Tag: WootSuitRiot

Openness to Learn

mirror photography of trees on hill
Photo by Steve Halama on Unsplash

Unrelated to the post below, but this is my 200th blog post! I hit post number 100 in March of 2018, which feels like forever at this point. Here’s to another 200 more!

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On a long(ish) car ride with my mother-in-law over the holidays, we got chatting on the subject of learning from experience. She reminded me of something I’ve known for some time, yet keep forgetting: if you keep an open mind, you can learn something from everyone.

I don’t think this is a trite piece of advice, though often it comes from an experience we would otherwise hope to forget. In my case, I tend to forget this bit of wisdom as I have developed a bad habit of being somewhat dismissive or condescending. There really is no excuse for it – nothing in my experience explains why I’ve adopted this mindset. I just developed the attitude gradually over time.

But it’s good to be reminded that with the right mindset, every encounter you have with others can be an opportunity to learn something, whether that is a piece of knowledge that is exchanged, or if through your interaction with them you learn something about yourself. Rather than seeing things through the lens of whether the person adding or subtracting value (e.g. “this was a waste of my time”) we should look at it from a growth perspective – “what did I learn or discover about myself that I can carry forward and do things better in the future?” This also dovetails nicely with a vlog post I put up recently about finding your tools along the way.

By reframing things this way, you open yourself to serendipitous opportunities to grow and develop. Or, at the very least, you take yourself (and your time) a little less seriously.

Stay Awesome,

Ryan

Finding My Blog Voice

Last week, I reflected on the WootSuit Youtube channel about finding my voice.  There, the point of the video was reflecting on what kind of voice I wanted for the vlog (tone, topics, purpose, intent, delivery, etc.), but the reflection also covered this blog as well.

When I first set up the blog a few years back, it was intended to be an online public-facing journal of my return to school for paramedicine.  Then, life happened and I decided to indefinitely shelve that idea, but I kept blog running since I found value in it.  The blog forced me to be productive and write regularly every week with the intention of publishing.

Over time, the topics have tended to concentrate of a few areas, mostly related to my professional lives – being a board member and Chair of a non-profit, teaching and learning, personal development, and health/fitness.

Yet, throughout these roughly connected topics, I’ve yet to intentionally create a through line that presents a coherent, meaningful voice.  Thankfully I’m not intentionally trying to market myself through this blog because I don’t have the first clue who my audience is beyond myself.  That’s not all bad, though.  I write for myself and it’s a process of discovery for me.  Writing helps me to organize my thoughts as I attempt to articulate them outside of my head in a way that makes sense for someone else.

A consequence of this approach, though, is a haphazard set of reflections and a bit of a scattered voice.  Sure, it’s my voice, but it’s not one that I’m satisfied with.

As I said in the video, I don’t yet have a good answer.  This post is not intended to be an announcement of some new direction for the site.  It’s just a reflection from a person who still doesn’t really have things figured out (yet).

Stay Awesome,

Ryan