I’m hiking in the Red Rock canyons of southwestern Utah with my well-worn journal in hand. It took millions upon millions of years for the multicolored rock strata to interplay with wind and water to create this natural sculpture garden and yet, the sand under my footprints will disappear within minutes. It is in this place, where I step out of the tyranny of the immediate, that some my most productive work occurs. I don’t force my thinking here—dots connect, and ideas reveal themselves.

Normally, we’re expected to think hard and do it fast. It’s time to fix things! That certainly can be the case, but sometimes that’s exactly what you don’t want to do.

In this fast moving and chaotic world of business, I counsel my clients that they should frame their operations with this rough demarcation of time:

• 70%: Devoted to running their business model. Unless things are an utter disaster, execute on the processes that run the machine that you built.

• 20%: Devoted to improving, innovating and applying fixes to your business model. Despite your best planning, the marketplace won’t always show up in expected ways, so engage in those activities that allow you to rapidly and nimbly respond to what is relevant.
• 10%: Devoted to experiencing things beyond your operating model. This is the space of unfettered curiosity done for the joy of growth and experience.

Transformational value comes from creating approaches that surprise and delight people by offering them products and services they didn’t even know they wanted—not just better than what they already desire. Sure, it’s important to study the competition, but if that’s all you’re doing, chances are you’ll come up with some ways to improve an existing set of offerings.

I encourage you to go well out outside of the obvious. Place yourself in those unexpected places of awe and wonder and, importantly, resist the strong urge to find quick applications for what you are experiencing.

Personally, I like to find myself walking art galleries, taking hikes deep into nature, and especially traveling off the beaten path. Listening to podcasts about history have proven to be as much—if not more—valuable than listening to business-oriented pod casts for instance.

Don’t get me wrong: this is an “and” activity, not an “or.” I’ve learned plenty from business podcasts, but those learnings tend to be of the type that I can immediately transfer into an existing challenge somewhere else in my work life. That kind of direct learning can be invaluable, and I encourage everyone to carve out time for it. Those that learn rapidly, navigate change rapidly.

However, if you want to create the changes that others will have to navigate, I have found that having the courage to experience something without quickly figuring out its application is key.  That courage comes from the confidence that your smarty pants brain will ultimately connect the dots.

There are a couple of reasons that have taught me why this is the wise path. The first is that when one is looking for a quick fix, one tends to see and act upon what one expects.  The issue with this is that you are probably seeing and thinking in ways that are familiar to everyone else.

The second rationale for this patient practice has to do with the nature of how great ideas emerge. Oh, wouldn’t it be great if market-changing ideas fell from the sky, fully formed, ready to go and wrapped in a nice red bow?  Sorry, not likely….not impossible, but surely not likely.

What is likely, is that great ideas come in bits and pieces and over time. These are the ideas where you have to make unusual connections, revisit past experiences, wrestle with and challenge priorly held thoughts, and dream big with that beautiful question of “what if…?”

I have found that this takes discipline. Spending time in that 10% place of experience and learning for the joy of growth can be easily deprioritized.  But when done with the explicit self-instruction of “don’t try to figure this out too fast” you can stretch beyond today’s thinking and create a different tomorrow.

So, go out and experience the joy of learning without the pressure of putting your brain in “fix” mode!  It may feel like you’re not being productive. Put that voice away. Time in the 10% is precious; it needs to be protected and ritualized. I’ve found that this is where you create the ideas that don’t raise the bar: they create the new bar.