Photo: Xu Zhenhan

 
"Think outside the box" is a popular metaphor used to describe creativity. Most people's success is based on outstanding creativity. As long as we detach ourselves from the existing situation and observe the things around us from a macro perspective, everyone can have new ideas. 

Whether a person's intelligence is rich or not depends not on how much knowledge he absorbs, but on whether he knows how to use knowledge to develop creativity. The potential that human brain cells can develop is infinite, but many people have not been able to make good use of the treasure of this talent, which can be said to be a waste of life. It is difficult and simple to be creative, one of which is a new combination of creative elements from the old. This is the key to opening the door to creativity. Some people say that there is nothing new under the sun. The new ideas we see every day are just a combination of old bottles and new wine. Just as all new songs are composed of more than 12 notes and all pictures are composed of the same combination of the three primary colors. Therefore, for now, we should take the courage to challenge and just accept it silently.

CQ(Creativity Quotient) is used as a standard to measure the potential of creative thinking. To improve CQ, the first step is to activate inspire the potential of our right cerebral hemisphere. The human brain is composed of two hemispheres – the left and the right. The left hemisphere is in charge of language, logic, analysis, etc. The right hemisphere is in charge of images, models and image recognition, intuition, creativity, etc. Most of the things we come into contact with on weekdays, such as mathematical operations and organizational plans, are activities in which the left hemisphere is used to work on. On the contrary, the potential of the right hemisphere is often underutilized. However, if the left brain and the right brain can be used in a balanced way, the immeasurable potential of the brain will be brought into full play..

Collective thinking is a quite creative thinking method in advertising industry, which was first proposed by Alex Osborn. As the name implies, this method is carried out in small groups. Each person imagines it at will, throws out whatever he wants in his mind, and records what he thinks. However, anyone can be critical about the ideas put forward by other members, and finally connect all ideas, choose and develop them. 

Brain maps, invented by Tony Buzan, are one of the means of collective thinking to help organize and bring meaning into play. The method is to write the problem to be solved in the middle of the paper, freely associate it, quickly and clearly record what you think in words or images, and tie them in lines, and sum up the same group in the same line, so as to disperse the meaning clearly like branches.

Lateral thinking is opposite to logical thinking, which was proposed by Edward de Bono. The latter is direct thinking, thinking step by step, narrowing the scope, but any mistake in the process cannot be remedied. However, the former is a horizontal way of thinking, which first considers the problem macroscopically and then narrows the scope. That is a sufficient complement to thinking. 

Comprehensive thinking refers to approaching problems from multiple angles, which helps broaden vision and inspire creativity.

Thinking outside the box, embracing change, innovating, taking risks–these are the hallmarks of success in all facets of life.