I thought the well growing herb in my backyard was basil. It was my mother-in-law, who clearly is better with herb recognition than I, who pointed out I had a good crop of salvia. Salvia is sage. Sage is salvia. It is the genus name for a host of plants in the mint family. The salvia family includes Diviner’s Sage, a psychotropic drug I didn’t know much about until I read a very cool book about called Wicked Plants: The Weed that Killed Lincoln’s Mother & Other Botanical Atrocities.

What does this collection of trivia have to do with anything? Not a lot other than I was reading about sage, growing sage and being informed I was growing sage all within a couple of days. Coincidence? Random occurrence? It doesn’t really matter because I love these strange intersections of seemingly unrelated events and the act of relating them. The lesson from my sage discovery is that sometimes the universe offers up the information you need when you need it. I needed to know my basil was sage before I ruined a pasta sauce.

It may be fanciful to suggest the universe cares about what I need but I also try to make chances for the universe to provide me with info by absorbing information from as many sources as possible. This has been very useful to me as I work to solve problems for my clients and in my own life because inspiration can come from the sources you least expect. The mind, as they say, works in mysterious ways and oft time creative answers to nagging problems come from unusual sources.

I would like to be able to tell you I have actively cultivated this information collection methodology but the truth is I am just a nomad wandering through the vast wilderness of information available today randomly picking up anything that seems interesting. With that in mind though, since realizing this practice is quite useful, I have worked to keep it up and I encourage others to try it out. As a marketer it is easy to get tunnel vision and only consume marketing related information. What I have found though is that I end up seeing and reading many takes on the same ideas. This doesn’t mean the material isn’t valuable but that I can afford to consume less marketing info and still be as informed all while leaving time to expand my information pool.

Here are some ideas that might be useful to help you expand your information pool:

  • Try a news source that offers more context and commentary rather than just headlines and breaking news. I like The Christian Science Monitor and The Walrus to name two.
  • Waste a little time. See what the worlds of sport, gossip and pop culture are up to.
  • Watch documentaries. PBS, National Geographic, CBC, TVO – these are just some of my favorite places to watch television which is both entertaining and thought provoking.
  • Ask people what they are reading, watching, surfing and discussing with friends and family and make the effort to look up some of their suggestions.

Expanding your information pool will help you to explore new ideas and may even help you prevent problems before they happen. It certainly helped make sure my sage infused pork wouldn’t cause hallucinations or other unintended conscious-expansion.

I will continue to blog about the unintended impact of colliding ideas.