Chapter 1: [Key #1] Thinking Outside the Box: Getting the Cheese
“If you want to succeed you should strike out on new paths, rather than travel the worn paths of accepted success.”
– John D. Rockefeller
“The hardest struggle of all is to be something different from what the average man is.”
– Charles M. Schwab
My older brother has somewhat of a strange and storied past. He grew up a young computer genius. By the time he reached the sixth grade, he had already invented a computer. My brother entered his somewhat primitive computer in his school’s annual science fair. Yet, despite the genius it took for him to produce even such a simple computer, the school officials didn’t believe that anyone his age could do such sophisticated work. Hence, the judges of the science fair promptly disqualified him from the contest.
I always knew growing up that my brother was extremely smart. I also know that he has been around computers all of his life. Therefore, he could relate with the stereotypical dorky, nerdy types.
Yet, this same brother also served a career in the US Army Special Forces – the fabled Green Berets. My brother may be a nerd, but he is also tough, confident, smart and clever. Because of his worldly experiences, my brother has a lot of wisdom he can offer.
While growing up, I always enjoyed hanging out with this brother. And because of this, I was lucky enough to be the beneficiary of the cache of knowledge he possessed. It seemed like he was always giving me good advice about life.
Since my brother was well-accomplished in life, he had a great deal of credibility with me. Let’s just say that his words of wisdom tended to be worth their weight in gold. The only drawback of being privy to such useful information was that in the process of imparting his wisdom, my brother sometimes had to toy with me.
A particularly useful piece of wisdom I received from my brother involved some advice on how to think “outside the box.” I remember the day he told me about this unconventional way of thinking about life. We were driving to our mother’s house, and in the course of normal conversation, he asked me whether or not I had heard “the one about getting the cheese.”
What my brother was asking me about just didn’t ring a bell. So I told him that I hadn’t heard about anything related to cheese. I immediately asked him to tell me more about whatever it was he was referring to. From the look that crept across my brother’s face, I could tell that whatever wisdom he was going to impart to me was going to be something extra useful. With a special enthusiasm, my brother proceeded to explain what “getting the cheese” was all about.
Cheese Maze.
My brother began by describing a maze. He described it as rectangular, having three “chutes” or avenues of approach. The cheese, or food reward for the experiment, he said, was placed inside the maze at the bottom end of the second chute. After that, a mouse would be inserted into the maze.
My brother went on to explain that after numerous times inserting the mouse into the maze- with the cheese was placed in chute number two- the mouse came to expect it to be in that location. My brother said that the researchers conducting this experiment wanted to see how the mouse would act in a new scenario. Thus, the experimenters moved the cheese to chute number three.
Next, my brother told me; “After the cheese was moved, the mouse was placed back into the maze.” Meanwhile, he was drawing a sketch of the mouse and maze on a paper napkin. He turned toward me, showed me what he had drawn, and asked me which chute I thought the mouse would venture down this time.
I said that I thought the mouse would go down chute number three and get rewarded with the cheese. In response to my answer, my brother calmly stated, “Nope. The mouse went directly down chute number two.”
Well, to me it seemed rather obvious that the mouse would go down chute number three to get his reward. The cheese was sitting right there in chute number three. I could see it sitting there in the drawing.
My brother smirked and remarked, “Dude, just because you can see it in the drawing, that doesn’t mean the mouse can see it there. He’s inside of the maze; he doesn’t have a human perspective like you do.” I pondered the logic my brother was explaining and thought to myself, “Dumb answer.”
My brother continued the lesson by stating, “The fact is that the mouse will go down chute number two. It’s so confident about the cheese being in chute number two that it won’t even bother to hurry. But when the mouse got to the end of chute number two, something surprised him: there was no cheese!”
Where’s the Cheese?
My brother explained further, “The mouse was hit with a novel situation; one that he never anticipated. There was no cheese where he had come to expect it to be.”
It must have been obvious that I was trying to better understand where this story was heading. My brother then posed the question, “What do you think the mouse did after failing to find the cheese in chute number two?” Frankly, I was only concerned with whether or not he was playing some sort of trick on me, so I quickly guessed that the mouse would wonder about the maze to see if the cheese was in any of the other chutes.
Before the air was even out of my lungs, my brother quipped back, “Nope.” Again, not thinking through the issue, I gave another wrong answer. With yet more sarcasm in his voice, he asked me, “What would make the mouse think that the cheese would be anywhere else but in chute number two?”
I furrowed my brow at this question. “I don’t know,” I muttered somewhat under my breath. Because he viewed it as a cop out, my brother didn’t like my answer. He could tell that by not giving him any straight answer, I was more worried about avoiding any potential trick question of his rather than actually thinking through the issue.
Yet, despite his disappointment in my hedging, my brother asked me, “In the mind of the mouse, why would the cheese be anywhere but chute number two?” I could tell that my brother was setting me up to make his point.
“Go on,” I prompted him, acting mostly interested in getting to the point my brother was making. But at this point, I was really trying to get out of the hot seat.
“The mouse would go back to start,” he said in a matter-of-fact way. “So far, in the mind of the mouse, hasn’t the system worked perfectly? Hasn’t the cheese always been in chute number two?” he asked.
Then he went on, “In the mind of the mouse, something must have gone wrong on the way to get the cheese in chute number two. However, in the mouse’s mind, the blame must lie with something that he must have done.”
“Why’s that?” I asked out of curiosity. My brother said confidently, “Because the system’s always been perfect. The mouse’s reward has always been in chute number two.” He further explained to me that the mouse would have no reason to think that the system would change; especially so suddenly. “Therefore,” he pointed out, “not finding the cheese must have been related to something he had done wrong. Not the other way around.”
“But you know what? That mouse didn’t get the cheese. “Just because you might think that you’re right about something because it’s the common way of looking at an issue, be sure to entertain the possibility that you may not truly understand what is going on.”
Making a comparison to real life, my brother explained the moral of the story, “People tend to get stuck in their ways of thinking. So whenever someone challenges their way of thinking, most people think they know better and resist changing how they look at something.”
He told me how most people aren’t likely to take too many chances outside of what they have become accustomed to. So when these people are faced with genuine choices, they merely take the road they are used to. “To them, these things have always manifested themselves in certain ways, so people bet on what they know,” was how my brother put it.
My brother went on, “So, a person can think that they know better. That is, they can ‘be right’ about something. In other words, they can ‘know better’ and in their supreme confidence, they will act like a know-it-all.”
“Or, the person can ‘get the cheese’” he said with his wry smile stretching even wider across his face. His voice got more confident as he pointed out, “That is, people can take some chances and explore different avenues in order to get what they want.”
My brother went on to caution me about the danger of worrying so much about what other people think. “People shouldn’t necessarily be worried about being right about everything. That type of mentality ends up ruling them; keeping them securely in ‘the box.’”
What my brother was saying was that sometimes going against the grain may prove to be difficult. Yet, a person can get their way more often when they are not afraid to deviate from the established routine. My brother was all about the unconventional.
There were times when we’d encounter a scenario where someone had to chose between thinking like everyone else, or thinking on their own. Whenever this happened, we would look at each other and one of us would ask out loud, “Do you want to ‘be right’ (know better), or do you want to ‘get the cheese’ (think outside the box and get what you really want)?” When it comes to relationship issues, my brother almost always thinks “outside of the box.” And in that regard, he has always been successful with women.
What’s More Fun, Playing Football or Volleyball?
Anyone who’s ever attended a Hispanic picnic knows how the events of the day unfold. First, everyone in early attendance helps set up the picnic area. Then they all eat. Eating and socializing are the central purposes of such an event. There is a variety of food and usually in such a quantity that there is little, if any, room to sit at the actual picnic table.
Plus, for such a social event, the Hispanic women usually take their cooking seriously. Such picnics present them with an opportunity to show off their food preparation talents. In fact, the food is so tasty that some of the picnic-goers arrive just in time to eat, and then make an excuse to leave. But they do make sure they eat.
The picnic, where the events I’m about to talk about took place, was no exception to the one described above; there was food for an army. While the people ate, it gave them a chance to reunite, visit, and oftentimes even meet new people.
My mom’s family was comprised of my late grandmother, two brothers, and ten wonderful sisters. My dad’s family had his parents and his two brothers and three sisters. Because of this, there were a lot of people in attendance at these family events.
The sheer size of both families meant that during these types of events, a number of our relatives would inevitably invite a friend of theirs to attend the picnic. Visitors would show up in all ages, shapes and sizes. I cannot tell you how many couples had met at one of these large Hispanic family picnics (or any other family event).
There wasn’t always a visitor who necessarily suited your interest. However, if you were single and a person of interest didn’t come to one event; it was only a matter of time until there would be an event where your type did show up. So just in case, some people came prepared for such a possibility and were looking good!
On the day of one of these picnics, my brother and I were scouring the shelves of one of the local used bookstores. But in the back of our heads, we both knew we had to attend that picnic; the food was just too delicious to miss out on. Not to mention, it was summer and one of our relatives was bound to bring a cute female friend of theirs to the picnic.
But as any book-lover can attest to, we usually stay longer at a book store than we initially anticipate. This time was no exception. My brother and I ended up having to speed all the way to the picnic, hoping just to get some of that great food we knew would probably still be available. By the time my brother and I finally arrived, we were over an hour late.
After my brother parked the car, we made our way over to the picnic area. We could see that most of the people had already eaten. The trash receptacles were full of aluminum cans, paper plates and plastic ware. Any remaining food was in the process of being covered up or put back into coolers under the cement picnic tables. Nonetheless, my brother and I prepared a plate of food and took our time enjoying eating the delicious Hispanic cuisine.
My brother and I felt lucky just to have been able to eat. But now that we had finished eating, it was time for us to join in the picnic activities.
By the time my brother and I had finished eating, there were two separate activities already in progress. Most of the men had taken their beers and started a pick-up football game. Teams had already been chosen, and the game was well under way. The women, on the other hand, had strung up a net between two trees and were starting a game of volleyball.
My brother looked over at me and said, “Come on. Let’s go play volleyball.” He had this sly smile on his face, the kind he had when he was up to something. I knew what that look meant, and I promptly agreed to go along with whatever he had in mind. I had no clue what he was up to exactly, but whenever that smile manifested itself, things were bound to get “interesting.” This occasion would prove to be no exception.
As my brother and I walked over to the volleyball area, the guys playing football hollered out an invitation to come join them. “Come on dudes; one of you can play on each team.”
My brother turned to me and said, “Yeah, one on each team alright; one on each volleyball team.” There was that smile again.
We continued to walk toward the volleyball game. “Are you guys really going to join us?” one of the women asked us as we neared the volleyball court. We nodded in unison that we had in fact planned on playing volleyball with them. “Alright, make some room for the guys,” one of my aunts commanded.
It didn’t take long before the men playing football took note of what was happening over at the volleyball game. By now it was obvious that my brother and I were purposely joining what would ordinarily be a women’s activity.
My brother and I were overtly defying a Hispanic family tradition that was by this time taken-for-granted. One of the guys made some sort of sarcastic remark about us being with the women. “What’s the matter, you guys can’t handle playing with the men?” The guys playing football had a good laugh at his comment. My brother and I just sort of chuckled at the comment, but generally we both ignored it.
My brother and I just happily ignored the rude remarks. And it didn’t take long for the men playing football to notice that their vulgar comments weren’t having the desired effect on us. So the men ratcheted up their nasty call-downs aimed at us. “Sissies, you two can’t hang with the guys so you’re playing volleyball with the women!” one of them said in a high-pitched voice while simultaneously mocking effeminate gestures. Again, my brother and I just ignored the remarks and smiled contentedly.
After the last rude comment was made, the team my brother was sided with rotated positions. He was poised to be his team’s next server. On my team’s side of the net, I was positioned front and center. Just then, one of the guys in the football crowd hurled an especially rude comment our way. This vulgar comment made even some of the women gasp out loud.
After the shock of the remark wore off, my brother looked at me from across the court, and I saw that same sly smile creep across his face again. Right in front of all the women he said matter-of-factly, “Hey bro, do you want to be right, or do you want to get the cheese?”
What he was actually asking was, did we want to be around a bunch of sweaty dudes who were trying to show off and maybe even trying to hurt each other, or did we want to be hanging out having fun playing amongst the women? He then called out, “Five to two” and served the ball. Realizing what he was referring to, I had an ear-to-ear Kool Aid smile splashed across my face.
With the men’s egos now bruised and on the line, the comments went up yet another notch. They now became mean-spirited. The frequency of their call-downs also increased. Pretty soon the men were just being uncouth about the situation. The women were even becoming uncomfortable with the teasing that no longer had a teasing flavor to it.
It didn’t take long for the men playing football to realize that my brother and I were not only ignoring them, but were up to something (not that they would necessarily have recognized it as “getting the cheese”). The football guys just knew that whatever we were doing, it was out of the ordinary, and it involved the women. Our behavior was just too odd and out of the ordinary to be interpreted as anything “normal.” And to the men playing football, that meant we were up to something. We were.
As soon as the guys playing football took a beer/bathroom break, two of the more outspoken men came over to check out what exactly was going on at the volleyball game. They wanted a closer look.
These two guys saw that my brother and I were having a great time playing volleyball with the women. We were all joking, laughing and teasing each other. Now these two guys somehow wanted in on it.
The guys that came over to the volleyball area forced their way onto both sides of the net: to make the game fair was how they put it. As this was happening, I caught several looks of displeasure on some of the women’s faces. Their reluctance and concerns about the new players would be borne out shortly.
On each side of the net, these two new guys began playing very aggressively, trying to be in on every play. Basically, they were trying to show off and hog all of the action. Somehow they thought that by dominating the game, they could make a favorable impression on the women. Their aggressive actions, however, had quite the opposite effect.
Before these guys joined the volleyball game, the women, my brother, and I were having fun playing a leisurely game of volleyball. We were all taking in the sun and generally enjoying hitting the ball around. At that point, the women’s main concern wasn’t with playing a competitive game; they were trying to take it easy and enjoy a chance to goof off.
It was obvious, however, that the two aggressive guys had another agenda. They were going to show the women how talented they were by playing “to win.” Their aggressive approach would surely make an impression on the women; a negative one.
Before too long, the two new male volleyball players were joined by some of the other men who had also come over to get a look at what was going on. They too forced their way onto the court and it became a completely integrated game. The guys, though, were everywhere on the court, pushing the women aside in order to make a play, hit a return, or position themselves for a spike.
Because of this new style of play, some of the women were thrown about pretty aggressively. I remember one instance that changed the way the game unfolded. One of the guys went up to spike the ball against a guy on the other side of the net. He was all proud that he had won the spiking contest, but he had also managed to spike the ball squarely in the face of one of the women standing next to his competitor. She was hurt and bleeding bad enough to leave the game.
Two of the other women had to leave the game with her in order to attend to her injury. The sudden departure of some of the women only gave the men more room to move around the court, and soon they completely took over the game.
In the span of about 15-20 minutes, the women players were no longer having fun. I could see it on their faces as each of them eventually exited the game. After that, it was an all-male contest and had absolutely no semblance to the original game. The men were now playing volleyball “football style.”
Most of the women gathered back at the picnic table area where my brother and I had already decided to join them. There, the women were licking their wounds and voicing their displeasure with the men taking over the volleyball game. My brother and I purposely joined in their “complaint session.”
This scored my brother and me BIG points with the group of angry women. They viewed our women-friendly behaviors in a favorable light; which could (and would) help us at a later date. That future female social validation was our “cheese.”
Some of the women were hugging my brother and me and saying, “Those other guys are . . .!” Well, you get the picture. The women continued with, “Why are you two guys such good guys? How come those other guys can’t behave like you two?”
I was standing within earshot of my brother and kind of whispered, “Because we know how to ‘get the cheese.’” One of my aunts overheard this comment, looked at me and asked, “What cheese are you two going to get? There’s not much food left.”
My brother and I chuckled at that question. I kissed my aunt on the cheek while I was hugging her and said, “Oh nothing auntie, nothing really.” I could see my brother’s insidious smile creeping across his face again.
As my brother and I left the picnic that day, we could tell that our reputations with the women had been validated and socially reinforced. That is, our aunts and the other females at the picnic had sincerely appreciated our company.
Since we left the picnic on favorable terms with these women, their opinions of us could come in handy at a later date. Perhaps at some later date, these women would even be willing to set one of up with any of the visiting females that may attend any future family event.
Because of this strategy, during any family gathering, our aunts would always tell anyone who would listen how kind my brother and I were. This amounted to social capital with any female visitors. Since these compliments were coming from the mouths of women, how could they not catch the attention of any new female visitors?
To both my brother and me, such female-generated credibility was more valuable than any type of social status we could have tried to get from playing football with the men. After all, the criteria used for men-generated credibility are often at odds with what women consider credible and fair.
My brother’s and my “cheese” was the favorable credibility with the women in our respective social networks. For men, this favorable credibility with women is normally harder to build and maintain than is any comparable favorable credibility between men. Plus, this type of female-generated credibility is more valuable in the long run. So my brother and I didn’t care about being seen as the stereotyped macho men. We were both very comfortable “getting the cheese”: that is, hanging out with the women.
This type of thinking outside the box is what you should strive for. Rather than thinking like the rest of the crowd, and thus getting the same results as everybody else, try to train yourself to think outside the box. That way you will get what you really want. This is especially true when it comes to relationships. By thinking outside the box about how relationships function, perhaps you can avoid being like most of the crowd who “crash” most of their relationships.
Takeaway Points:
– People are not afraid of change, they are afraid of losing out on something.
– Most of them would rather dig their heels in against change than actively engage it.
– This is true about changing how people think about relationships.
– Even though most people don’t know what they’re doing in a relationship, they think they do.
– But in order to change the outcomes of how their relationships ultimately work out, they must change how they think about them.
– Albert Einstein: The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.
– Don’t act insane about your relationships: first change your mind, and then change your actions.
– You won’t regret it. Your relationships will benefit greatly!