I spent Saturday walking along Boston’s waterfront with a gifted teacher. One of the things we learn in The Practice is that everything everything everything is your teacher, you need to decide what the lesson is.
On this Saturday, I was with a gifted teacher because they were asking lots of good questions.
What’s a good question?
To me, a good question is one that is difficult to answer, a question that requires I look deep before answering because the obvious answer, while accurate, probably isn’t the true answer or the real answer.
We were talking about the NextStage Expanded Awareness Society and this gifted teacher asked me the really good question, “How do you differentiate yourself from others?”
Answering took me a minute because I don’t compare myself to others as a rule. Finally I responded with “Well, I only claim to do what I know I can do.”
“Yes,” this teacher said. “You’ve said that before, about your work.”
“Really?”
“It must be true because it’s part of everything you do. You only claim to do what you know you can do.”
That is, indeed, on of my business rules. I don’t hype myself. I know too many people who believe their own hype, make claims way beyond their abilities then come up with excuses regarding why things failed.
I tend to only talk about things I’ve done that other people have witnessed, hence can verify. In the case of NextStage Expanded Awareness Society, there are testimonials from people I’ve worked with in the past and more recently Dan and Joe‘s stories. If you want to know what I can do, ask them. You can also ask Susan (granted, she’ll have some biases) and there’s others I can probably put you in touch with.
But there’s a funny thing about evidence that somebody can “do it”. Look long enough and you’ll find the answer you want. Want a positive answer but only getting negatives? Keep on looking, you’ll get one eventually. Want a negative and keep getting positives? Ditto.
That’s another thing you learn here; Recognize your own beliefs, ideas, attitudes, leanings, et cetera, and you can more easily appreciate those of others.
And oh yes, I’m boring and dull
I said that several times this past Saturday during our walk. Each time it was acknowledged with a disparaging look.
I may not be boring and dull to others, I find myself rather humdrum and mainly because much of what I do – in work, in life, in play – is quite simply “what I do” and because I can do it, it isn’t that special to me.
Of course, when I manage to play something on the guitar that’s challenging, I’m impressed and appreciate it when Susan tells me it was really good or beautiful or nice to listen to. I’m thrilled when someone reads something I’ve written and likes it, comments on it, contacts me to talk about it.
And I work at those things, and I have an ego just like everybody else, so of course I like getting the occasional pat on the back.
But I don’t look for them, I prefer to be surprised by them and want them to be genuine. Telling people I’m some kind of expert then waiting for them to agree doesn’t work for me. Worse, it goes against what we do, teach, and is stated more or less in our Principles.
Think of it this way; it’s one thing to be a concert pianist, know it, and let your skill demonstrate itself when required, it’s a completely different thing to claim to be a concert pianist, get a knot in your gut every time someone asks you to play and then fumble your way through one or two pieces that nobody’s ever heard of so they can’t claim you didn’t play them well.
And if I’m truly that good a pianist (and this is a challenge to me, nobody else), I better give it back to others. I better play because I love to play and that means playing for people who can’t pay the concert fee, playing for children to share my joy of music with them, playing for myself because it’s part of who I am, not just something I do, and most importantly teaching others to play as well as they’re able and to enjoy whatever music they have in them.
This aspect of teaching is also part of what we’re all about. Allow me to quote (at length, I’ll admit) from something I wrote a while back, The Unfulfilled Promise of Online Analytics, Part 3 – Determining the Human Cost:
What’s so fascinating about this is that [teaching]’s also how we pass on our core, personality and identity beliefs whether we mean to or not (I cover this in detail in Reading Virtual Minds Volume I: Science and History). We can be teaching physics, soccer, piano, bread-baking, … It doesn’t matter because all these activities will be vectors for our core, identity and personal beliefs and behaviors. If we are joyful people then we will teach others to be joyful and the vector for that lesson will be physics, soccer, piano, bread-baking, … And if we are miserable people? Then we will teach others to be miserable and to be so especially when they do physics, play soccer, the piano, bake bread, …
Thus if any teaching/training occurs intentionally or otherwise, the individual doing the training/teaching is going to de facto teach their internal philosophies and beliefs — both business and personal — as well as their methods and practices to their students. This can’t be helped. It’s how humans function. …
So I’ll let others tell you if I’m any good at what I do, and whether or not I’m boring and dull, and whether or not I can teach this stuff.
And if I am, and if I’m not, and if I can, it’s because I love what I do.
