About 10 percent of my readers are entrepreneurial minded… the rest… something else.
As I am shifting my focus to whom I can really help, new issues are coming up…
Growing is being entrepreneurial… by the way. Remember? There is growth mindset and there is fixed mindset…
And if you have the ambition to grow, you have to watch out for guidance. But you need to remember that Life, the spirit, or whatever it is that wants to guide you does that often in a very subtle way.
I have written about how I experience guidance, but for now I just mention one of them: a sentence I heard back in 2006, and it just popped up again out of nowhere. ‘Learning just in case vs learning just in time‘. One is a waste or time and a pretense, the other is a lifesaver.
Another guidance came just a few weeks ago in a podcast: Don’t start a business, start a project.
Now put the two sentences together and Voilà a really clear guidance.
When you start a project the world shifts. Dramatically.
Suddenly there are things you need to learn, learn how to do stuff, what is the order in which to do them, and what it will really look like when it’s done?
These are just a few questions that you need to learn to answer.
There will be many more.
Take my ‘social lair’ project.
I bought a few ‘lairs’…
What is a lair?
It is a private social site like and unlike Facebook, where no one other than whom I allow can participate with me.
I need to invite you to enter. (If you are on my mailing list, I will)
And just like in my last office hours this Wednesday, we can have some serious and politically dangerous conversations. About important things that I have never discussed with my clients publicly. Like racism. Looking if are you supposed to support a certain type of business, or you are supposed to buy the product from the vendor who has the best product at the best price?
Conversations where woke is called what it is: a pretense.
And that is what the lair is for me. Exchange of ideas between you and me, and you between each other.
There is a Landmark Education saying: everything can be resolved in communication… but then again: who is communicating nowadays… not many…
First I didn’t know how to invite you… And messed it up a few times. I had to troubleshoot. Then I didn’t know how to make it interesting… It is a project and it is a just-in-time learning. And I am, probably, not done learning how to do it well… What if I refuse to learn? the project will bottom out, fail, will be a disaster… Or just plain boring and empty… just as bad.
The best and most effective learning is to learn something when you actually need it. But then again… you want to create opportunities to need learning… and most of you wait for emergencies… and unfortunately it is too late to dig a well when you are thirsty. And this is why you need to create projects… You are not thirsty… yet. So it’s a good time to dig a well.
If I locked myself out of my apartment, I would be able to use my mobile, google youtube, and pick my lock. But I have to go to the bathroom! ‘Inquiring minds’ or ‘idle curiosity’ wants us to learn stuff when we don’t need it. But it is a better solution to have a key hidden for just such emergencies. So emergency learning is not a good solution either.
The first guiding sentence was ‘learning just in case vs learning just in time’.
One of the things I have learned through leading the Soaring Method course is how to put myself in soaring mode: where no matter how tough the situation, I can sail through it unscathed. Soar through.
If I were you and were facing some tough times, when I predictably will be be bent out of shape, I’d sign up to The Soaring Method in a jiffy, and within a day or two I would be prepared to face the tough times…
This is just in time learning. Time and money well spent.
As long as you don’t forget that you are a magician, you can enter soaring with just a sentence, that shifts your attitude, and allows life to shift too.
It’s not as outlandish as it sounds.
I am contracted to write a chapter of the book, The Entrepreneur Code. It is a tough challenge for me. What shall I write about? Which of the ideas of mine will be a winner? I will be judged! I may be rejected! My words will be edited by some knucklehead ‘woke’ editor!
I am a little bent out of shape. What if it turns out that I have no idea what I am talking about? I have been an entrepreneur for 42 years, I have been guiding entrepreneurs, especially in the beginning stages for almost as long. And yet, I am scared.
So entering soaring mode comes real handy.
Same with my health… I enter soaring mode when I do my daily walk and the pain in my legs and in my chest shifts. I have to do it every few minutes because it tends to return… but it is not an effort, it’s easy. And I can walk further every day, getting stronger.
Or when I can’t fall asleep… I just enter soaring mode and either start enjoying the quiet night, or fall asleep.
Or later today when I’ll do something scary, something that can fail: something new. I am inviting people to be guests on my last Soaring Method class where I’ll ask the participants to share what they have experienced, what results they can attribute to having done the course.
30 minutes… After 30 minutes we’ll do our regular class…
You can come as a guest… and just listen.
Or if you have questions… you can ask them too. Objections, doubts, fears… all welcome. Either I’ll answer or one of the current students.
I have never done this… and I am scared. But growing is scary… and I’ll just put myself in soaring mode… no problem.
Come and listen to some testimonialsThe $1 fee weeds out the looky loos… I am sure you are asking that question in your head. I would too… looky loos are also just in case people… Idle curiosity.
Read the original article: How you too could start making learning useful