Moving Higher: From Productivity to Creativity

Yes!

That is how my Evernote Calendar looked on 14^th July.

I watched TV, read a few pages from Sapiens, went for a long leisurely walk with a neighbor, chatted with my mother for hours, dozed off in the afternoon (which is very unusual), prepared dinner (which I do every day though) – You need to feel the power of doing nothing, once in a while. That does not happen. This is the closest I could get.

I checked Watsapp just once or twice throughout the day to see if our tenant had sent a copy of the agreement for us to review before he takes a printout. Later, I realized I should not have done that and should have just kept my phone away too. They would have called me after sending the draft for me to check. So you see - habitual thinking patterns and a nagging old habit that continued for many years, just do not fade way, one fine Saturday. 

It takes time.

Though I was away from my laptop I had a mental plan what I will be doing once I open my laptop just before going to sleep. I had sent sample of our work to a prospect and wondered if it will look unprofessional if there was no response from our end, in case they had sought some clarification pertaining to the sample.

I immediately put that thought to rest remembering it was a Saturday and they better get the message right from us at the very outset - what to expect during weekends:

No response; No work; No assignments: No Delivery Deadlines.

Recently in response to our pitch to a prospect from India, he proposed to have a call late in the evening, around 8 PM. We proposed 5 PM and snap it went - there was no response after that.

Did we follow up? Well, we are notoriously famous for never doing that with anyone. Here goes our simple logic and rationale.

When you move a call to fag end of the day, it isn’t important either ways, why have it then?

Dude, it is your startup. Feel free to work 20 hours a day, we don’t care. 

We care about our creativity big time. 

We do deep work just for a few hours a week not because we look up to Tim Ferris or Cal New Port but because we cannot produce creativity at factory or industry level - just yet. That requires focus and fresh state of mind.

If a prospect can move an introductory call to discuss a possible business engagement to late evening, almost dinner time, we draw our tested, sure shot conclusions - This is not his priority.

Those days are gone when the service providers will accommodate prospect's time just to be in the game.

We are not half as smart as the others are who do what we do. We are just more disciplined and we like it that way to keep our creativity intact.

The world is moving towards Gig economy. We work for global clients, we work as a virtual team, we work in different time zones, we work specific hours, we work on different assignments, we utilize our bandwidth across industries and we have over 45 skills sets in our growing team. 

We care to be creative, effective and measure outcomes.

We as a team, know and believe - it is not enough to be just productive by squeezing in another quick call just to feel good and to make calendars and Evernote look super nice.

"On_the_way_back_home" call is not our way of working. 

Moving Higher: From Content to Intent

My team keeps track of emerging Ed-tech companies, organizations involved in training, coaching just to follow impact stories. We follow world class mentors, mostly for our own doze of motivation and also  to broaden our horizon of thinking.

We are part of groups in social media channels for ongoing cerebral stimulation in the learning space. As advocates for alternate learning models that is outcome driven, when we come across claims such as these, we often fail to fathom the audacity behind such a statement.

                           

“I have transformed the lives of 20000 people through my programs. I have been awarded A, B and C”

Remember, that introduction is to make you feel privileged that you can attend a seminar conducted by a person of this caliber - for free

Zero Cost. Zilch.

I am not sure about others in my team, but I definitely cringe with such lofty claims.

My thoughts are, if I had really transformed the lives of even 20 people, they would be on stage sharing their stories, not me. 

Techniques can be self taught, inspiration can be sought from a dozen sources but feeling motivated enough to act, requires a lot.

This just happened to rhyme. I did not intend that. If this rhyming assists you to remember the essence, I am not changing a word here.

As a business model – freemium to premium is very popular today. It works well and is quite successful - You attract the crowd with a free workshop, virtual summit, seminar, e-book, pdf download - briefly show them the personal and business outcomes that  they can achieve and then make them sign up to learn the techniques to achieve those outcomes.

The next thing you see is loads of branding everywhere of that free workshop - Images, reactions and bunch of vanity metrics uploaded in a dozen channels. I personally dislike this predictable flow chart so much that I have written many blogs on this to create some stir and awareness about its futility.

Coaching is a trillion dollar industry - It is time for the coaches to be a little more responsible towards outcomes, than the function. That space is not crowded at all as there are hardly anyone willing to explore this isolated zone - sharing the journey with participants for outcomes. We BECKON Coaches call it nesting.

An auditorium with over 250 participants receive free inputs, and how do you expect them the fill the feedback forms and impression books? Isn’t it human nature to be grateful? How many of them will share their honest opinion about scope for improvement?

"Loved it"

"I feel like a different person"

"X is an amazing coach"

"This session has transformed me completely"

"Would love to attend more of these. This is life changing"

Mere words!!

These workshops are useful and a free seminar is definitely a great strategy – just the claim “Transform” “Impact” is far fetched and misleading.

In 2015 I had a client from Arizona, whose core work was limited to do basic electric wiring etc. I was his content strategist.

After attending a session by Bob Proctor, he was so inspired, motivated and filled with purpose to live better, do something of value that he wanted to open an Ed tech company to assist teen entrepreneurs. He moved to one of the Asian countries to work as teacher for a couple of years while building his startup team. He not only found his co-founder and built the company, he went operational last year.

Now whether he is successful  in his business or not is a different story altogether. The point is, just one session with a world class mentor brought this change in a participant’s mindset to take the right decisions and initiatives to think, act, master his mind, his emotions, his dreams and his finances.

If I can afford to pay and attend his mentor's program, I definitely will. Do I need the mentor to use the microphone or brag? I can see the results in a person I meet online. That speaks volumes about the depth of learning the mentor shares.

(As I have not sought permission from the client, I am masking the company’s name)

In the past two years, my focus has been to build a team of coaches who can replicate what I do - self learn or learn something without bothering about certification and translate the new learning to revenue. 

In the process you create mental impact first that soon translates to physical impact.

With the confluence of AI, Robotics, machine learning, this transition point is very critical for most of us to be relevant for new set of jobs that never existed before and be ready for the future. 

The league of coaches that we need today has to be not only forward thinking but be able to focus beyond content download and be great story tellers with monastic belief and clear intent to assist the participant.

If you have an impact story to share with a profile of your mentor, we will be very glad to publish here because that is what we are looking for, learning that is outcome driven where the intent of the mentor reflects in what you do.

If you attended a great session with an awesome mentor and you go back to your work desk next morning to do the very same things, go back to live the same life, that speaks enough about the session and mentor already, regardless of the glowing online reviews. Spare us from that story!!