profound ways. Within the next few months, I ended my relationship with my girlfriend, quit my job, changed industries, moved across the country, and started my own business.
My whole perspective had changed. And that shift in perspective changed my life.
Have you had moments like this in your life, when you suddenly saw things in a new and different way?
A new way of seeing the world—and yourself—opens the door to change and growth.
You can cultivate a way of thinking and being that will allow you to have these breakthrough insights more often. Through that new way of thinking, you will be able to guide others to similar mind shifts that will give them the power to transform their lives. This way of thinking is a practice you can use to find and create new doorways to possibilities, doorways that are invisible to others.
I call this practice liminal thinking.
The word liminal comes from the Latin root limen, which means threshold.
A threshold is a border, a boundary, or an edge. It is a marginal, in-between space that defines two things, while at the same time being neither one nor the other.
Most boundaries are convenient fictions. What divides the people who are “on” a team from those who are not? What separates one company department or division from another, or an employee from a customer? Boundaries give life structure, which makes us comfortable. But they can also be shifted, rethought, reframed, and reorganized.
Change happens at the boundaries of things: the boundary between the known and the unknown, the familiar and the different, between the old way and the new way, the past and the future.
Some roles are liminal in nature. A coach, for example, is part of the team and not part of the team at the same time. A consultant works in a company, without being part of the company. A therapist has access to the deepest emotions of family life, while not being part of the family. A teacher is part of the class and not part of the class.
These are liminal roles because they are associated with growth and change, which involve breaking, shifting, or otherwise transcending boundaries
You have liminal moments every day, when you are just waking up and when you are just falling asleep. You usually don’t notice these liminal moments, but they are valuable sources of creativity and insight. Ever have a good idea in the shower or in the middle of the night? That happened because your mind was relaxed and open to possibilities.1
The idea behind liminal thinking is that there are thresholds, doors of opportunity, around you, all the time. Most of them are invisible to you, because you are focusing on other things. But they are there, they are real, and they offer incredible potential for growth and change. Tuning your mind to liminal thinking will help you see opportunities that others will be unable to see or even imagine. It’s a kind of psychological agility that enables you to create change where others cannot.
You don’t need any formal authority, budget, or official sanction to be successful at liminal thinking. All that’s required is one person with a desire to create change.
Liminal thinking, like any other craft, requires a deep understanding of its materials.
If you are a carpenter, you must understand your tools, the theories behind them, and how to use them. Whether you are a doctor, a mechanic, a lawyer, or a gardener, the same rule applies.
No matter what you do, the better and more deeply you can understand your materials, the more possibilities you will be able to create.
In liminal thinking, the most important material to understand is belief.
Liminal thinking is the art of creating change by understanding, shaping, and reframing beliefs.
EXERCISE
Think of something in your life that you see as problematic, but that you don’t think will ever change. Consider the connection between how you see the problem and how you see yourself. What if you saw yourself differently? If you were the kind of person who could change this situation, what would you be like? How would you act?
PART 1 How Beliefs Shape Everything
The following six principles constitute a theory of beliefs: how they come into being, why they are necessary, how they are reinforced over time, and why people cling to their beliefs, even when they are incomplete, obsolete, or invalid. They are beliefs about beliefs.
PRINCIPLE 1 Beliefs Are Models
Reality leaves a lot to the imagination.
—John Lennon
There is an ancient story called The Blind Men and the Elephant. It’s told often, so it’s likely you have heard it, but it’s an important story to understand, so I will repeat it just in case.
A king calls for the blind men of the capital to be brought to his palace. He has an elephant brought in and asks the men to describe it. The king asks the blind men, “Can you tell me, what sort of thing is an elephant?” One man, who felt the elephant’s head, says it is like a large pot. Another, who felt the tail, says it is like a rope. Another, who felt the ear, says it is like a hand fan. Another, who felt the side, says it is like a wall. More blind men are called, and they say that it is like a pillar, a pipe, and so on. Each describes a different part of the elephant based on his personal experience. The blind men begin to argue and come to blows, each asserting that he is right and the others are wrong.
What is going on in this story? Each blind man has a grip on one aspect of reality, but none of them holds the whole truth. Each man’s picture of the elephant is constrained by the boundaries of his own experience.
Why can’t they just talk to each other? If they would only compare notes, they could get a better picture of the whole elephant. It probably wouldn’t be perfect, but it would be much, much better.
What is wrong with these men?
The problem is that they cannot separate their experiences from reality. Each man experiences something different. One can feel something that is like a fan, another like a rope, another like a pillar, another like a wall. Imagine you were looking at a wall and someone told you it was a pillar. You would think they were insane.
The parable makes sense because we know the men are blind. None of them can see the whole elephant. But the point of the story is not that blind men cannot see. The point of the story is that we are all blind.
Just
