Made famous in the United States by famed Australian philosopher Crocodile Dundee, a walkabout is a journey through the wilderness of one's choosing to satisfy an itch, a desire to be elsewhere, the craving for the open road, or to engage the space over the horizon.
A walkabout can be a simple bike ride to your local art museum or possibly a more adventurous cross-continental journey to the top of Mount Kilimanjaro. A walkabout can be joining the local historical society or taking a gap year to teach economics in Canada.
Regardless of the distance traveled or the actions taken, your imagination will thank you for the change of scenery. The brain gets too comfortable in your everyday surroundings. Same morning routine. Same office commute. Same weekly meetings. Same quarterly reports. Same yearly industry conference. Sameness overload.
This sameness can suppress your ability to generate new ideas.
Without generating new ideas, you become a manager and not a leader.
Changing up the pace, the people, the poetry can have profound results. From developing new skills and insights, but more importantly, your ability to generate new ideas.
You are a mashup of what you let into your life - friends, meals, music, books, art, lectures, movies, experiences, etc.
Every new idea is a mashup of one or more previous ideas. Without developing new ideas, the mashup process stalls.
So make time for that walkabout. Big or small, your imagination will thank you.
-Marc A. Ross
Marc A. Ross is the founder of Caracal Global and specializes in global communications and thought leader management at the intersection of politics, policy, and profits. Working with boardrooms and C-Suite executives from multinational corporations, trade associations, and disruptive startups, Marc helps business leaders navigate globalization, disruption, and American politics.
