The reason that Volunteers are the best innovators because they have passion and energy which common people lack. When you volunteer, you expose yourself to different types of diversity at once like people, professional, cultural, organizational etc. This exposure to diversity improves your ability to work with diversity in the future.
1. Volunteering makes you more humble
By exposing yourself to others, it shows how much you have. It also shows different ways to solve problems. This helps you realize that your way is not the only way. It also connects you to the human side of things. Research shows that volunteer develops more humility. This breeds humility, which in turn breeds innovation.
2. Volunteering helps you grow your network
By volunteering, you connect with people from very different settings, industries, skills sets, and oftentimes, parts of the world. The network you build as a result will help you professionally and socially. However, it also exposes you to lots of new ways of doing things which will make you better at networking in the future and more innovative in the process. As Adam Grant highlights in his best-selling book, Give & Take: A Revolutionary Approach to Success
3. Volunteering makes you more creative
Often times, when you volunteer, you are spending time with people and organizations that have less, as a result, you had to be very creative using limited resources. Necessity is the mother of invention. By working with people that use different tools, systems, language, and cultures, you’ll learn to be a better listener and more collaborative. In exchange, you learn new insights and ways of doing things that make you more innovative.
In the book Wired to Create, author “Scot Kaufman” shares that,
‘openness to experience’ is the number one thing to cultivate for both personal meaningful creativity and world-changing creativity’
Indeed, the simple act of volunteering is also has a proven way to develop new skills, combine to make you more innovative. A growing body of leading thinking published by Harvard, Fast Company, The Muse, and leading authors like Scott Kaufman, Keith Sawyer, and Eric Barker show that developing the following traits are correlated to helping you grow as a more innovative leader: Humility, Empathy, Networking, Thirst for learning, Creativity, Collaborating, Being culturally and emotionally aware. The best way you can achieve these traits is by volunteering.
Volunteering can improve your creativity, productivity and helps to achieve financial independence and can foster your early retirement.
Did you ever volunteer? What are your experiences as a volunteer?
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