Why I Love Outside the Box Ideas (And Some Recent Favourites)

I'm Lisa 👋 Welcome to the latest edition of Stream of Consciousness!

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The world we live in now is full of unpredictability.

I believe the ability to quickly assess context and adapt and act with compassion (towards ourselves and others) is key to not just surviving but figuring out ways to thrive (this is a big WIP, personally).

I would argue that in our world, creative problem solving coupled with exceptional communication are going to be (if not are already) the top in-demand skills.

As a millennial, I was brought up within the ladder system by baby boomers - if you do X, Y, and Z, and do well in school so you can move on to a good career, you’ll be safe, secure and happy.

This has been far from my reality.

I never really fit into any boxes, which is why I think I like living outside them and gravitate towards finding others who do the same.

With my tentacles extended pretty much at all times in search of divergent thinkers and ideas, I thought I’d share a few I’ve come across to help jostle your creative juices and hopefully inspire you a little bit to find meaningful problems to solve with simple, elegant solutions.

Also - some of these stories are just really cool and I wanted to share them.

1. The surfers who made a floating trash can for the ocean

There are estimated to be 5.25 trillion pieces of plastic debris in the ocean totalling over 150 million tonnes. What is more - 80% of humans now have microplastics in our blood and tissues, and research is ongoing around the link between microplastics in our brains to medical conditions like dementia in addition to other health issues. Plastics in our oceans have also wreaked havoc on the animal kingdom and on our ecosystems - marine animals risk entanglement and ingestion, and at the current rate, the plastic in the ocean is expected to outweigh the fish by 2050.

To help solve this problem, two Australian surfers - Peter Ceglinsky and Andrew Turton invented a device called The Seabin - a floating garbage can that siphons and captures debris to reduce marine pollution.

Totally tubularrrr 🌊 (Sorry, I couldn’t resist).

(See a recent update on the Seabin project by Pacific Longboarder).

2. Chilean border collies trained to disperse native tree seeds to assist in wildfire recovery

In 2017 wildfires ripped through Chile and destroyed close to 1500 homes, killed 11 people and burned through close to 600,000 acres of land.

In an effort to re-forest the area (3 times the size of New York City), dog trainer Francisca Torres saw an opportunity - her three border collies, Das, Olivia and Summer already loved running through the forest. So, she put tiny backpacks on them full of native tree seeds that slowly release as the dogs run.

Born runners, her dogs cover up to 18 miles and can spread 20 lbs of seeds in a single day.

I love this!

(See the full story on Upworthy).

3. Fighting skin cancer with…soap

Fourteen year-old Herman Bekele recently won the 3M Young Scientist Challenge and became Time Magazine’s Kid of The Year after spending a year developing a bar of soap that can treat skin cancer.

You read that right - at 14.

When I was 14 I was watching A Makeover Story on TLC and trying to make a Rube Goldberg machine to make my parents’ toilet flush.

Bekele, who grew up in Ethiopia, saw first-hand the dangers of skin cancer after watching many people work outdoors without skin protection. This inspired him to ask a question - could imiquimod, a drug already approved for treating certain skin cancers that costs $40,000, be adapted to treat earlier stages of the disease and be made more affordable?

So, he worked to develop a soap that contains imiquimod nanoparticles that work on the skin even after you finish washing by activating the body’s immune cells to fend off cancer.

The soap is still in development, now with Bekele working with John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and molecular biologist Vito Rebecca (yes…while still attending high school).

Bananas!

Stuff That Stuck With Me Recently 🫠

1. How to Build A Life You Love - A post by Eric Dodds

2. Bear the Pain of Nothing - A post by Cru Mahoney

3. How to Embrace Failure and Let Go of Fear - Podcast by Jonathan Van Ness with Dan Harris

Thanks for reading!

I hope that you enjoyed this post and it inspired you to think slightly differently about problems you encounter in your own life.

Thank you for supporting me, for following along, for emailing me, and sharing your thoughts and ideas 🙏

Always open to your feedback on each edition - it helps me feel less like a robot behind a glass wall.

Here’s to navigating life off of autopilot together.

Lisa ✌️