WANT TO BE MORE LIKE BEYONCÉ? KEEP LEARNING! READ MORE, IMMERSE YOURSELF IN A SUBJECT, AND YOU TOO CAN CHANNEL YOUR INNER QUEEN BEY.
I recently learned that backstage at concerts, Connect Four is super popular. You’ve probably played this iconic game, too, the one with the blue plastic grid that you plink yellow and red tokens into to form neat rows.
I can’t say I’m very good at the game. But do you know which celebrity is? Beyoncé. Yes, Queen Bey.
She’s not just good but GREAT at it. Fun fact: Beyoncé beat Kanye West 8-1. (Yes, I’m smugly happy about this. Feel free to wallow in the same delicious emotion.)
Now I know we all believe that Beyoncé is awesome at everything, but Connect Four? How’d that happen?
It turns out that Beyoncé’s read the master thesis by Victor Allis titled “A Knowledge-based Approach of Connect-Four.” It’s a ninety-one-page thesis on high level Connect Four gameplay — no light reading material.
She got great by committing to learning.
We’ve read and heard the stories about Destiny’s Child, how those ladies devoted their youth to perfecting their style, sound, and skills. It turns out that the focus and energy Beyoncé puts into her performances applies to other parts of her life, too, even to playing Connect Four backstage.
In this snackable information world, it’s easy for us to pretend to know a thing. But it’s not the same as understanding it. The thing we humans are uniquely good at is bringing different ideas together and making something new. And those ideas need more than snack-sized information; they require we get knowledge.
When was the last time you studied something? I mean got so profoundly into a subject you’d form an obscure thesis about it and could quickly write a ten-page research paper?
Now don’t moan and groan about how you’re not in school anymore. How you don’t have to worry about passing grades. You’re right, you don’t.
But to make your unique goodness come to life ala Beyoncé, you DO have to keep learning.
So here’s my challenge to you beautiful people. Pick something, anything intriguing to you that you’d enjoy exploring. Read more than the first results on a google search. Get immersed in that subject. Learn so much about it that you can explain it to someone else. I’d love for you to explain it to me.
Connect, it’s the right word, isn’t it? We connect people and ideas, and magic things happen.
NOW GO OUT THERE AND BE AWESOME LEARNERS, JUST LIKE BEYONCÉ.
And yes, Beyoncé is absolutely unequivocally a ladybadass. Just in case you’re wondering. 🙂