Surround Your Challenge

We encounter challenges every day. Professionally, this might include staying innovative, managing communication, and making decisions under pressure. Then, we go home, and our challenges include everything from addressing our health and fitness to maintaining relationships and feeling like we don’t have enough time.

There are challenges everywhere. We tend to label them as problems. More often, they are opportunities… but only if we see them from the right perspective. Better yet, add an “s” to that… Through the right perspectives.

In The Art of Impossible, Steven Kotler includes a quick one-liner that could be easy to miss. Listening to the book in the car and hearing it read out loud, it stuck out.

“Surround your challenges.”

We’ve all heard, “Surround yourself with people who challenge you.”

This concept of surrounding your challenges is different. Here’s where these three words led…

Pick a challenge you’re facing right now. Something will come to mind. Often, we look at these challenges head on. We treat it like a game of chicken, trying to stare it down. Face to face with our challenge, that’s where all of our solutions come from.

One view. One solution.

What if, for a moment, we walked around to the side of our challenge? What if we kept walking and looked at our challenge from behind? Better yet, what does a drones-eye view of our challenge look like? Or, like a mechanic, can we get under our challenge and see what it looks like from below?

This is where challenges transform into opportunities. Multiple views. Multiple solutions.

Great in theory, but how do we get there? Here are three approaches to consider…

Engage Diverse Minds

Sometimes, we get stuck trying to solve challenges solo. Instead, invite other people into the conversation. Coworkers, mentors, or even friends can bring fresh perspectives to the table, unlocking insights or solutions that were invisible to you. The coolest part? Their ideas often spark new ones of your own. Collaboration like this doesn’t just surround your challenge—it overwhelms it.

Change Your Environment

Stepping out of your usual space is powerful. Challenges can shrink or reshape themselves when you shift your surroundings. Take a walk, grab your notebook, and head to a coffee shop, or even just move to a different part of your office. Picture yourself circling the problem like a drone, seeing it from above, below, and on every side. Often, simply breaking the routine will trigger fresh ideas. That clarity you’ve been chasing? It might be waiting for you somewhere outside your four walls.

Use Role Reversal

Get curious and ask some role-reversing questions. What does the challenge look like from your customer’s perspective? Or your teammate’s? Better yet, what would your competitor do in this situation? This kind of role reversal forces you to think beyond your usual patterns, empathize more easily, and uncover new approaches. Seeing the world from another angle can often turn frustration into opportunity.

Call-to-Action

Resist the urge to see your challenge head-on through one lens. Instead, use some of these techniques to surround your challenge and see what happens!