August 7

Sometimes experience is your worst enemy. While having a broad base of past work can help you form connections and make intuitive leaps, it can also cause you to make assumptions about what is and isn’t possible and can limit the ideas you are willing to explore. Your own experiences can box you in and cause you to miss brilliant ideas that are right in front of you because you’re looking past them.

This is especially true when you’ve experienced a degree of success in your life and work. Once you have something to protect, it can be difficult to take small risks that might put your reputation in jeopardy.

As you consider your work today, think about how you can become a beginner again. Ask: “What might I do if I didn’t know what I know?” or “What assumption am I making that needs to be challenged?”

The beauty of being a beginner is that you don’t know what you don’t know. And that can mean new pathways to explore and unexpected dots to connect.

When we shed the assumptions and residue born from our experiences, we see our work in new and exciting ways.

QUESTION

How can you approach your work like a beginner today?