I’m not sure there are words that can describe how remarkable INBOUND 2014 was last week. I’m going to need at least a month to process all of the information that I learned from the amazing sessions and phenomenal keynotes, not to mention what I learned from the other Inbounders in attendance. 
By far, the session I was looking forward to the most was Jill Konrath’s “The Only Real Competitive Advantage” – and boy did she deliver.
I have been following Jill’s sales strategies for a few years now – a particular shout out to her SNAP Selling techniques. Attending her breakout session was a priority for me, but what I never thought would happen was the opportunity to meet Jill at the welcome reception. What a great way to kick off the conference!
In Jill’s session, she shared that the only real competitive differentiator and key to a successful career is agility. Since change is the new constant, how do you become successful in a constantly changing world?
She shared nine ways to master agility in order to gain success:
1. Take the deep dive. Jill suggests making a goal of learning as much as you can in the shortest amount of time possible. Hit the ground running. Be a sponge. Do what you can to take in as much as possible from the get-go.
2. Dump it out. It’s likely you’re going to remember everything you hear so write it down. This frees up the brain to remember other things and helps with the brain’s natural filing system.
3. Chunk it up. Ask yourself is this essential? If so, in what sequence do I want to learn it?
4. Create tools. This includes cheat sheets and check lists that help free up memory space for other information. 
5. Rapidly learn new skills. To illustrate this point, Jill put a few members of the audience on stage (including me!) for an exercise to quickly learn a new skill. The skill was to be able cross your hands in front of you, twist them around to touch your nose, then unhook your arms. It was interesting to participate and observe how a somewhat complex skill was processed so easily by a couple of people, yet not able to be mastered by others. For the record, yes, I was able to master the skill after a couple attempts!
6. Practice. This is essential. If we think of our brain like a muscle, then practice makes perfect.
7. Engage in experiments. Test out methods or theories for remembering information and working on an internal filing system.
8. Search for the root cause. Focus on the primary goal or reason to remember a certain piece of information. This will help when you need to associate it with other information in your brain’s filing system.
9. Flexibility and fluidity in your thinking. Since there are more ways to solve problems than one single answer, fluidity is essential in your thought process.
As Jill noted, we’re never comfortable anymore and we’re always learning. She quoted a New York Times article that said “on a typical day, we take in the equivalent of about 174 newspapers’ worth of information, five times as much as we did in 1986.” Take a second to let that sink in. We take in 174 newspapers’ worth of information every single day. Our brains certainly need to establish some sort of procedure and filing system to be able to process this degree of information every day.
This is why being able to master a skill like agility can help set us up to achieve success.
And once my brain finally digests all of the information we learned at INBOUND 2014, I’ll certainly have more to share. Stay tuned!
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Christy Goodman is senior account executive for WordWrite Communications. She can
bereached at christy.goodman@wordwritepr.com and on Twitter @christylgoodman.
