Now you may be wondering at this point why so many people want to be more creative if, as we said, human beings are naturally creative. I'm going to answer that by telling you that although the mind is spontaneously creative when we are very young, as we grow older, the mind tends to become caught in repetitive patterns. Then the mind operates imitatively-not creatively seeing the world the same way day after day after day. In this state of mind, you are not creating anything new because your mind is not exploring new ways of looking at things. So problem seems to be how to remove the barriers to creativity that we build as we grow older. We don't need to add something new to ourselves. We just need to find ways to free the creative ability that is already inside us To give a practical illustration of what I mean, I'd like to talk about something that I think often inhibits the creative process: our tendency to put too many limits on solutions to a problem. What do I mean by too many limits? Look at your handout. There you see nine dots in three rows. Try to draw no more than four straight connected lines that will touch all nine dots. Did you solve the problem? You probably had trouble if you were not willing to go outside the limits enclosing the nine dots. Those boundaries are imaginary. Look at this solution.