131. The Art of Visual Thinking with Doug Neill

Overview

Can engaging in creative practices help us on our journey of Sustainable Ambition?

Over the next several episodes, I will be exploring what and how creative practices can help us understand the goals we want to pursue, navigate the changes and evolution of our ambitions, and sustain us along the way. Can we apply creative practices to live and work in more fulfilling and satisfying ways?

To begin answering those questions, I am  joined today by Doug Neill, founder of Verbal to Visual.

Doug and I discussed the impact of visual thinking and how it can unlock creativity and improve comprehension. Doug believes that even if you don’t consider yourself creative you can discover doodling and sketchnoting as a powerful thinking tool. We also talked about how visualization can help us better understand our commitments and aid in our pursuit of Sustainable Ambition.

Listen below or on your favorite podcast player.

More About Our Guest

Doug Neill helps people make sense of the world by making marks on the page. After training to become a high school teacher he got pulled into the world of visual thinking and decided to create his own online education company, Verbal to Visual, where he teaches the skill of sketching out ideas as a learning, problem-solving, and storytelling tool.

Listen to the full episode to hear:

• How Doug discovered the power of visual thinking

• The concept of purposeful doodling and sketchnoting as a thinking tool

• How visualization aids in learning and retention

• Steps to help you begin taking visual notes

• Applications of visual thinking in personal and professional settings

• Cognitive scaffolding and cognitive off-load

• How visual thinking can help clarify your commitments and priorities at different phases of life

Learn more about Doug Neill:

• Verbal to Visual

• YouTube: @verbaltovisual

• Simply Sketched Substack

Resources Mentioned

• Sunni Brown: Doodlers, unite! | TED Talk

• Sketchnoting, Mike Rohde

• The Creative ACT: A Way of Being, Rick Rubin

• Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman

• The Extended Mind: The Power of Thinking Outside the Brain, Annie Murphy Paul

• Steam Train, Dream Train, Sherri Duskey Rinker, Tom Lichtenheld

• An Unlikely Pair: The Network Self and the Gantt Chart

• What flavors are you bringing to your work?

• Revisiting Essentialism

Thanks for Listening!

• Send me ideas for what you’d like to hear on the podcast, or a question that might be read and answered here on the show! Email me at podcast@SustainableAmbition.com

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