No time to read? Try this.

Turn commute time into learning time by listening to podcasts and audiobooks. Leaders must continuously inspire themselves to stay relevant — quality content is available free online.

The leaders who will still be relevant in five years are those actively disrupting their own routines today—everyone else is just waiting to be outpaced or obsolete.

Continuing to inspire yourself is perhaps the most important tool that you need to stay relevant...for yourself and for the organization that you work with.

Key takeaways

• If you want to stay relevant and competitive, you must actively disrupt your own routines and challenge inertia before your competitors do it for you.
• Leaders who consistently inspire themselves—by seeking out new ideas and approaches—are the rare ones who drive true innovation in their organizations.
• You can turn every commute or business trip into a private classroom by listening to podcasts, interviews, or audiobooks, making learning a seamless part of your daily routine.

Research shows that only a very small percentage of managers really behave in an innovative way. We’re talking about managers here who see whether things can be done differently...leaders who come up with new ideas and approaches.

The inertia trap

Inertia is a real sniper for us and for companies. We often continue to go through the motions. We’re hanging around in our own routines, careful not to reinvent the wheel every time. This inertia helps us preserve scarce resources and saves us money.

But not always! And, in this market it’s certainly not good enough! Think for a minute about what happened to Nokia, Polaroid, the classic automotive companies versus Tesla, classic brick & mortar retail versus Amazon. To be competitive in five years' time, companies have to disrupt themselves.

Inertia is a real sniper for us and for companies.

And that all starts with the business leaders. With you.

Turn travel into learning

Keep inspiring yourself. It is effective to read one or more relevant books weekly, but many people cannot find the time for that. A useful alternative is to use your travel time to listen to inspiring books or articles. Make your car or your train journey into a private classroom.

Learn

The internet is full of interesting podcasts, interviews and lectures that you can use free of charge.

A few sources that I like to use myself.

TED Radio Hour, a variety of subjects. Mostly about personal development.

Marshall Goldsmith Podcasts. Personal development.

Harvard Business School Podcasts, The Business. Focus on business issues.

On the road

The math of commute time

On average, we travel for about 60 minutes to and from work each day. For some of us, this can even go up to 120 minutes round trip. That’s a stunning average of 260 workable days per year. So, in total we’re looking at about 260 to 520 hours per year. That is more than 6 to 13 working weeks per year! Time that you can also spend on free training. That’s low hanging fruit. Right there waiting. And it’s free of charge.

Over to you.