"If you can't fit your idea on the back of an envelope, it's rubbish" once claimed Sir Richard Branson, founder of the Virgin Group. Like him, many other successful people feel that it can often be a good way to approach business with simplicity and creativity. Entrepreneur Paul Lindley encourages us to do, by ditching entrepreneurial clichés and as he puts it: "empowering the toddler" within us all, in a recent blog post at Virgin's website.
As toddlers we are at our most creative, free-thinking and self-confident. However, as we grow up, we take on social insecurities and worries that mean we lose sight of these precious skills. Three to five-year-olds have been tested to think in divergent ways, which drops by the time one reaches 25. Throughout his career, Mr Lindley has tried to combat that decline, and hold on to the confidence and creativity of his toddler self.
“I believe that everyone can benefit from embracing a toddler mindset and learning to 'grow down' - especially those trying to improve something, challenge themselves, or do something new. 'Growing down' and thinking like a toddler involves casting off some of the self-imposed restrictions that govern our everyday lives, and reawakening our most creative, ambitious and determined selves. These are certainly all traits shared by the best entrepreneurs,” he says.
He points out that toddlers are life’s great experimenters, constantly trying new things and thinking outside the box to come up with solutions to their problems – yet they are also humblingly determined individuals. The skills we learn during early childhood - from walking, to talking and beyond - require a stubborn determination to try again and again until we succeed.
Rediscovering good early habits
Embracing a toddler mindset about rediscovering the good habits you used to have in your early years, says Mr Lindley. For example, as a rule, toddlers are innately more sociable than we are as adults - more open to new people and new relationships. Studies have shown that, from around the age of two, children are more likely to work together than to solve problems on their own. This behaviour is motivated not just by an end goal, but by the opportunity to co-operate.
As we grow up, our pursuit of personal gain often outweighs our motivations around partnership and collaboration. Adopting a toddler mindset means accepting that support is always necessary, no matter the pursuit.
Stop worrying
At the heart of the toddler mindset is a willingness to stop worrying - about daily stresses, and the risks and pressures of making a wrong decision. It’s about having the courage to be yourself.
For toddlers, worries are fleeting. Their stage of physical and psychological development means that they have not yet developed a sense of self-consciousness, they have no concept of the future to worry them, and they are unrestrained by convention, because they don’t know it exists.As we grow up, the worries of the world take hold. Much of our day-to-day lives as grown-ups is governed by doubt - be they simple or complex, real or imagined.
Mr Lindley says that an incredible realisation for him was that the solution to many of our problems does not require expert knowledge, but simply the ability to learn to take ourselves less seriously, and embrace the power of play. Psychologist Stuart Brown, founder of the California-based National Institute for Play, suggests that adults are just as affected by play deprivation as children, leaving them 'rigid, humorless, inflexible and closed to trying out new options'. By simply changing our perspective, it is possible to transform our experience.