My Odd family friend, Rachel, sent me a link to a really great article about a concept coined “Thought Partners”. According to the link, a “thought partner is someone who Challenges your thinking, Causes you to modify or change your paradigms, assumptions or actions, Has information or a way of thinking that provokes you to innovate or otherwise leads to value creation in your business, career or life.”
I am lucky to have a great many thought partners in my life.
Rachel is my thought partner when it comes to being connected to things that are not easily seen by others. If I want to talk about matters of the soul, I am going to text Rachel—which, by the way, is where all our thoughts meet and engage with each other. We muse well together through text message.
My sweet mother is my thought partner when it comes to my hair. No matter how shitty I am about my hair, my mother keeps fooling with it, making suggestions, and rarely loses patience with me because she knows eventually we will create a style I don’t hate.
I would like to think that I fill the role of thought partner for friends around the area of technology and grief. For many the two are interchangeable!
Some of you are thinking this is nothing new—women have been musing together since Eve saw Adam pluck the Apple off the tree, and called her girlfriend and asked, “WHAT WAS HE THINKING??” But if you were Eve’s thought partner, rather than agreeing that Adam was a complete moron you might ask if she was excited about the possibilities of living beyond the garden, and then the two of you might talk about great desserts that did not include fruit, and so and so on… until the two of you had grown well beyond the garden, and had created some entirely new and different possibilities for Eve to consider.
Thought Partners want you to grow and move beyond the status quo. Tell us about your Thought Partners!
Odd Loves Company!
This is a terrific concept. I am going to sit down this week and think about who my thought partners are and who I help through the thought process. I like the idea of by-passing agreement and challenge each other to think outside the box!
Thanks!
I wrote out who my go to people are and it was really helpful. Having friends with a large variety of knowledge is so useful. Let us know how it goes!
I’m lucky to be surrounded by a number of people who let me pick their brains–Fortunately my friends cover a wide variety of areas so there is always someone who knows more than I do on any given subject. I do like the idea of a more structured approach and just letting the thoughts flow back and forth. The idea of having someone that will challenge your assumptions more often than they agree with them is also very positive.
Thanks! I can always count on Odd for enlightenment served up with humor on any given number of topics!
Thank you Sally. We try…..I think having friends that challenge is great but they still have to hate the same people you do :-D. It might be better to find thought partners outside our friends.
I love what you said about Adam and Eve! 🙂
I have several “go to” friends. They’ve helped me out of many a jam and given me much to think about. I think the single most important trait a thought friend has to have is, trust. You totally trust them and they totally trust you.
MJ
Which means of-course when one of you lies the other one immediately swears to it!