In the past couple of years I noticed something about me. I was very focused on what I needed to do at work and what I wanted to achieve that I began to see everything else as a distraction.
What kind of distractions?
You know how sometimes you get an email or a call from someone who wants to meet up with you and you’re not sure by the Googling of his company name how he is going to be able to help you with what you want to achieve. Or worse that he might just be trying to sell you something.
Or sometimes when you’re not sure if you should bother going for a business trip, or a conference, or a seminar because you can already predict what’s going to happen on the trip or what’s going to be said at the conference so you don’t see much value going.
That was me in the past few years and I carried on like that, insulating myself from all these distractions so I could focus on the task at hand.
Then one day I was reading about Warren Buffett and how he spends half his work day not working, but actually reading. Google “The 5 hour rule” and you’ll see this practice where entrepreneurs or business leaders make it a point to spend 5 hours a week learning something new.
“New” here is the keyword. Hearing something that you already knew or reinforcing your current convictions isn’t new. Instead something you never thought about or knew about.
That’s not to say I don’t read at all. On the contrary I read a lot every day. I spend a lot of time on Twitter every day reading news but I’m not sure how much being updated with news counts. Beyond that I began to realize that I wasn’t really learning much more than I already did. And if I wasn’t learning then how am I able to grow.
Just like Jim Carrey in “Yes Man” I changed my attitude. I started saying YES to more meetings and YES to more business trips and YES to more conferences. Even if I think they might be a total waste of time. I don’t (and I can’t) attend them all but I make it a point to attend at least some of them. To break out of my routine and do it.
This experience has changed me. After so many years I finally decided to make a trip to Philippines to visit our office there and our partners there (in the past our team there would fly to see us). Just this trip to the Philippines I’ve had a number of meetings that I didn’t think anything will come out of but I came out with new ways to improve our business and new perspectives.
I attended a meeting where I was effectively “pitched to” but during that meeting I also learned things and was given insights that I never knew about a different industry.
I now remembered how I was when Netccentric was just a baby, I was a hungry learner. I read about everything and talked to many people about anything. I didn’t turn down any meetings, I attended them all and more. Each of these meetings I made it a point to learn something and if there is nothing to learn then we just end the meetings early.
This experience was a reminder to me. The day we get fixated to our own convictions and close ourselves to outside learning and thoughts is the day we stop growing as entrepreneurs. The day we stop growing as entrerpeneurs is the day our businesses start dying.
So from now on I’ve decided to dedicate at least 5 hours of my week learning something be it talking to someone about something I never knew before, reading a book or researching a topic online that might interest me. I would encourage my kids to do the same too when they’re old enough.
Timothy Tiah – Co-Founder of Colony, Kuala Lumpur Co-Working Space