While I’ve never read the book, I was sent a great little excerpt from Michael Michalko’s book, Thinkertoys: A Handbook of Creative-Thinking Techniques. I thought this was a more appropriate time than ever to share this, given the nature of the current real estate market.

We have more struggling sellers, harder lending restrictions, and a far less exciting real estate economy than we have had in years, and that requires different thinking. So, check out this great little piece from Michalko’s book and I’ll throw some stuff at you when he’s done:

“Imagine a cage containing five monkeys. Inside the cage there is a banana on a string. Before long a monkey walks over and reaches for the banana. As soon as he touches the banana, all the monkeys are sprayed with cold water. After a while another monkey makes an attempt to grab the banana – with the same result. All the monkeys are instantly sprayed with cold water. Pretty soon, when another monkey tries to reach for the banana, the other monkeys will try to stop him. 

Now forget the cold water. Remove one monkey from the cage and replace it with a new one. The new monkey sees the banana and obviously goes over and starts to grab it. But to his surprise, all of the other monkeys attack him to prevent him from touching the banana. 

Next, remove another of the original monkeys and replace it with a new one. Now all of the monkeys currently in the cage stop the new one from getting to the banana. Replace the third, fourth and fifth monkeys with new ones. Each one becomes a willing opponent to allowing anyone to touch that banana.

 Now, none of the monkeys in the cage at this point were every sprayed with cold water. But they continue to prevent each other from grabbing that banana – the one food that they should all naturally love. None of these monkeys ever approaches the banana again. They have no idea why it's off limits – But that's just the way things have always been done around here.
 Sound familiar? If you walked in to your work, church, marriage or neighborhood as an unbiased outsider, what would you question about the "normal" activities there? Are you accepting old traditions that defy the intelligence or spiritual insight you have today?

• Do you still kiss your spouse when you arrive home or have you gradually become accustomed to expecting less?

• Are you looking for meager salary guarantees and benefit packages – and depriving yourself of the rich opportunities for free-lance work?

• Does your company require you to be at the office each day because you could not do the same work from home, or just because it's always been done that way?

• Are you trying to get people to buy Edsels just because you're an Edsel salesman, even though your customers want a Mini Cooper?

• Does your church sit in pews, sing 3 songs and have a 30 minute sermon because that's the best way to complete God's work here, or just because that's become a cultural tradition?

Take the next 7 days to challenge all your daily assumptions. You may be surprised how you can uncover some readily available fresh, tasty bananas right within your reach!”

I couldn't have said it any better. If you're having trouble finding good desperate sellers, or finding good property managers, or maybe even locating good cash flow properties, maybe it's time you started looking for more creative approaches.

Tuesday's Tip: Kiss your wife/husband like you mean it and tell your pastor you'd like to hear at least four songs before the sermon this week.