on a network of hidden assumptions.

In order to let your thoughts and actions spring from a new framework, ask yourself this question:

What assumption am I making,
That I’m not aware I’m making,
That gives me what I see?

And when you have an answer to that question, ask yourself this one:

What might I now invent,
That I haven’t yet invented,
That would give me other choices?

And then you can invent spaces by thinking outside the box.