The rabbit hole that changed by business

As I looked around the Lincoln Center auditorium, I felt like a fish out of water. I wondered if I was wasting my time. Little did I know, I was about to discover something that would significantly change the trajectory of my business.

I’d bought a ticket to the 99U conference for career designers and creatives.

My only goal in attending was to bump into new ideas. One of the ideas I bumped into was Design Thinking, a process used for solving problems and designing products.

Today, Design Thinking is at the core of my business strategy and online course development approach. It’s allowed me to launch successful products faster for myself and my clients.

There was no clear ROI for attending 99U when I bought the ticket. Yet, I invested three workdays and several hundred dollars to go.

Why? Curiosity.

The thing with curiosity is that it’s one way our intuition speaks to us.

Following curiosity down a rabbit hole may or may not pay off, but the payoff is often big when it does. May of the best business innovations occur when an idea from one industry is applied to another. For example, Steve Jobs used his knowledge of calligraphy when designing the first Apple computers.

This is why I dedicate time to “rabbit hole learning.” The trick is to set limits to this time.

Recently, my rabbit hole learning took me into the world of blockchain, the metaverse, and artificial intelligence.

These disruptive forces will change every industry in the next several years. I’m confident my current rabbit hole learning will set the foundation for my business and life five years from now.

Being an industry leader requires innovation. Innovation requires raw input from a variety of sources and topics.

As we begin 2022, I invite you to block “rabbit hole” learning time into your schedule. Consider what topics your curiosity is pulling you toward.

It might just unlock the next breakthrough in your business and body of work.