[Learn] A Walt Disney Story

An eight-year-old boy approached an old man in front of a wishing well, looked up into his eyes, and asked:

“I understand you’re a very wise man. I’d like to know the secret of life.”

The old man looked down at the youngster and replied:

“I’ve thought a lot in my lifetime, and the secret can be summed up in four words

The first is think. Think about the values you wish to live your life by.

The second is believe. Believe in yourself based on the thinking you’ve done about the values you’re going to live your life by.

The third is dream. Dream about the things that can be, based on your belief in yourself and the values you’re going to live by.

The last is dare. Dare to make your dreams become reality, based on your belief in yourself and your values. ”

[Thoughts] Make no Assumption

Now imagine a problem is identified. And there are numerous ideas in mind, if used properly, could allow a final solution to be reached. Hence one might decide to try their best to just tackle it straight on. But one essential element that might have been missed could come back and bite us towards the end of the problem solving process.
This monster is the assumption(s) that was initially made, be it the assumption made before the problem or the assumptions made between the identification of the problem and the beginning of the problem solving process. Once assumptions are neglected, we are exposing ourselves to enter a danger zone.

An analogy could be made to a maths problem. Once an issue is identified, we make the wrong assumption that would further lead us to solve the problem towards the wrong direction, finally we either get an answer that does not represent the true solution, or just get a massive error or contradiction.

One way to ensure the solution is reached is that after we had identified the problem at the initial stage, we should make sure no erroneous assumptions were made before solving the problem. And sometimes, assumptions might do more bad than good, so thereby making no assumption could actually be the best assumption.
That way, if we erased the false assumptions, we could realise that the problem didn't really exist afterall!