Taking A.I.M. at learning something new
How do you feed your need to continue learning and growing?
For me, attending workshops run by those I respect is one way…
Although I’m not a huge workshop attendee-person - not a thing, but, close enough - I do make time for those that I respect, especially when they’re offering something extra special, juicy info, :)
Recently, a colleague, Mike Roderick, put on a workshop called Taking A.I.M. - which stands for Accessibility, Influence and Memory.
For 4 hours, he shared with the room a series of insights, frameworks and strategies meant to educate us on how to become more memorable to those we serve, and thus, book more clients for our service-based industries.
Now, Mike and I have worked together for a bit now - I’ve also had the pleasure of photographing his most recent branded lifestyle portrait session. - so, I was prepared to learn a ton of shit in a short amount of time.
When he speaks, generally, I listen, because I know something I would’ve never thought of will pop into my head as he does, and it will spawn something awesome for my business as a whole.
He has a way of synthesizing such complicated, confusing and abstract concepts into not only digestible, but, actionable steps that you can apply directly into your own workflow.
Although I took pages and pages of notes, had several enlightening conversations with fellow attendees, and left feeling excited about implementing some of these strategies into my content, my biggest takeaway was around this major point:
Package your intellectual property in a way that is easily shareable amongst your colleagues, mentors and communities in which you serve. If they can’t describe what you do, then, it will be hard for you to be referred.
Although time has passed since the workshop, this concept is still marinating in my mind because I now understand the importance of synthesizing and streamlining my messaging in order for it to be spread amongst those who need to hear it most.
I’m thinking about grouping certain high-level concepts that I often share into easily digestible acronyms, bundling certain pieces of content together in order to create a booklet that I can share with everyone who stops by my site, and re-structuring my talks so that I can cut out the unnecessary and amplify the key points in a way that I’m not doing now.
So yeah, this workshop definitely got the wheels of creativity turning in mind, which is exactly what I knew would happen.
...and I blame Mike Roderick for it, :)
If you’re interested in finding out more about him, how he serves his audience and if he’s the right fit to help get you past the challenges you’re facing in your business, then stop by and say hello to him.
Back to the question I posed at the top of this article…
How do you feed your need to continue learning and growing? Reading, writing and reflecting alone? Or, do you prefer a community environment such as a workshop?
PS - For those of you who aren’t in the know, I mail out these blogs 3x a week, and lemme tell you, they’re a real party, so, if you’d like to get in on this, sign up for it here and I’ll throw in a free gift for you, because I care, :)