We have all heard the phrase “Thinking outside of the box” many
times in our lives and our careers, but where does this term
really come from? Partly from a puzzle. Here it is: This is the
“nine dots puzzle” and the goal is to draw 4 or fewer straight
lines to connect all of the dots. There are some rules that must
be followed however: 1. You cannot lift the pen. 2. You cannot
trace the same line more than once. Go ahead give it a try! The
goal of this exercise is to have you thinking creatively and to
challenge any assumptions that you might have about a particular
situation so that you can see it in a new way. This is not easy
to do as we have noted in previous Mind Trips of the week. Our
brains are creatures of habit. The puzzle appears in Sam Loyd’s
1914 Cyclopedia of Puzzles. Sam Loyd’s titled his puzzle
“Christopher Columbus’s Egg Puzzle” referring to the tale called
the “Egg of Columbus” written in 1565 in “History of the New
World” by Girolamo Benzoni. Columbus was dining with many
Spanish nobles when