Greetings.  Spring is finally in the air and, if you're like most people, your in-box is starting to fill up with cool brochures for lots of amazing conferences.  Chances to brush up on old skills, learn new skills, re-energize, take a needed break from your normal routine, gain a new perspective on work and life, and connect with colleagues and leaders in your field.  Some offerings even sound a bit too good to be true…promising us "perfect" destinations, direct access to "top thinkers" and "decision-makers," and ideas "guaranteed to improve performance."  And some of them can probably deliver on this powerful promise.  But they're not the ones that you're likely to attend.  Unless you change the way you think about meetings and learning.

You see, many of us go to the very same conferences every year.  Or whenever our budgets allow.  Conferences in our field of specialization.  Conferences about our industry and its challenges and best practices.  Conferences that teach us the latest tools for doing our jobs proficiently.  Conferences where the other attendees will be just like us from the same backgrounds, the same roles and types of jobs, and with very similar interests.  Great for learning the basics and building our network.  But unlikely to really stretch our thinking about newer and more innovative ways to do the most important things on our plates.

To learn these things we need to be willing to step out of our conference "comfort zones."  And that means attending conferences that are very different.  Focused on different industries and best practices.  And different areas of specialization.  And different ways of thinking about different sets of ideas.  Filled with different people than we are use to hanging out with.  People with the ability to cause us to think in fundamentally different ways about our business, industry, and what it means to deliver truly compelling value to the customers we serve.  

And here are a few examples:

Let's say that your field is logistics.  Why not find out what industries, other than your own, are remarkable at logistics and attend one of their conferences?  Let's say your field is human resources.  Why not find out who is remarkable at bringing out the genius in those they serve–for example, world-class preschool educators–and attend their conference?  Let's say your field is marketing or sales.  Why not attend the conference of an organization that has the most dedicated following–like the annual auto show, a convention of pet owners, or a meeting of people interested in food or wine.  Let's say your field has something to do with technology.  Why not find a conference on systems and processes in the animal kingdom or a workshop on music?  Or simply find a presentation by a renowned speaker on an interesting topic that you know nothing about.

It doesn't mean that you shouldn't attend a conference in your field.  But it's not enough if your real objective is to unlock fresh thinking and your full potential.

We win in business and in life by learning new things from others with very different knowledge and perspectives.  Maybe it's time to discover new genius beyond your comfort zone.

Cheers!