By Sean Devlin, Front Rush
This week, I digressed from technology…
“Love something besides magic, in the arts. Get inspired by a particular poet, film-maker, sculptor, composer. You will never be the first Brian Allen Brushwood of magic if you want to be Penn & Teller. But if you want to be, say, the Salvador Dali of magic, we’ll THERE’S an opening.”
This excerpt is from an email between celebrity magician Teller (Penn & Teller) and a young up-and-coming magician Brian Bushwood.
I read the above in a blog post and my head exploded with the simplicity and obvious nature of it, yet we all practice this so little. It’s true. Think about how often you look to your peers or predecessors for inspiration but rarely look outside the coaching world. Or think about how often you emulate your competition instead of seeing how others in a different domain dealt with their challenges. We all fall into this trap of tunnel vision so let’s explore the idea of breaking away a bit.
Let’s start with an example that you are already using with this blog/newsletter. You are learning techniques that Dan Tudor has taken from a parallel industry (sales) and applying it to your own (recruiting). It’s a small chasm to cross to make the leap from recruiting to sales yet the lessons and strategy and passage are the same.
So let’s step further outside our comfort zone, and look at magic. Is your presentation style that of David Copperfield: very dramatic, very elegant, very artistic. Or more of a David Blaine: up close and personal, very raw, very simple. Or maybe you are the Chris Angel of the recruiting world? Where else? What about music? Could you learn from the calculation of Mozart or the business of KISS or maybe the intelligence of Tupac? What if you research business leaders? Are there lessons from Rockefeller and his outright declaration of war on his competition or Warren Buffett and his focus on the long term?
In the competitive world of college recruiting where so many coaches and schools are looking to “stand out” or find their niche, one great way to do so is look beyond your initial surroundings. Instead of looking at the person next to you, look to outside worlds…look to presidents and world leaders…look to artists and musicians…look to engineers…look to war heroes…look to ancient cultures. Expand your recruiting and coaching by incorporating ideas found far off of the playing surface.