We teach that the job of a thought leader running a practice is to think, sell and deliver. And yet, most of us don’t know how to think.

A funny thing to say about experts, I know, but stay with me.

Imagine you are invited into a quiet room and given the instruction to do some thinking. What would you do?

Would you pull out a pen and notepad?
Would you sketch out a mind map on a tablet?
Would you look for some stimulation by searching the web?

If we asked you to reflect on your schooling, when were you taught to think?

In the end we tend to do our thinking whenever we develop a new program. Or craft a speech or write a blog post or a chapter of a book. This kind of works. But it isn’t that efficient, is hard to access, evaluate and re-use, and doesn’t lend itself to building a body of work.

So Pete, I hear you ask, is there a better way?

Why yes there is. My friend and Thought Leaders founder Matt Church has come up with a powerful process using what we call pink sheets. The pink sheet process is a way of thinking deeply and deliberately about something. I’m sure it’s not the only way to think and maybe not the best way – although I suspect that perhaps it is. Without doubt, it’s a very effective way to think; to capture and flesh out your ideas.

I was honoured to write the book Think with Matt capturing this process.

And you can get the book and a bunch of other resources at no cost from our Pink Sheet Process website. How good is that?