Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning,
Speaker 1: This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's
Speaker 1: tip is that if you love your work, you can
Speaker 1: glean insights for it from all kinds of sources. Everything
Speaker 1: is research. I had a great time interviewing writer Serena
Speaker 1: Bowen for Before Breakfast last year. Serena is amazingly prolific
Speaker 1: and has written literally dozens of novels, mostly romance and thrillers.
Speaker 1: She has a devoted fan following who love being drawn
Speaker 1: into the worlds and stories she creates. In our interviews,
Speaker 1: Serena mentioned taking ice skating lessons to learn how ice
Speaker 1: skating coaches talk. What motivated the lessons. A character in
Speaker 1: a book she is working on is an ice skating
Speaker 1: coach and she needed to be able to write realistic dialogue.
Speaker 1: Serena explained, everything is research. She said that's true for writers,
Speaker 1: but I would say that's true in lots of other
Speaker 1: fields too. The world offers up all sorts of ideas
Speaker 1: if we are willing to pay attention. Personally, when I read,
Speaker 1: or listen to podcasts, or even interact with friends and family,
Speaker 1: I pick up strategies for streamlining daily life and building
Speaker 1: and meaning and fun. Some of these strategies find their
Speaker 1: way into my podcasts or blog posts or books. So
Speaker 1: for me, listening to podcasts and reading magazines about spring cleaning,
Speaker 1: or talking with other parents about birthday party hacks all
Speaker 1: count as research. For an HR professional, reading and hearing
Speaker 1: about people's experiences of work is research. What they learn
Speaker 1: about what frustrates people or what gives them, a sense
Speaker 1: of satisfaction and accomplishment, what attracts them to potential workplaces,
Speaker 1: and so forth can all inform how the HR professional
Speaker 1: approaches his own work. For an English teacher, pleasure reading
Speaker 1: is research. A teacher might have occasion to teach the
Speaker 1: literature she reads, of course, either in its entirety, but
Speaker 1: perhaps also just as an excerpt to illustrate a particular
Speaker 1: literary device. If you work in marketing for a bakery,
Speaker 1: hearing about the pain points in people's daily lives could
Speaker 1: help you market your products. You could promote kishe for
Speaker 1: a nice but easy breakfast. When you have house guests,
Speaker 1: you could highlight chocolate peanut butter bars or lemon ice
Speaker 1: box pie as desserts you can buy a couple days
Speaker 1: ahead of time before a dinner party. When you understand
Speaker 1: people's needs, you can figure out how your baked goods
Speaker 1: could meet those needs. There was even a story on
Speaker 1: National Public Radio recently about a physicist who heard a
Speaker 1: game show question about polar bears not showing up on
Speaker 1: infrared cameras and was inspired in her scientific research by
Speaker 1: the anti freeze properties of polar bears fur. Truly, everything
Speaker 1: can be researched, even a game show. Well, it's certainly
Speaker 1: important to do things in your life besides work. When
Speaker 1: you love your work, you can gain insights from all
Speaker 1: kinds of sources if you're paying attention. So pay attention.
Speaker 1: You can learn a lot about the world just by
Speaker 1: being in it. In the meantime, this is Laura. Thanks
Speaker 1: for listening, and here's to making the most of our time.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to Before Breakfast. If you've got questions, ideas,
Speaker 1: or feedback, you can reach me at Laura at Laura
Speaker 1: vandercam dot com. Before Breakfast is a production of iHeartMedia.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from iHeartMedia, please visit the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.