Card #1 – ”Give Yourself A Whack” from the Creative Whack Pack
Available on the iOS App Store and as a physical deck of cards

The more often we do something in the same way, the more difficult it is to think about doing it in any other way. In essence, we become “prisoners of familiarity.”
Sometimes we need a “whack on the side of the head” to disrupt our habitual thought patterns, and force us to look for fresh approaches.
There are times when a whack on the side of the head can be the best thing to happen to you.
• It might help you spot a potential problem before it arises.
• It could help you discover an opportunity that wasn’t previously apparent.
• Or, it could help you generate some new ideas.
“Whacks” come in all sizes, shapes, and flavors. Sometimes you’ll get whacked by a problem or failure. Sometimes it’ll be the result of a joke or a paradox. And sometimes it will be a surprise or unexpected situation. Some examples:
• It could result from your getting fired from a job, or failing to obtain a performance raise.
• It could happen when a teacher tells you that she thinks that you have a special talent in an area you’d never thought much about and assigns a project — due next Friday — to help you develop it.
• It might happen when the supplier for a vital component of your best selling product unexpectedly goes on strike and you’re forced to scramble to find a new source. When the dust has cleared, you discover that the new vendor has products that are superior in quality.
• It could come when you recognize a relationship between two things you thought were unconnected such as a spiral galaxy and a spinning ice skater.
• It could happen when you break your leg and you realize how much you took your ambulatory habits for granted.
• It could happen when you observe the second hand of your watch in a mirror. (Try it!)
• It could be a joke such as:
– Question: What’s the difference between a cat and a comma?
– Answer: A cat has its claws at the end of its paws and a comma is the pause at the end of a clause.
• It could be a paradox such as artist Paul Gauguin’s statement: “I shut my eyes in order to see.”
These whacks all have one thing in common: they force us to change our assumptions and “think something different.”
It’s one thing to have our routines disrupted by outside forces. It’s even better to take the initiative and “whack” our own thinking.
• Write a love poem in the middle of the night.
• Go to a local place you have never been, say a junk yard.
• Fail at something.
• Have a child.
• Take the contrary position on a sensitive issue.
• Write three jokes about your work.
• Contact a long lost friend and compare your life experiences.
• Wear red sox.
• Don’t talk for 24 hours.
• Work the weekend.
• Take the slow way home.
• Sleep on the other side of the bed.
Such jolts to your routines will lead to new ideas.
— How can you “whack” your thinking?
— What would disrupt the mindset you have about a current problem?
— If you failed in your current situation, what would you feel free to try?
A “whack” is a creativity term for “something that stimulates you to think differently.” I started using it in my first book, A Whack on the Side of the Head.
It has its origin in the following two stories. [See also Cards #46: Use Your Forgettery, and #47 Time for a Whack.]
One day, a creativity teacher invited one of his students over to his house for tea. They talked for a bit, and then came time for tea.
The teacher poured some into the student’s cup. Even after the cup was full, he continued to pour. The cup overflowed and tea spilled out on to the floor.
Finally, the student said: “Master, you must stop pouring; the tea is overflowing — it’s not going into the cup.”
The teacher replied, “That’s very observant. The same is true with you. If you are to receive any of my teachings, you must first empty out your mental cup.”
Moral: We need the ability to unlearn what we know.
Without the ability to temporarily forget what we know, our minds remain cluttered up with ready-made answers.
One key to opening our minds is to “unlearn” what we know — to empty our mental cup. This sounds like a simple technique, but sometimes it’s difficult to apply.
Often we’ve integrated our assumptions so well into our thinking that we’re no longer aware that we’re being guided by them.
Let’s return to our creativity teacher.
At another lesson the teacher and the student are discussing a problem. Despite lengthy conversation, the student doesn’t quite get the point the teacher is making.
Finally, the teacher picks up a stick and gives him a whack on the side of the head with it. Suddenly, the student begins to grasp the situation and “think something different.”
Moral: Sometimes nothing short of “a whack on the side of the head” can dislodge the assumptions that keep us thinking “more of the same.”
Like the student, we all need an occasional “whack on the side of the head” to shake us out of our routine assumptions, and to stimulate us to think about things in a fresh way.