It’s impossible to learn something if you think you already know it.
If you find yourself responding to every question asked, commenting on all conversation topics, or talking about your experiences without a breathing moment, you’re manifesting ignorance more than anything else.

When we pretend to know what we think we know, we ignore anything that will contradict our beliefs. When we strive to give others the impression that we know-it-all, we portray the image of being better, more important and smarter. We also shut off incoming signals from outside sources that can greatly educate us, leaving us less smarter than what we thought we were.

There’s nothing more powerful than a leader who says eloquently “I don’t know.”
This is the ultimate wisdom from those who know.
It opens mind, ears and attention to what might be the answer. It grounds the person and connects with others who are eager to explore the question together.
Are you open for knowledge?

For some people, work is life.

For others, they work is in the way of living life.

And then there are all who fall in the spectrum between those two.

Regardless of where you are and how much you love your job, there’s great value in finding experiences that help you detach from work and become more involved and absorbed in your non-work life.

Typically these experiences involve learning new things (i.e.g a new language), seeking out intellectual challenges (e.g., playing chess), doing things to challenge ourselves (e.g., competing in triathlons), or simply doing things to broaden our horizons (e.g., taking a class in a field different from our job).

The more varied experiences you get involved in, the more you broaden your view and create the conditions to sharpen your systems thinking and analogy making skills. Not only that, but getting involved in outside experiences help us in two ways:

First, they force us to devote our mental and intellectual resources to something other than work. Doing so enables us to achieve some level of detachment from it.

Second, they can be highly reinforcing. They allow us to feel a sense of achievement and accomplishment. This can add to our satisfaction on the job or compensate for it should we find ourselves not in the ideal work environment.

How many outside experiences are you involved in that help you detach from work at a psychological level?

In Tony Robbins’ legendary in-person events, every ninety minutes the music cranks up and everyone gets on their feet to jump and dance. His assertion is that when you stay in your peak state, have a longer experience, and involve your full body, you can see new possibilities and perceive problems differently. This, in essence, levels you up to have a stronger will and have more faith in your exponential abilities. 

What if your body has different ideas than your head?

How would you allow it to communicate with you?

What do you think it will say?

A year ago, on a day very much like this day (yet feels a decade away), I wrote in this diary.

I asked, what if you designed your ideation exercise according to your money saving mentality?

I had plenty of responses, some of you were curious on how to do it, others enjoyed the insight they received and some didn’t see it relevant at all.
So here it is again, with some further clarification.
Let me know if it clicks this time, or not. Feedback is always the best way to develop ideas.

How do you save money?

Do you have a certain percentage of your salary put aside? Or do you have a fixed amount that you save regularly? (assuming ofcourse you’re in the habit of saving money and not spending it on every smoothy combination you can think of)
If you want to increase your idea fluency and reduce your decision fatigue at the same time, make a connection between both.
Use the same system you have for increasing your savings account to increasing the number of ideas you produce per challenge.

For example,
You either put aside 10% of your income to be saved every month or you add $50 a-week that goes in automatically. Let’s say at work, you have one week to sort out a pressing challenge. Either dedicate 10% of your time (half-a-day in a full time job) just for generating ideas, or you don’t stop until you get 50 unique ones. Every single week.

Once you stop deciding that it’s worth your time and simply follow your process, your brain will start compounding ideas regularly and automatically. You’ll end up feeling rich and highly trusting your creative muse.

Invest early. Save regularly. For both money and ideas.
Happiness multiplied,
Randah

“People don’t get talker’s block, walker’s block, plumber’s block… There’s no such thing as a writer’s block”. Those were Seth Godin’s words in one of his prompts in Akimbo’s Creative’s Workshop.

If we write daily, he suggests, regardless of the muse arriving or not, sooner or later our subconscious will help us write something that is really good. You simply do the work of writing and let the practice sort out the details.

Same advice goes to generating ideas at work.

To summon the muse, on demand, you will need to get into the habit of ideating constantly. Finding the tools or the best way that fits you is important to take your brain into this uncomfortable, yet highly creative level of producing robust ideas for challenges you’re facing daily.

People are held back by the fear of being blocked, of not moving on, or looking indecisive. When the reality is, they block themselves. 

If you accept the first ideas that come to your mind because you are focused on getting results quickly, or you can’t think of anything better, instead of producing good and imaginative solutions, then you’re building your own idea block.

This block will ensure your creative ideas don’t visit you easily the next time you want them.

And so, the cycle continues. It’s a man-made illness caused by our lazy brains and our high dependency on the muse. It doesn’t have any power over you. You are in control of your mind and the ideas it makes.  

Practice on producing more ideas than what you show the world. Don’t settle for mediocre ideas.

Here’s to breaking your idea-block barriers,

Randah

p.s. What’s your idea quota per challenge and how do you go about generating them?

Here’s a thought experiment that will help you wear different hats to increase the chances of finding creative solutions.

When facing a certain problem at work, on a piece of paper write 7 types of jobs that are as far from your current career as possible. For example, a nurse, a truck driver, an architect, a fire fighter, a winter sports athlete, a carpenter and a lawyer are examples far from my line of work.

Now thinking about one specific challenge you have at work, frame it as a question and write it down. “i.e. In what ways can we speed up our client’s onboarding process?”.

Write a few ideas on how to solve it in a list.  

Next, using the list of jobs you have, ask again the same question of your challenge borrowing their heads this time.

For example: how would a nurse see this problem? In our example: In what ways can a nurse speed up the “onboarding” of patients?. How would a truck driver view it? “How would a truck fleet owner  onboard ongoing new drivers?”

Provide a list of ideas for each one of the suggested professions and questions. Or better yet, ask someone who has this role for ideas. The more out-of-your-way the career is, the better ideas to pollinate from.

The end result will show you not only how boring your original ideas are, but how magnificent those creative juices started to flow in your head coming from different directions. You know how seven, no, eight, lists of ideas. If each list is only 10 ideas, well, you do the math.

Stay creative, while staying safe.

Randah  

Which situation do you feel more excited to be in:  

When you generate alternatives, gather ideas, imagine solutions and experiment with concepts? 

Or when you chose from options, structure processes, reflect and make decisions?

Your split second of a preference can tell you a lot about why you prefer certain situations from others.

It’s not about the whole project you’re involved in, it’s about the phases of that project that you excel in. 

Generative way of thinking

Some people find thrill in generating options; off the wall ideas, random suggestions, or connecting unrelated things. They are good at finding varied solutions, researching, gathering intel, asking questions and seeing the big picture. The generative side of them lives on the dopamine level in their brain. They are sometimes oblivious of their distracting effect on others. They don’t see they can get too abstract, too impatient, too overloading with information or even too flexible to stick to one idea. Being called creative with lots of ideas has its disadvantages that go unnoticed sometimes. 

Selective way of thinking

On the other side of the spectrum, there are people who excel at converging ideas. Highly skilled at being selective, they can plan an entire process for the project with all exuberant details before breakfast. In fact, they might be living off their testosterone when picking the solution to their challenge, most likely one that they know too well how to get it done. They don’t need many options to evaluate the solution they are executing knowing that at the end of the day, they deliver.

Often they don’t see how their approach makes no room for imaginative ideas to breathe. They don’t see themselves pushing others to follow their way only, even when an alternative is a promising option. Being picky and highly selective has its disadvantages that go unnoticed sometimes. 

Most of us fall into one of those two. On different days, at different times.

There’s no right or wrong. 

It’s just is.

If you know where you fit, what’s your strong points and where do you show weakness (especially weakness that is not visible to you), you’ll be able to express your super powers joined by others who compliment you perfectly. As long as you listen to them and trust their advice, there’s no stopping you. You’re on your road to greatness.  

Cheers,

Randah

P.S. Did you clear your calendar for our free webinar on facilitating innovation in the workplace? Happening this week.