Did you learn anything new lately?
Discover more from And It's Up to You! by Antoine Martin
Did you learn anything new lately?
Sometimes, the best way to learn about something new is ask, or let people ask. Why don't we do it more?
TL;DR:
Learning about something new is a great way to boost creativity.
The best way to learn about new stuff is to ask people to tell you about their last discovery.
Except we don't do that much, do we?
Challenging ourselves with new ideas makes us wealthier - give yourself the inspiration sources you deserve! (Start here 👇!)
Yesterday was Monday and Mondays should be off in my opinion. That can't be the case every single Monday though, and sometimes duty calls make themselves impossible to ignore.
That's okay.
Anyway, yesterday's duty call was a routine team-bonding meeting with the brilliant coaches in our network and we didn't have any particular agenda to follow.
That’s right, no agenda.
No target to reach.
No bullet points to follow.
No box to tick to show that things are progressing.
And no way to say if we'd get productive at all!
Still, the session was brilliant. Constructive. Productive. And creative.
In the end, we ticked our ‘non-boxes’ for a simple reason: the conversation had been inspiring (personally) and fulfilling (as a team) because one of use shared some personal discoveries and gave everyone else ideas they didn't have.
We all ended up pushing the logic, which made us super creative for a while, and that gave everyone a major boost.
The best way to learn about new stuff is to ask people to tell you about their last discovery.
We could have missed that opportunity pretty easily, in reality. The team was late and everyone was either in a holiday mood or in a 'business as usual' type of mood, which is terrible when it comes to building momentum.
Except that at at some point, Philippe (my partner in crime) asked a simple question.
“Hey Chris, tell us how your new settlement in Lisbon is working. What are you seeing and doing over there?”
As it turned out, Christian had been doing a lot of talking and meetings lately, and he had some ideas he had completely forgotten to share with us.
“Oh, I've met this interesting guy I didn't tell you guys about!” he said, before switching to storytelling mode.
Long story short?
Chris had put his finger on an interesting banking program dedicated to freelancers, and talking about it gave us tons of ideas because freelancers are one of our target markets as far as digital business coaching is concerned.
Chris's ideas helped us make some connections between seemingly unconnected dots.
It made us switch to 'partnership mode'.
And it got everyone in the room to conclude that there are always some new ideas worth exploring out there.
There's one thing, though: the best way to learn about new stuff is to ask people to tell you about their last discovery.
Except we don't do that much. Do we?
Actually, let me rephrase. Except that most people never do that.
That's too bad, isn't it?
So many topics are hiding behind our ears, so why not ask people to put them right on front of our eyes for a change?
Look. Here's an example.
How many times do we ask people a question and respond to their answer with a “oh, that happened to me too!” that brings the discussion back to us instead of digging a bit more into their story?
We could ask people to keep elaborating instead!
We could ask what makes them say this or that, and we could ask what conclusion that makes them come to.
Then we'd get amazing insights and ideas to fuel our own creative mind.
There's no other way to turn blind spots into ideas! You've got to ask people what they think!
What are your inspiration sources?
At the end of the day, challenging ourselves with new ideas not only makes us more creative and open-minded, it also makes us wealthier.
The only question is, do we give ourselves the inspiration sources we need an deserve, and do we give ourselves opportunities to think outside of our own boxes and get deep for a change?
Stop laughing.
These opportunities can be a matter of asking others something and making them go deeper.
Sometimes the focus of attention can also be you, with an objective to make you go deeper.
And that makes sense, right?
Two questions (and a half) to wrap things up!
As usual, here's some food for thought.
👉 When was the last time you had a discussion focused on someone else? What did they get out of it, and how did you feel about the exercise?
👉 When did you last have a discussion focused on you? What conclusion did that get you to?
Instead of using discussions to produce more noise, the challenge is to turn them into a sounding board that'll get you inspired while pushing you towards your next step.
I know, because being a sounding board is what I do for a living and I can see the people who play the game grow and thrive.
So, stop procrastinating. Learn something new every day. Make people dig into their ideas. Give them a sounding board. Find your sounding board. It really is up to you.
The discussion is open! Hit the reply button or leave a comment below.
Until next time,
A.