Time to read: 4 minutes
Article at a Glance:
- Open Jar Thinking challenges us to question the limits we've accepted and consider what's possible beyond them.
- Making an impact doesn't require extraordinary achievements. It often means adapting, learning, and contributing despite obstacles.
- Reflection, adjustment, collaboration, and a mindset of pronoia help us move beyond setbacks and discover new possibilities.
- Life will always include constraints, but growth happens when we're willing to stay curious, pivot when needed, and keep jumping anyway.
Did you know fleas can jump? Like, really high?
In his Ted Talk, Jeff Whiting describes an experiment where scientists put a bunch of fleas in a jar, and as expected, the fleas jumped right out.
Then, the scientists put a lid on the jar.
At first, the fleas tried to jump out, but soon they learned to jump to the height just below the lid so they didn’t bonk their heads. After a week of that, the scientists removed the lid, and something remarkable happened.
The fleas still jumped to just below where the lid had been, even though they could have jumped out of the jar if they wanted to.
How often do we do this in our own lives? How often do we limit ourselves when we could actually jump out of our jars?
What does it mean to jump out of the jar?
Life is full of limits, both self-imposed and placed upon us by life. Sometimes, those limits aren’t things we can get rid of. Open Jar thinking means looking past limitations and making an impact anyway, even if that contribution doesn’t look how we expected.
History is full of stories about defying limitations.
Suffragettes won the vote for women despite years and years of massive pushback.
Pro surfer Bethany Hamilton returned to surfing a month after losing her arm in a shark attack, went on to write a memoir that was adapted into a movie, and inspired millions of people.
Henry Ford was told his vision of an engine consisting of a single block with integral cylinders was impossible, but he still produced the flathead V8 engine that revolutionized the auto industry.
However, Open Jar Thinking doesn’t mean you need to do something huge. It doesn’t mean you have to find the cure for cancer, fly to the moon, or be President of the United States.
In another Ted Talk we love, artist Phil Hansen tells the story of how he developed a tremor in his hand and could no longer do the pointillism art he loved so much, so he stopped making art altogether for a while.
He didn’t call it this, but he applied Open Jar Thinking and figured out how to create art anyway, working in all kinds of mediums to create the fragmented art he loved. He jumped out of his jar.
Could he have figured out how to make pointillism work? Maybe. But his Jar was art-making, not just pointillism. His tremor wasn’t going to go away, so he jumped out of the jar and made art anyway.
The point is, life is full of limits and things don’t always work out like we planned, but we can still make a contribution!
What’s your jar?
Our jars are our limitations.
Maybe you feel like time or money hold you back. Or maybe you think you’re too young or too old to pursue a certain path. Or maybe you feel limited by training or experience and like you should stick to what you “know.”
(Side note: Guess how many people at Redmond do something they don’t have formal training for? Lots. A majority, even.)
Reflect on your limitations. What holds you back? How can you jump anyway?
What Open Jar Thinking is NOT
Here’s what we DON’T mean by Open Jar Thinking.
It’s not trying the same thing over and over again without Reflection or adjustment.
It’s not being married to your vision of how something will work out. (By holding too tightly, you can actually prevent yourself from doing something even better that you hadn’t imagined!)
It’s not pushing for a certain role or achievement that’s not in your wiring or that isn’t helpful (at work, at least.)
With that being said, what can this look like?
How do we jump out of the jar?
Pronoia
Pronoia is the belief that the universe is conspiring for your good. However, this often means things work out differently than we expect, and sometimes it’s a “not right now” instead of a “no.”
In his own life, Whiting auditioned for a part he just knew he was going to get and had strong faith he’d get to work in that theater…but then he didn’t get the role. Disappointing, but he moved on.
Then, five years later, he was hired to work on another show in that exact theater.
Being open to possibilities, to pivoting, to learning, to change, and let life surprise you.
The timing isn’t always linear or what we expect.
But if we keep learning, exploring, and being helpful, we will make an impact.
Reflection and Adjustment
“Raw experience without learning is empty.” – Dewitt Jones
Doing the exact same thing over and over won’t get you anywhere. (We’ve all heard the colloquial definition of insanity, right?)
Keep trying stuff and reflect on what you learn. Then, adjust based on your discoveries and move forward differently.
Collaborate
When we combine perspectives, skills, and ideas, we can defy limitations and jump out of our jars together.
At Redmond, we work to create a culture where every perspective is valuable. We try not to squish people into boxes or expectations of who they should be. We’re always growing and changing.
Even if an idea isn’t something we’ll use, we create an environment where it’s safe to share, and where collaboration isn’t just expected, but inevitable.
Explore our Three Circles.
Always, always keep learning about where you’re helpful, how you impact others, where your strengths are, and what you’re interested in. That will open more doors than anything else!
Defying Limits
Life will always serve up limits and setbacks. Open Jar Thinking means working with those and expanding what you think is possible.
It might not work out the way you expect or think, but being open to the unknown, pivoting, learning, and change will catapult us out of our jars and into exciting possibilities!
