Fuel your mind by choosing diverse, high-quality input

You grab your laptop before the morning rush and open a leadership podcast you’ve bookmarked. The coffee’s still hot, and the room is quiet except for the host’s voice offering a fresh perspective on motivation. You jot down a statistic about team engagement—your pen glides across the page. Later, during your commute, you skim a magazine article on emerging tech and marvel at a new use for AI in your field. You capture that question, too.

By lunchtime, your notes folder brims with intriguing ideas. You pause by the water cooler to share one insight with a colleague, and their enthusiasm sparks an even richer discussion. You feel energized, keenly aware that what you feed your mind matters more than ever.

Behavioral science shows that exposure to varied, high-quality input rewires neural pathways and fuels creativity. The more diverse your intellectual diet, the more robust your problem-solving skills become. Pretty cool, right?

You start by listing your go-to sources—books, podcasts, articles—and then book three 15-minute slots each week just for input. During each session, you highlight key ideas and jot questions in your notes app. Finally, you review your captures daily and discuss one nugget with someone else to plant the seed for new thoughts. Give it a try tonight.