Professional Development: 3 Secrets to Diversify Your Learning

Copyright (c) 2008 Christine Kloser

Have you ever found yourself sitting in a seminar room hearing the same information over and over again? I admit this has happened to me many times. While typical business seminars are a great way to network, be visible, and learn (or be reminded of) some great business strategies, it'll serve you well to diversify your learning.

I speak about this from the personal experience I had at the 2007 Evolutionary Women retreat. It was the first "non-business" event I attended in more years than I care to count. I had been so focused on "business, business, business" that I only invested my time, money and energy in the usual business seminars and conferences. Along the way, I've learned invaluable information that has changed my business, and my life.

But, it's gotten to a point now where I realize I already know what I need to know to grow my business right now. I don't need any more information... or any more ideas to distract me from my mission and purpose. (I'm sure you can relate to what I'm talking about.) Sure, I'll still attend traditional business seminars, but I've decided to invest more of my time, money and energy into more diverse learning environments this coming year.

There are three reasons to diversify your learning, especially as a conscious entrepreneur because your business only evolves as much as you do. If you're not exposing yourself to new and diverse environments for learning, you may be missing out on the exact experience that's going to help everything fall into place. So, get ready to open your heart and soul to new opportunities that excite, and call you... opportunities that invite you to discover and BE more of who you are. In case you're not already convinced it's time to expand your horizons, here are three reasons to get on board:

Reason #1: New Understanding

Notice that I didn't say new knowledge. You already know so much, I doubt you really need to learn a whole lot more. I use the word "understanding" because, as a conscious entrepreneur, it's your responsibility to continually deepen your understanding; understanding of yourself, others, your passion, your purpose, your spirituality, your fears, your priorities... everything. The more you understand who you are, where you are, where you're going and the "reason" for it all... the easier the journey is to getting there. For instance, as a result of being at the 2007 Evolutionary Women conference I have a much deeper understanding of how important it is for me to attend events with a spiritual component. This is where understanding takes on a whole new level for me.

This understanding doesn't come from sitting in a seminar room where you listen to same the speakers and scribble down a bunch of notes; it comes from exposing yourself to new environments and new speakers that give you the time and space to be with yourself in a way that allows you to experience a new understanding.

Reason #2: New Perspective

Allowing yourself to be in a new learning environment opens you up to gaining an entirely new perspective. When you attend the same types of events over and over again (with the same speakers) it can become a waste of your valuable time. It's usually the same information making its "rounds" again where everyone has the same perspective.

Whereas, when you enter into a new learning environment (with new teachers), it's easy to gain a new perspective. Why? Because you're learning from speakers/teachers who are not the "same as usual"... they aren't speaking from the same PERSPECTIVE. New speakers/teachers make it easy for you to see new things; a new way of being, new wisdom, new insight and a new way of looking at everything. I invite you, like I did, to attend an event where you can learn from speakers/teachers that you haven't heard before. You'll open up in new and miraculous ways and begin seeing things differently. Chances are you'll gain insight that was exactly what you need to experience the success you desire.

Reason #3: New Relationships

The third reason to diversify your learning is to establish new relationships, because relationships are the most valuable asset you have in your business. When you diversify your learning environments, you instantly diversify the types of people you meet and the relationships you establish. More often than not, when you walk into a new learning environment, you won't see a lot of familiar faces. This is good news! Because, it gently nudges you to reach out and make new connections.

For instance, when I was at Celebrate Your Life Conference, I only knew 3 people out of 1500! Nobody knew anything about me, my business, my books, my publishing company... nothing. So, it nudged me out of my usual comfort zone of having a lot of people know me and I struck up conversations with new people... and have formed some very valuable business relationships as a result.

As you can see from these three reasons to diversify your learning, you have nothing to lose and everything to gain. I admit, sometimes it's scary to enter a "new room"... but there's such an extraordinary possibility that occurs in these new environments that it's well worth taking the risk to try something new.