BLT Networking – Impulsiveness….wait for it….are you?

This fortnight’s BLT (*) topic for discussion was listed as ‘Impulsiveness’, facilitated by Simon Corb from ‘Duty of Care’

Hence I’ve waited a whole day before writing this blog, not wanting to be too quick off the mark!

What can we learn for our business from understanding our own impulsiveness?

Now impulsiveness is a word which is generally regarded with negative connotations, so it’s not usually a quality which most business people wish to associate with themselves

Impulsiveness: doing things or tending to do things suddenly and without careful thought : acting or tending to act on impulse

 When impulsiveness could be good:

• Gut instinct – how often has our ‘gut’ told us the right thing to do?
• Brainstorming – an essential part of any management away day….although by and large, ‘thinking outside the box’ tends not to be done all that well by management types!
• Social Media; e.g. Twitter is impulsive and hence tends to be regarded as authentic

Van Gogh was impulsive

-Joni Mitchell

Hence, impulsiveness seems to be inextricably tied in with emotions – for better or for worse!

Impulse: something that causes something to happen or happen more quickly; an impetus.

Turn the word round a bit though, and it suddenly becomes far more positive, associated with drive, determination and motivation…..something which any self-employed person requires to move their business forwards.

Finally, a few interesting thoughts from the group on ‘impulsiveness’:

• With training, what was once impulsive can become routine – this is often seen to best effect on the sports field, where psychologists help to train and channel the ‘inner chimp’
• Age is irrelevant – I’d always thought that, by nature, the young were impulsive and this naturally decreased with age, but according to Simon, in psychometric testing age is irrelevant when it comes to impulsive traits
• Save that angry email to draft! – one we can all identify with and which I personally have learnt from bitter experience….maybe though this is an example of training to overcome impulsiveness rather than any degree of maturity on my part!

In conclusion, having given this more thought over the course of the meeting, impulsiveness shouldn’t be regarded as such a bad thing….especially according to a world-famous film director:

I am very much aware of my own double self. The well-known one is under control: everything is planned and very secure. The unknown one can be very unpleasant. I think this side is responsible for all the creative work – he is in touch with the child. He is not rational; he is impulsive and extremely emotional

-Ingmar Bergman

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Newsworthy Corner

1. New members this week:
2. Martin Capel-Smith, St James’ Place: will be running a workshop and ‘Changes in Buy to Let Taxation’ along with E&Y and the RICS (Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors) at the RICS Building, Parliament Sq, London on Wed 21st Sep, 10-11am
3. Simon Corb, Duty of Care: will be presenting a workshop on ‘The Elephant in the Room’ at Natwest HQ, 40 London Road (opposite Sainsburys) on the 4th Oct, 4-6pm

(*) BLT is a free fortnightly networking group that meets from 7:15-8:45, every other Thursday at The George & Dragon, Marlow.

For more details, please leave me a message – new networkers are always welcome.