Your cart is currently empty!
The Invisible Mentor Weekly Newsletter: Brain Food Wednesdays Number 81: Do You Know How to Innovate?
Dear Reader,
How often do you allow your imagination to run free? Could using your imagination allow you to innovate? I’m working with a coach in an area called Positive Intelligence. I did an assessment test, and we’re working through my results. A big part of the coaching is for me to notice my thinking, the Saboteur, and she’s given me tools to stop any negative thinking. But the first step is always awareness. The coach introduced me to the following:
The 5 Powers of the Sage – All based in LOVE
- Empathy – the love of self and others
- Explore – the love for discovery
- Innovate – the love for possibilities
- Navigate – the love for meaning/purpose
- Activate – the love for making things happen
My coach, Alicia, asked me to choose one of the five powers of the sages to work on. And I chose Innovate. In the Ask Avil section of this newsletter, I explore the Yes, And technique to innovate.
How do you innovate? What creative processes do you use to generate creative ideas and solutions. One of the ways to get new ideas is to develop a reading habit. I host a lot of reading challenges in my Facebook group, Reading Rocks, and I give participants the tools to help them spot ideas. Join Reading Rocks today! You’ll have access to training that I created that will make a difference in your career and business.
Additionally, I created a membership site and I’m doing something unusual there. There are many companies that offer book summaries and do it very well. Life is not about competing with others, it’s about creating. The only person I’m competing with is myself. What I’ve done with my membership site is to create Bookish Notes that I’ve grouped together to create a course. I take a topic, create Bookish Notes from some of the better books on the topic. I organize the Bookish Notes in such a way that after you’ve gone through them, you have a strong foundation of the topic on which you can build.
The first Bookish Note I created was on generating ideas. If you read one or two Bookish Notes each day, you’ll develop a practice of consuming content that helps you to get ideas. I’m working on courses to help you to become more productive and better at sales. You can subscribe to my paid membership site.
Ask Avil
Do You Know How to Innovate?
As adults many of us stop imagining because it feels like child’s play. We close ourselves off so it’s difficult to innovate. In most creativity processes, one of the first stages is gathering ideas without filtering them. The aim is to get as many ideas as possible before evaluating them. Even if you know how to innovate, it doesn’t hurt to have several tools in your toolkit.
The coach I’m working with taught me the Yes, And technique yesterday that I’d like to share with you. This is a technique from Improv and you can use it to innovate and to generate ideas. First she asked me to state a problem or challenge that I had. Top of mind for me was how to increase the number of subscribers to my membership site from one to 1,000 in six months.
Without doing much, I got the one subscriber, and I’ve never promoted the site because I wanted to add more content first. Therein lies a big problem. Many of us often think the time is not right to take action, and I’m no different. What holds you back? Do you think you’re too old, too young, or whatever?
After I stated my challenge, she asked one thing that I could do to promote the subscription site and I responded by saying I could write blog posts on topics related to the content on the site. This is where things started to get interesting. She told me what she liked about my idea. And next she told me what it brought up for her.
The point she was making is that any idea, no matter how wacky, has value. At least 10 percent of it has value. So, you need to find the thread of value. And the mention of what it brings up for her is extending the conversation, so she could hand it back to me, so I could add more. She talked about me adding a video to the blog post so people could see who I am.
I talked about how I had been reticent about doing videos because I didn’t like the way I looked. Until I took off the mask and I wasn’t comfortable making videos of me. But with the mask off I went for it. It was the middle of the pandemic and most people didn’t like the way they looked. I published the video and no one cared about the way I looked. They cared more about the content.
It was a good process going back and forth with her like this following the simple rules and I ended up with two quick things to try to increase subscribers. Will they work? I have no idea, but I’ve had the membership site for six months. This reminded me that back in 2009 when I first started blogging, I didn’t tell anyone I had a blog for nine months. I wanted to find out for myself if I would stick with it. That’s a long time to remain silent about what you’re doing.
This simple process can help you to innovate. Choose someone you trust to play the game with you. Make sure it’s not someone who is always critical. That would shut down the process in no time. State a challenge or problem you’re facing, and start ideating possible solutions to the problem. The responses that you and your partner make always follow:
- What I like about this is ……..
- And what it brings up for me is …….
Is this something you think could work for you? Give it a shot and let me know how it works for you.
What I’m Reading
I read a lot of fiction and I’m enjoying the summer. I read the children’s book, A Little Spot of Creativity: A Story of Ideas and was reminded not to see things as they are, but imagine how they could be. When you see a paperclip, do you see a tool to hold sheets of paper in place? Or do you see raw material for making jewelry?
As adults, we do not spend enough time using our imagination. What might you imagine that could be a gamechanger in your business?
I read an entire series of five books by Marla Madison over the weekend while trying to recover from the second vaccine. That’s all I could focus on. I loved the series except for a few moments when the main character was annoying me.
- Relative Malice
- Iced Malice
- Promise of Malice
- Season of Malice
- Aisle of Malice
Summer Reading List
- Future Mapping
- Everything is Figureoutable by Marie Forleo
- The Airbnb Story: How Three Ordinary Guys Disrupted an Industry, Made Billions . . . and Created Plenty of Controversy by Leigh Gallagher
- Hatching Twitter: A True Story of Money, Power, Friendship, and Betrayal by Nick Bilton
- Levers: The Framework for Building Repeatability into Your Business by Amos Schwartzfarb
- Behind the Red Door: How Elizabeth Arden’s Legacy Inspired My Coming-of-Age Story in the Beauty Industry by Louise Claire Johnson
- Five Stars: The Communication Secrets to Get from Good to Great by Carmine Gallo
- I Got There: How a Mixed-Race Kid Overcame Racism, Poverty, and Abuse to Arrive at the American Dream by JT McCormick
- One Big Thing: Discovering What You Were Born to Do by Phil Howard Cooke
- Self Leadership and the One Minute Manager Revised Edition: Gain the Mindset and Skillset for Getting What You Need to Succeed by Ken Blanchard and Susan Fowler
The Invisible Mentor Blog
The One Problem
The One Problem series I’ve been doing is slowly getting traction. In fact, I did an interview just a few hours ago. I’m finding interesting people to interview. People are sharing the interviews on social media and some of them are now reaching out to me to interview them. I think that’s news worth sharing. The videos are short, so they’re easy enough to listen to.
Here are the Episodes that I’ve published on my blog so far. Listen to a few of them and let me know what you think.
- The One Problem Interview with Rosalin Krieger, The Unstucker
- The One Problem Interview: Tetyana Dudnyk, Director, Technology Project Management Office
- The One Problem Interview: Maura Lustig, Transformational Coach
- The One Problem: Vicki Saunders, Founder SheEO
- Episode 17 The One Problem: Tara Hunt, Founder Truly Inc
- The One Problem Interview: Melanie Russell Talks About Partnership Agreements
- The One Problem Interview: Anthea Rossouw, Founder of Dreamcatcher
- Germain St. Denis, Consultant, Change Leadership: The One Problem Interview
- The One Problem Interview: Sandra Lisi, Leadership Coach
- The One Problem: Deena Baikowitz, Business & Career Coach
- The One Problem: Kelli Wingo, The One Problem Interview: Kelli Wingo, KMW Catalyst
- The One Problem: Patricia Roberts,Chief Operating Officer of the Gift of College
- The One Problem: The One Problem: Patti Pokorchak, Small Biz Sales Coach
- The One Problem: Adrienne Harris, Managing Partner, Portage Sales
- The One Problem: Kristy Wallace, CEO Ellevate Network
- The One Problem: Margye Solomon Talks about Aging and Relevance
- The One Problem: Deb Boulanger, Launch Lab for Women Entrepreneurs
- The One Problem: Sharon Horne Ellstrom – Stop Being Like Others, Be YOU
- The One Problem: Liz Kitchell from SheMoolah Talks Money Conversations
- The One Problem: Avil Beckford, Author of Digest 30 Books in 30 Days
- The One Problem: Interview With Kelly Daring, Author of Is Love Enough
Blog Series On Book Summaries
5 Things You Didn’t Know About Book Summaries
How I Came to Teach Courses Based On Summaries of Several Books
5 Common Mistakes Professionals Make With Book Summaries
Before And After You Learn How to Actually Use Book Summaries as a Professional Development Tool
Thinking About Investing in Art of Learning: Growing Professionally, Realizing Your Potential
Product Alert
The Invisible Mentor Membership Site, The Art of Learning. This is a great product if you want to expand your body of knowledge.
The Art of Learning Membership Site
7 Day Reading Makeover Challenge is a great product to start off with, if you want to learn how to read like a leader, as well as how to synthesize information.
Until Next Week,
Avil Beckford, Founder, The Invisible Mentor!
LinkedIn | Instagram | Twitter | Pinterest | Facebook