The innovation discussed

Identifying, cultivating, properly applying, and accepting people’s tendencies, possibly your own, for productive rather than destructive outcomes.

 

What YOU can do with this innovation

Make use, or better use, of the rebel talent around you and within you, for a bigger impact or cause in life.

About a month ago, I had my first listen to the Hidden Brain podcast, suggested to me by a summer intern colleague name Rebekah. I didn’t even have to sift through their archives before an episode of their You 2.0 series caught my attention. It was about self-improvement, on which I am big in life.

The episode was about the rebel spirit. More accurately, it was about rebel “talent”, or how to hone that spirit to be a productive, rather than destructive, kind of rebel… or a rebel with a cause, as Francesca Gino calls it. That’s not her in the picture below, by the way.

The concept really resonated with me because that, in many ways, is at the core of my character. I tend to do and see things differently, but not just for the sake of it. There are usually good and practical reasons behind that rebel spirit, often to answer if whatever it is couldn’t be improved in some way. I don’t often do this on a first go, though, unless it were easy enough to see how something could be hacked in the moment. I often learn to do things the way it’s meant to be, to understand how it works, before taking some of it apart to improve on it. Other times, it’s just a matter of what I “bring to the game”. Why make something a whole bunch of others could do? Here, the rebel spirit is to add some identity and uniqueness to whatever that is, where that uniqueness gives it added value, rather than ruin or devalue it. That’s sometimes subjective, of course, but that’s the intent… and it has more value in my eyes, at least, with a story on how and why.

Regardless, I’ve really taken to the concept to have bought the Rebel Talent book by Professor Gino, and have gone on to her Rebel Talent website to find out much more. The main trait for it, curiosity, happens to be my #2 Signature Strength (that I confirmed some months back and had been trying to use more to be more effective and happier as a person. Her definition of it and that in positive psychology are compatible. Creativity was by #1 Signature Strength, by the way. I apparently know what to do with something even more than to challenge it, after I challenge it! 😉

 

 

If you have, think you have, or wish you had, any rebel spirit / talent in you, I would highly recommend you check out Professor Gino’s work. Next up for me will be identifying where I can best deploy and exploit my rebel talent. However, that might take at least a few months, if not the rest of this year, because another future post will share some work I am undertaking to design the next phase of my life. I will make sure my rebel talent is included, and strategically placed to make the best use of it!

 

Please click here to see more tweets on innovation via my Digitalcitizen Twitter.

For more innovation related posts on this blog, please click here. Thank you.