If we keep expecting change without changing ourselves in the first place, we will not succeed.
Let’s promise to ourselves to try something new every day. The aim for this promise is of course to bring ourselves out of our comfort zone and to widen our horizon. Here are a few proposal to do something new – and have fun with it:
Get inspiration – in 10 minutes a dose
TED is a nonprofit organisation dedicated to spreading new ideas. It holds events all around the globe to give speakers a podium to present findings in their field of expertise. Two conditions must be met: The presentation musn’t be boring, and there are not more than fifteen minutes available for the speech. You will not find a TED event in your area every second week, but you will find speeches about whatever topic you’d like, from advice on how to better speak in public to the likelyhood of parallel universes on ted.com. And the best: You don’t even need to be online to watch the speeches, you can download them on your device and watch them wherever you are.
Learn coding
We talk a lot about Software eating the World, but how does one actually write code? The web site www.codecademy.com offers a series of free, web-based, interactive and fun courses to learn one of the modern, object-oriented languages: PHP, Python, Ruby, Ruby on Rails … The fun part is that both the editor, the interpreter (and in some cases the compiler) are online. As you follow the instructions in the learning module, you type the examples in the editor and you run the code directly. You can stop the course anytime you want and pick it up at a later time. Very fun with a high addictive potential.
Meet different people with different interests
Have you noticed that in your business life you meet the same people over and over again? Even if you are an avid user of social media, the probability is high that you will link with people sharing your interest – and only with those. Why not check out www.meetup.com to find people who share interesting ideas that are totally different from yours? One example: A group called Zuripreneurs is holding a weekly Tuesday morning regular coffee and discussion event at a local Starbucks coffee. The goal? Present business ideas and get a first feedback on how well those might be received.
Leaders read – if they have the time
If we believe Nicholas Carr, the art of book-reading and book-writing is coming to an end in the age of the Internet. We’re probably not there yet, but we certainly need to invest our leasure time wisely. How about investing in a subscription to getabstract.com, a Website promoting summaries on books? Would you like to know why enterprise customers are preferring subscription-based models to investment? Check out J.B.Wood’s Consumption Economics! Have you ever wondered what makes the Digital Transformation so unique – and what not? E. Brynjolfsson’s The Second Machine Age knows the answer. Would you like to improve your presentation skills? Why not hae a look at B. McRae’s The Seven Strategies of Master Presenters. And hey – if you do not like the ideas promoted in the book – what have you lost? 15 Minutes to read a three-page summary.
I wish you a great time exploring!
a postmodernist's view 