Your way of thinking is an asset.
A few weeks ago, I was working with a client who shared with me his frustration about not being able to communicate his ideas with his team and his leaders in an easy-to-understand way.
He said, “Donnie, I can see all the pieces and have clarity about the outcome I’m trying to get to, but when it comes time to actually communicate the vision or the plan, I ramble and feel like I’m all over the place.”
For many of my entrepreneurs and business leaders, this is common. They’re thoughtful, brilliant, and quick; they’re able to synthesize A LOT of information from drastically different topic areas; they’re holistic in their viewpoint; they’re able to hold and/or connect many moving pieces; and more often than not, they’ve already seen this picture and know what their team or organization needs to do to set themselves up for the next several years.
As you can imagine, this is both a gift and a curse.
If this is true for you, then there’s no doubt that you have this natural ability to connect the dots or intuit so much but when it comes to simplifying that info, it’s a challenge.
- How do you organize your wisdom, your expertise, and the abundance of ideas swirling around in your head?
- How do translate them in a digestible way so people can more easily understand?
This kind of mental gymnastics can feel daunting. But usually, what makes it worse is not being able to explain why you see things the way you do or how you got to the conclusion you got to.
For my client, his clarity and recommendation didn’t come to him in a sequential way. I’m guessing, if you’re reading this, the same is true for you.
So I asked him:
Have you ever made it okay for you to be a non-linear thinker?
*Queue crickets*
After a solid minute or two of silence, he broke into laughter and said, “Huh….no…I’ve never even heard of non-linear thinking.” (To be fair, that phrase came to me during that conversation.)
At that moment, a flood of clarity rushed in as he realized just how much pressure he was putting on himself to communicate in a more structured, linear way.
He started to recount times in both his personal and professional life where he made his non-linear way of thinking wrong and beat himself up for “not thinking like other people,” “not getting it right,” or “not being able to be more succinct.”
It was beautiful to watch his face and body relax as he leaned more into this idea of being a leader who is a non-linear thinker.
It was a permission slip. It was self-honoring. It gave him space to let his ideas and his way of working flow.
So how about you? Have you ever made it okay for you to be a leader or an entrepreneur who is a non-linear thinker?
Today, there are many names for non-linear thinkers – creative, visionary, intuitive, disruptor, the “odd one.”
Some of them have positive associations. Some of them, not so much.
What is clear is that in many of our day-to-day interactions, you might notice people get short or frustrated with you because your brain doesn’t go from A to B to C.
Instead, it often takes you on a rollercoaster ride of ideas going from A to E to Z to D…and it’s important to honor that.
The good news is, you can intentionally work on becoming more structured in your communication.
The not-so-good news is, if you continue to demonize or negate your way of thinking versus seeing it as an asset, (thank you Maraliz Campos) you will continue to throw out some of your secret sauce and competitive edge because your specific clients are most likely over traditional approaches.
They want something new, and your holistic, non-linear way of thinking helps them create that.
Here’s what this means for you now. Like my client, he got clarity that he needed to cultivate a different way for working with himself.
At the end of our call, we identified some new approaches he could incorporate into his working habits to help him embrace his unique approach to leading his project and communicating with his team.
So how will you make your non-linear way of thinking one of your assets?
Attribution: Photo by Tara W from Pexels
© 2022 Donell Hill
About Donnie Hill
Imagine a world where business and community leaders are well-rested, well-paid, and deeply appreciated not only for the work they do, but for who they are. Donnie believes business and leadership development can be paths for healing and community restoration. He is the Founder and CEO of Life Maximizer LLC, a coaching and consulting company dedicated to personal development, business growth strategy, and mental health / burnout recovery for leaders.
Donnie’s work as a restorative leadership and business advisor allows him to combine his former work as a Certified Cancer Coach, his personal healing journey and his trauma-informed approach with his Stanford University education and experience as a communication coach, a marketing strategist, and a sales facilitator. He now supports impact-focused leaders build their business and thought leadership presence in a strategic and sustainable way so they can maximize their contribution within their communities without sacrificing their wellbeing and burning themselves out.