WorldWide Drilling Resource

The Un-Comfort Zone II by Robert Evans Wilson, Jr. Creativity Hates Freedom In 1960, Publisher Bennett Cerf bet Theodor “Dr. Seuss” Geisel $50 that he could not write a best- selling children’s book using fewer than 100 unique words. Cerf likely figured it was a sucker bet because three years earlier, Dr. Seuss was asked by William Spaulding, a director at book publisher Houghton Mifflin, to write a compelling children’s book using only 225 distinct words. He was to choose the words from a standard first grade vocabulary list of 348 words. Geisel failed and ended up using 236 to write the best-selling book, The Cat in the Hat . Which, at the time of Cerf’s bet, had already sold one million copies. Dr. Seuss accepted Cerf’s bet and upped the challenge by stating he would write a best-selling children’s book using only 50 words. A few months later, he delivered the 62-page, Green Eggs and Ham using exactly 50 unique words. Those 50 words are: a, am, and, anywhere, are, be, boat, box, car, could, dark, do, eat, eggs, fox, goat, good, green, ham, here, house, I, if, in, let, like, may, me, mouse, not, on, or, rain, Sam, say, see, so, thank, that, the, them, there, they, train, tree, try, will, with, would, you. I was surprised to see the word “taste” is not included! The story of Sam-I-am, who tries to get someone to taste his dish of green eggs and ham became an immediate best- seller. It is the fourth highest selling English language children’s book in history, and to date has sold more than eight million copies. Dr. Seuss was challenged by a boundary. Boundaries and constraints help stimulate creative thinking. This is where the concept of “thinking outside the box” comes from. When you find yourself boxed in by constraints, you have to use your prob- lem solving skills to come up with a new solution. Think of the movie Apollo 13 when the ground crew had to figure out - in a matter of hours to prevent the astronauts from suffocating - how to fit a square CO 2 filter into a slot designed for a round filter using only items available in the spacecraft. Bennett Cerf put Seuss in a box, then Seuss put himself in an even smaller box. “Would you eat them in a box? Would you eat them with a fox?” A box he had to think his way out of to create a book children would love. When I think of being challenged by a boundary, I often think of some of the physically challenged athletes I’ve seen over the years - men and women with one leg running marathons and competing in downhill skiing. These are two activities I can- not do, and I have both of my legs. I used to wonder why they were able to do so much more than me, until I realized they were challenged by a boundary and I wasn’t. Being unable to walk was unacceptable to them, and conquering their disability became a powerful motivating factor. They had to get out of the box! January 28-30, 2020 Fort Worth, TX UCT is the business event for everyone involved in maintaining the underground utility pipe infra- structure. The education program incorporates trenchless and traditional (open-cut) technologies. Sessions are taught by industry experts. • Immersive Learning • Earn Credit • Young Professionals Program • Topgolf Social • HDD Reunion • ...and more! For details, visit uctonline.com and register today! 52 DECEMBER 2019 WorldWide Drilling Resource ® Wilson cont’d on page 54.