What a 4-year old can teach us about thinking outside the box

I was sitting across from my 4-year old son, Matthew, at dinner this week while on vacation. He is still learning to master coloring and drawing, having fun along the way, of course. He proudly showed me his completion of a seahorse maze on his kid's menu.

At first, I just saw a bunch of random lines. But my wife said, look at how he solved it. Taking a second look, I realized how brilliant the solution my son drew really was. Rather than dealing with the obstacle of the maze like those who have learned to solve it in the "traditional" way, he looked for an easier solution—literally thinking outside the box, or in this case, outside the seahorse.

Rather than entering the maze at the START, figuring out which path get to the FINISH, he simply drew a line around the outside of the maze to connect directly with the FINISH. Of course, he had to add some artistic license to the alternative southern route.

This casual event reminded me of the need to avoid getting stuck in my ways of thinking about things. What life or work obstacles could I consider novel solutions to work around or problems that could be solved differently?

What are some ways you can step back and take a look from a 4 year old's perspective to help solve a maze life or work presents to you?