How to Be an Innovator for Life

During the workday I nearly always have music or a podcast playing in the background. When I’m doing mundane or mindless work (i.e. html), I love listening to podcasts or videos in the background. My favorite podcast series is the Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders series by Stanford, and thus far, my favorite speaker in the series has been Tom Kelley and his topic titled, “Young at Heart: How to Be an Innovator for Life.” Tom is the General Manager at IDEO and has authored several books. Here’ a link to listen to the opening lines of his speech: Intro: “Young at Heart: How to be Be an Innovator for Life”

I won’t spoil it for you, but here is a list of Tom’s 5 habits or keys to staying young at heart and being an innovator for life:

1. Think Like a Traveler.
2. Treat Life as an Experiment
3. Use Your Whole Brain and Your Tortoise Mind
4. Find Your Muse
5. Follow Your Passion

You download and listen to the whole podcast via iTunes. Or, if you go directly to the page on Standford’s site dedicated to Tom Kelley’s talk, you can listen to the entire podcast and also view and download individual video clips of each segment.

My favorite portion of the podcast is when Tom discusses following your passion and doing what you love. Here’s a short video of this segment from Stanford’s site:

The hardest question is asking yourself, “What are you born to do?” To figure this out for himself, Jim Collins recorded his best moments in a lab notebook, and I’ve begun to do the same. One page in my Moleskine is titled, “Moments I Feel Most Alive.” The second page is titled, “Moments I’m at My Best,” and the third page is titled, “When I’m in a State of Flow.” I plan to track myself daily for the next six months to see what I can learn about myself. After all, I plan to stay young at heart, and of course, be an innovator for life.

Click play to listen to the podcast!

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