Crowd Source the Solution to Your Problems

I was looking through the October issue of SUCCESS Magazine, the one with Will I Am on the cover.  I loved an article called “Make Breakthroughs.”  The author suggests that when you’re struggling with a problem you should send an email to several of your trusted friends and colleagues asking how they would handle it.  In other words, crowd source a solution to your problems.  He even shares two websites www.InnoCentive.com and TopCoder.com where you can post a well defined problem as a challenge and have people from different disciplines work on it.

I like this idea — a lot.

As the old saying goes, “none of us is as smart as all of us.”  By crowdsourcing solutions you can take advantage of other people’s knowledge and skills.  This is a good thing.

But you have to be willing to ask for help.  Some people see asking for help as a sign of weakness and insecurity.  I see it as a sign of strength and confidence.  It takes a strong and confident person to publicly admit that he or she doesn’t have all the answers.

The willingness to ask for help is the hallmark of successful people.  You can’t know everything — nor do you want to.  An intelligent successful person knows how to access the information he or she needs.  I’ve heard the story from several sources, perhaps you have too.  One day Einstein when asked for his phone number.  He went to the phone book and looked it up.  His guest was shocked that Einstein, the renowned mathematician couldn’t remember his own phone number.  Einstein supposedly told him something like, “an intelligent person doesn’t have all the information, but he knows how to access the information he doesn’t have.”

That’s the idea behind crowdsourcing answers to your problems. Find people you know who you can ask for help in dealing with problems you are having trouble solving on your own.  There is power in the crowd. Use it.

Your career mentor,

Bud

PS: You can download a free copy of my latest eBook Career Success Rx at www.budbilanich.com/career-success-rx.  When you do, I’ll begin sending you daily motivational quotes and give you a free membership in my career mentoring site.

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