Allow me to illustrate how deeply my hubris blinded me. Back when I was doing my undergrad on a scholarship from the Hortatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans at Missouri Valley College studying for my B.A. in English and Mass Communications, I had a teacher named Professor Virginia Kugel-Zank. She was one of my favorite professors because she challenged my thinking. She made me think deeper and differently and this one time in class she said that our assignment was to doodle. I was aghast. I could not believe that she would suggest such an idea. I was so pompous. I thought it was ridiculous that I was going to college to learn how to doodle.
I soon ate crow. Not only did I begin to doodle all the time but I found that it enhanced my thinking. She told us about the lady who discovered the old doodle program on the computer that allowed you to sketch out ideas because she was a visual learner. She was planting a seep of entrepreneurship and doodles.
As a doodled, I found that I could imagine something, come up with a rough idea of what it looked like, sketched it out and than began to create something from the ground up. I did this when I created a digital magazine, when I imagined how I’d want a room decorated or if I wanted to zone out I began to take my doodling a little more advanced and I took an art class. I’m not any good—granted—but I can get the message across. Plus, it’s therapeutic.
As I grew older, I realized how right Professor Zank was about doodling. I learned in the Harvard Business Review that “People who doodled while listening to a monotonous message recalled 29% more information than non-doodlers on a surprise memory test, according to a study in Applied Cognitive Psychology cited by blogger Eric Barker” according to The Benefits of Doodling.
Furthermore I have used in it in a business I developed at Syracuse University’s Whitman School of Management. It’s called Ruby, Inc. and it’s a doodle I use to drive business results.
As I said before I was blind but now I see: Doodling works in entrepreneurship.
About the Author
Named Top 100 Leaders by 2012 Magazine, Jasmine Grimm has been nominated for Central Penn Business Journal’s “Top 40 Under 40,” and The Lancaster Chamber’s ATHENA Award.
Jasmine founded Ruby, Inc. a personal styling business that teaches women how to dress for their body types and became a two-time nominee for Inc. Magazine’s Top 30 Under 30 Top Young Entrepreneurs in America. She won the 2013 SCORE Business Development Award, the won the Central Penn Business Journal’s Top 25 Women of Influence Award in 2013 and the 2013 Leadership Award from the MS Society.
She has been a popular guest lecturer at the Maastricht Institute of Entrepreneurship and has been featured in Under 30 CEO and Productive Magazine, was the cover story for Harrisburg Magazine and her writing has graced National Geographic Television and Film, Harvard University and more.
She’s a 5,3,8,3 on the Kolbe A Index and her strengths include input, relator, learner, responsibility and achievement.
For more information visit her Google + Page.