Unlock your exhaustive mind's true potential by learning to "think like a designer". This human-centered approach transforms overthinking into a superpower, guiding your thoughts toward innovation. Embrace empathy, prototyping, and strategic testing to solve problems effectively and drive success in every aspect of your life.

Is your exhaustive mind a burden or a superpower? I believe it's the latter. By embracing your constant thoughts and channeling them strategically through analogy, intersection, and patience, you can transform overthinking into a powerful tool for innovation and success in life and work.

Navigating daily interactions reveals that negotiation extends beyond high-stakes scenarios to every exchange. Understanding human agendas, utilizing frameworks like Maslow's Hierarchy, and recognizing the importance of vulnerability can foster collaboration. By embracing these insights and a comprehensive mindset, we can transform negotiations into opportunities for mutually beneficial outcomes and deeper connections.

In our interconnected world, communication is the lifeblood of relationships, both personal and professional. It’s the bridge that connects ideas, fosters understanding, and drives progress. Yet, despite its ubiquity, effective communication remains a skill many of us struggle to master. We often find ourselves replaying conversations in our heads, second-guessing our words, and wondering if we truly conveyed our intended message.

We all juggle numerous responsibilities and actions that can significantly impact our mental state, particularly for those with an "exhaustive mind," a term that perfectly encapsulates the experience of constant overthinking. Let’s delve into how these actions intertwine with our thoughts and emotions, potentially leading to overthinking and anxiety. The experience of never being able to "turn off" one’s thoughts is common.

In today's complex world, individuals juggle multiple roles, each with its own set of responsibilities and expectations. These roles can significantly contribute to overthinking and anxiety. This synopsis will delve into the impacts of our life roles on our mental state and share tips for drafting a manifesto to better define these roles and their importance. Various life events and responsibilities trigger and exacerbate overthinking.

Working in the world that we do, we hear terms like innovation and strategy quite often. I want to take some time to look at innovation, with the help of some resources used in post-graduate coursework I was challenged with completing. The course was titled Leading Innovation, and we discussed an article by Diego Rodriguez from IDEO which really resonated with me.

In my last post I mentioned the importance of self-awareness which can be guided by a manifesto. While I dive deeper into his in my manuscript, here I wanted to also share an abridged version which I think of in my ancestral Choctaw language to give you this: Aloshumo hosh tahli ahni - "With great effort (diligently) finish thinking" In the realm of the exhaustive mind, where thoughts swirl and possibilities abound, it's easy to get lost in the maze of our own minds.

As we navigate the labyrinth of life, our minds are constantly bombarded with thoughts, ideas, and emotions. One of the biggest contributors to this mental maelstrom is the multitude of roles we play. As we grow, we don't simply replace old roles with new ones; we accumulate them. We form new relationships, existing ones evolve, and our sphere of influence expands.

At the risk of oversimplification, I want to narrow the focus of the customer experience through the use of four areas. Some of these will sound familiar, and proactive apologies for some terminology that may have dual meaning in our world. Discovery. This application of discovery is an ongoing situation during which we consistently seek to understand our customers. By actively listening to the requests and goals of the client, we need to ensure that we have a strong understanding of not only the technical requirements of a project or task, but also the business impact to the client.

Taking a moment to move away from the Exhaustive Mind content to share an old blog post I made in 2017 for our internal resource at 10up. As our company makes some shifts, the principles shared in this post have once again become relevant to share with our team, so it seemed reasonable to also post this content here for posterity!

When I find myself distracted during the day, I will often take some steps outside the house, and combine meditation with my next gardening tool, exercise. A walking meditation can be a rejuvenating experience as you burn some calories and think actively on a given topic or thought. There are a number of walking meditation options through exercise and meditation apps, so give them a go and see if it works for you.

It is tricky to take the context of a long-form manuscript and make it make sense through the medium of a bog, but here we go. Previously I shared how I give my thoughts a location to flourish through journals and a structured(ish) practice. Now I want to share how I give my thoughts space through meditation. Meditation for me is not what you think of, it is more about making the time & space to let my brain do its thing and generate some seeds to plant into action.

Spoiler alert, I am big on analogies. When thinking about ways to give your thoughts space to explore, I kept coming back to a garden. So here we go, we’re going to garden our thoughts as we give them space, plant seeds, fertilize them, cultivate them, and hopefully harvest them into something fruitful. Plus my son gets annoyed by puns, so I may secretly hope this focus on analogous thinking really grows on him.

Hard to believe it's been over two years since my last post. I can confess to how easy it is to neglect a blog when it really isn't part of your daily, weekly, or even monthly routine. While I've always had great intentions for this documentation of my life, I've clearly never gotten into a consistent cadence for updating things. So I'm going to try and change that...again.