My own personal debrief and learnings from my very first Visual Thinking bootcamp

What I felt and what I learned from today.

What happened?

Today I hosted the very first Bootcamp of my Think Clearly World Tour, right here in NYC. We had a small but dedicated crowd of five. One from Manhattan. Three other Brooklynites and a Nigerian currently living in Columbus, OH, who had made the journey to New York in order to attend.

I had invited everyone to come to our apartment at 10am. We made French press coffee and I had baked some croissants. One person was running late so we just chatted casually for some time. When we were all together I introduced the purpose of the class:

To elevate everyone’s awareness of visual thinking and confidence in their own ability to self reflect and gain clarity through practice.

Then we did an exercise to get to know each other, both personally and visually. I asked everyone to draw a moment in their lives where they were at a cross roads. Where they had to make a significant choice that shaped them and made them who they are today.

Everyone opened up and shared honest and vulnerable stories about themselves. Heartbreak. Career. Parental pressure.

Then we looked at the drawings together and tried to learn from the different visual choices everyone had made.

We did more exercises of drawing, exploring, sharing and harvesting from each other.

Eventually I knew it was time for us to get moving. My wife and kids would be coming home from the playground so we packed our stuff and walked four blocks up to a coworking space where one of the participants had access to a conference room. On the way we talked about the futures we dream about.

Once we were settled in, we did more exercises. We explored how shifting to smaller format paper with a thick pen forced simpler and less elaborate visuals. We explored the same idea from different angles.

Most people could only spend the half day so we did a short reflection on our learnings so far and wrapped up at the coworking space. The three of us who were left ate Venezuelan lunch and talked more about life and projects. How to help people with mental health without the stigma of “therapy” and how it feels to be coordinating the medical response to the Ebola outbreak (!)

We decided to do some more work so we moved places yet again, to find quiet and coffee. We went deeper into past experiences and future visions. We talked about metaphors and process diagrams.

Eventually I had to wrap up and head home. My wife was not feeling well and was alone with both kids. But the remaining two participants had so much in common and wanted to continue learning from each other so they setup their own knowledge sharing session.

How did it make me feel?

I was unsure how this would go. I felt a bit underprepared which is typical for me. I often plan only a loose script and otherwise go with the flow. I was uncertain about the energy at first. Would people like each other? Would it feel awkward?

I think it was a bit awkward at first which I guess is why I often don’t go to things like this for myself. But through the exercises I also felt that the awkwardness faded and trust grew. Some politeness got in the way of specific observations. A need to generically praise.

But I felt that everyone was committed to making the most of it.

I felt very happy with the trust and openness that emerged in the group. And I felt really proud when I heard reflections from people before lunch. The insights everyone had came from the room and not just from what I had said. It was a collaborative learning space.

What were my most powerful insights?

I want to be a bit more prepared. Not to have a fixed structure. But I want to prepare in advance the various ideas I might want to present, and have a clear way of doing it. Then I can still improvise what ideas are most relevant in the moment. But if I am introducing visual hierarchy or metaphors I have a script for those.

A huge part of the value is in the group. In people meeting other people. Never let my insecurity about “teaching enough” get in the way of making room for everyone to really participate. Today I felt the need to be better prepared to teach but I need to remember that in the need it’s not about how much I say.

The overall format of interactive prompted drawing exercises and sharing works really well.

What I want to add to the mix is:

• some general warm up where we simply draw and write and practice.
• Some specific tools and ways to solve certain challenges eg complexity and switching to a different paper format.

I think people come to this with very good intentions. I think this work attracts people who are doing great things. I think the nature of how I am and how I share generously sets a tone and that people show up with a similarly generous attitude.

While some shake-ups can be good I want to stay in one venue next time.

I am proud of what I am doing.

I felt that this specific class was far from perfect. I knew that it would likely have many flaws due to my low level of preparation. And I tried to convince myself that this is part of the process but I was still afraid that I would have regrets and be mad at myself. But I’m not. It wasn’t perfect and I feel good about it. It was what it was supposed to be. And it was beautiful. We were all a little bit richer when we hugged and said goodbye today. And it wasn’t about me. It was about us. We learned from each other. We lifted each other. We all have our best.

I look so much forward to doing many more of these.