Welcome to another turbulent year! If you thought 2021 was crazy, watch out! There are many more twists and turns on the way in this new year! That’s why I created the CATALYST newsletter—to arm you with the knowledge, insights and foresight to confidently expand your influence and value in your work, no matter what the future throws at you! To help you get off to an amazing start, I’ve excerpted 32 of the brightest ideas from the CATALYST that you can use to overcome challenges, discern new possibilities and superpower your results. Each page contains a brief, inspiring insight that’s designed to help you think bigger, plan better and dare more courageously! If you love what you see here, be sure to sign up to receive the CATALYST in your inbox every other week. You can also subscribe to it on LinkedIn, if you prefer. LEARN MORE HERE Chuck Frey CATALYST catalyst@chuckfrey.com Disclaimer: The ideas shared here are summarized from each expert’s published works or from interviews I have conducted with them. They do not represent real or implied endorsements of the CATALYST or myself. CREATIVELY REFRAME YOUR CHALLENGES As human beings, we’re limited in how we’re able to view a problem. It's hard for us to redefine it differently unless we have some kind of structured method for doing so. We need a set of tools to help us see our challenges from new perspectives. They can help us sidestep our assumptions and can reveal insights that we would otherwise miss. - Stephen Shapiro, author, Invisible Solutions CAPTURE YOUR NOTES VISUALLY Capture your notes visually. You'll not only retain information better and more effectively, but you’ll also train your brain to think visually. Then, when you use Mural, Miro or other visual tools, you’ll be more adept at thinking and working in that way. - Aric Wood, CEO, XPLANE RADICALLY EXPAND YOUR GOALS Set a bigger aspiration, a bigger view of your future self. 10x your goals. Whatever view you have of your future, that’s the thing driving your behavior, your mindset, your identity in the present. - Dr. Benjamin Hardy EXPAND YOUR MENTAL TOOL BOX The more accurate and diverse mental models you have in your head, the more of a flexible, innovative problem solver you will be. The best thing you can do to prepare is to expand your thinking by consciously increasing the mental tools you have at your disposal. Be ready, be more adaptable, and simply be smarter, faster. - Arun Pradhan, Model Thinkers ENHANCE YOUR INFRASTRUCTURE Adopt a more deliberate approach to your “personal infrastructure” - tools, habits and practices that make work more fun, easier to do or completely automated. An effective personal infrastructure reduces stress, can help you focus on the task at hand and can free up time so you can be more creative. - Herbert Lui, personal growth expert SHAPE YOUR NOTES INTO VALUABLE ASSETS Don’t just take notes, make notes. Don’t just capture them and forget about them. Develop them over time, much like a skilled craftsman carving a piece of wood or stone into something remarkably beautiful. - Mike Schmitz, The Sweet Setup BE READY: FAST-MOVING OPPORTUNITIES Windows of opportunity are getting shorter and shorter today. You need to be more bold, courageous and decisive to take advantage of them. When you see one, that’s not the time to start researching because it's going to be too late. You have to be ready and have done that reading and that research before you even know the opportunity is coming. - Tiago Forte, author of Building a Second Brain ATTRACT MORE OPPORTUNITIES What if you could increase your “surface area” for opportunities? The idea is simple: The amount of serendipity in your life is directly proportional to the degree to which you do something you're passionate about, combined with the total number of people to whom you communicate your ideas. - Packy McCormick, investor and podcaster CHANGE CREATES OPPORTUNITIES When there is volatility, it opens up opportunity. When things are in flux, routines are disrupted, and it creates an opening for people to question the way things have always been done and look for alternatives. That’s where you come in. What opportunities have emerged in your world that you can take advantage of? - Dorie Clark, author of The Long Game: How to be a Long-Term Thinker in a Short Term World CULTIVATE AGILITY & RESILIENCE When you get hit by an unexpected event, you must learn to "flip your kayak faster." In other words, cultivate agility and resilience now, before you need it. So, when the unexpected happens, you can recover or course correct faster. - Stephen Brill, author of Rogue Waves: Future Proof Your Business to Survive & Profit From Radical Change SIDE GIG INSIGHTS = A UNIQUE ADVANTAGE Cultivate a second stream of income so if your primary job is interrupted, you have something to fall back on. Even if it doesn't come to that, a side gig can enhance your main job with new ideas, insights and perspectives that can give you a distinct advantage compared to your peers. - Stephen Brill, author of Rogue Waves: Future Proof Your Business to Survive & Profit From Radical ADOPT A DRAGONFLY’S VIEW OF PROBLEMS Adopt a “dragonfly eye.” Dragonflies have large, compound eyes, with thousands of lenses and photoreceptors sensitive to different wavelengths of light. The creative equivalent is to widen the aperture on a problem or view it through multiple lenses. By doing so, we can identify threats or opportunities beyond the periphery of our vision. - McKinsey & Company DEVELOP CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS The essential skill needed in this century is critical thinking - learning how to make sense of the vast amounts of information that bombards us on a daily basis. It's about making judgments based on well thought out and logical reasons. - Samia Khalid LATERAL THINKING OPENS OPPORTUNITIES If we only view our challenge from a single perspective, we quickly hit the wall. The variety and value of the ideas we can generate will be very limited. Lateral thinking - viewing our problem from multiple perspectives tends to be much more fruitful. It gives us more pathways to follow, which in turn enables us to sidestep barriers to our thinking. - Chuck Frey CONSTANTLY EXPAND YOUR THINKING Instead of treating our world as a zerosum game, you must be conscious of, and believe in, the opportunity to constantly expand your thinking, abilities and potentialities. As you do, you quite naturally see things others don't. Innovating becomes part of your fundamental way of operating. In the process, you increase your ability to adapt. - Larry Robertson, futurist CONTINUALLY EXPLORE & EXPERIMENT Life is generative. It’s not about looking inward or maintaining the status quo (which is an illusion, anyway!). It’s about exploring, experimenting, trial-and-error, keeping what works and building upon it. - Chuck Frey IT’S NOT TOO LATE - START NOW! The best business ideas have yet to be tried. The best books have yet to be written. The best relationships have yet to be formed. It’s not too late. The space of possibilities is endless. The most interesting terrain remains unexplored. - James Clear, author of Atomic Habits EXTEND YOUR THINKING WITH VISUAL TOOLS The tools we use shape the way we think - especially today's cognitive tools. Capturing your ideas outside your brain using visual thinking tools and models enables you to extend and enhance your thinking. They give you a uniquely powerful set of "lenses" you can use to view challenges from different perspectives. - Chuck Frey UNLOCK EXPONENTIAL OPPORTUNITIES Most of us are locked into incremental thinking. We're conditioned to do so by schooling, work environments and societal pressures. But visual thinking can help you unlock exponential opportunities that may be 10x or 100x what you can imagine now. The ability to see trends, patterns and inferences - to connect the dots - can help you be more successful. - Chuck Frey BOUNCE BACK STRONGER FROM SETBACKS We’ve all been through a lot during the last two years. We’ve endured many challenges and setbacks. Sometimes, challenges give us a powerful springboard to leap forward, stronger than ever. Armed with motivation, perseverance and faith, you can leap forward and leverage the opportunities before you! - Chuck Frey BECOME AN IMPACT PLAYER The most successful employees at a company pick up on what’s important to others - then get it done. They develop a reputation as the impact players within an organization and receive a constant stream of new and bigger opportunities. - Liz Wiseman, Fast Company BECOME INDISPENSABLE - A LINCHPIN The only people who have job security today are "linchpins" - creative souls who bring unique perspectives, ideas and passion to their work, and transform it in the process. They make connections and see trends and emerging issues that the rest of us can't even imagine. They contribute massive value to their organizations. And they're needed more than ever. - Seth Godin, Linchpin INCREASE YOUR VALUE WITH CREATIVITY The only real job security today is in finding your unique value and finding ways to express it through your work – to make a unique, highly valuable, irreplaceable contribution. Being creative and bringing more art to your work not only increases your value with your present employer. It also makes you much more employable wherever you go next. - Seth Godin, Linchpin EXPAND YOUR RANGE OF INPUTS Linchpins bring deeper insight and abundant creativity to their work. They consume a diverse range of inputs, which enable them to see connections, discern trends and patterns in information and uncover opportunities before any of their peers. This enables them to provide massive value to their employers. - Seth Godin, Linchpin ADD 10x MORE NOVELTY TO YOUR LIFE Massively increase the amount of novelty in your life. Research shows that new environments and experiences are often the jumping-off points for new ideas. - Peter Diamandis, futurist and XPRIZE founder REWIRE YOUR BRAIN FOR OPPORTUNITIES Find a unique problem you can solve for your customers. Immerse yourself in everything you can find. Capture your findings. Record your thoughts about it. Explore how others have solved similar problems. What patterns and connections do you see? These steps will help you refocus your brain and prime it to be aware of potential solutions. - Karl Warren, author of Your Million Dollar Briefcase UPGRADE YOUR INFORMATION DIET Cultivating a "personal early warning system" to help you anticipate change is one of the new rules for success. Upgrade your information diet. Instead of passively scrolling through your daily news feed, which is the equivalent of junk food, learn a new topic a week. It doesn't take much time, and it can radically upgrade the possibilities you see. - Robert Tucker, innovation expert and futurist BECOME A “DOT CONNECTOR” In our world of unprecedented change and innovation, the future belongs to the "dot connectors" - those unique souls who are able to see patterns, make connections and sense trends and shifts that no one else is even aware of. - Chuck Frey BE PERSISTENT IN TRYING NEW APPROACHES Lateral thinking is one of the most valuable skills during challenging times. It means coming at a problem from a fresh direction. You sidestep the obvious, and you try something different. The lateral thinker persistently tries other approaches, even though some of them may seem crazy. That's why he or she is so valuable in today's organizations. - Paul Sloane, innovation expert and author of numerous lateral thinking books EXERCISE YOUR MIND DAILY Generating 10 ideas a day forces your brain to "break a sweat," pushing it beyond its normal limits. It strengthens your idea muscle. They don't have to be amazing ideas. Just good ones. Remember, you're just practicing. Maintain a list of thoughtprovoking prompts you can use as prompts to prime your brain to generate your daily quota of ideas. - James Altucher EXPLORE THE “ADJACENT POSSIBLE” As the pace of technology continues to accelerate on multiple fronts at once, individual creators have more freedom to leverage the possibilities they spin off to create new businesses, side-gigs and other forms of tremendous personal value. They reside within the "adjacent possible," the long list of first-order possibilities that opens up whenever a new discovery is made. - Peter Diamandis, futurist and XPRIZE founder SHARE THE WEALTH! Ideas are powerful. They can help you leap tall buildings at a single bound. Stop a speeding bullet. Save the train about to jump the tracks. They’re even MORE POWERFUL when they’re shared! Please feel free to share this guide with your colleagues, coworkers and anyone else who needs a potent shot of career adrenaline. Also, if you think it’s worthwhile, I’d appreciate it if you would share it on your social media channels. Thank you! chuckfrey.com/catalyst
