On insight conversations

A Curious Life
Jul 24, 2017 · 2 min read

Joy and work are not words usually heard in the same breath but these days I find myself reflecting on the notion of a happy work-life with a new sense of curiosity.

Embarking on a self-employed journey has seen me pulling together the images of the big areas of my life that provide most joy and satisfaction and attempting to collage them together as daily habits and tasks.

One perk is having time to seek out new inspiring talks and content I just couldn’t find the space for before. Right now, Its Friday afternoon and I have just watched an excerpt of Dan Pink’s talk on the brain on TED — He is showing an image of our brain as being split in two. The left handling logical thought, rational processing and sequential decisions. The right brain the place of simultaneous thought, synthesis, artistry and imagination. Left has ruled, but right, he says, is becoming not just important but necessary in our human evolution and in our capacity to innovate individually, socially and politically.

On a personal level this idea of the right brain uprising speaks to something I have felt but not understood for some time in my life in organisations — that we are dulled into believing that linear processing is the only way to achieve results and that creativity is the nice to have ‘soft’ quality that makes things feel better but won’t power the engine we need in business.

As Dan Pink says the qualities that will advance us most in the future are underpinned by those ‘soft’ qualities: empathy, imagination, play, synthesis and meaning are what matter most.

I reflect on what this means for me and how I approach work; how my creative brain and organsitional life are connected…I have always enjoyed experimenting with my own intuition, and finding connection; specifically tapping into the calling of my own right brain impulses.

An easy way to refresh the brain is through insight conversations — in a nutshell holding regular conversations with people you know, or are connected with whose interesting work calls you to find out more. Its a way for me to feel inspired, to spark new connections, then use these insights by integrating the content of our conversations into my personal and work projects. And I love it.

Whilst I didn’t know it at the time, during a period of work lull, I contacted 5/6 people whose work interested them and I held insight conversations over breakfast. These lateral early morning connections meant instead of going into work feeling de-energised, I went in transformed.

So impactful were the feeling and insights these meetings had, I decided to keep them as a regular diary date.

These days I continue to seek out insights from my network of inspiring people, to regularly connect with them and use their insights and perspectives to stay curious about my own work. Seeking out this fresh perpspective and staying curious about other people, their work, passions and insights has definitely subtly altered my experience for the better.

A Curious Life

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My magpie-mind musings on creativity, art and finding inspiration in the here and now

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