Practice

I was out to do some shopping this afternoon, when CBC started interviewing someone about his writing (I think). Unfortunately, I wasn't in the car long enough to follow along too much.

They started talking about practice and how it relates to spirituality. Now I'm not a spiritual kind of guy, but it got me thinking about practice and what it leads to. I'll try and explain.

We generally practice something to get better at it. Over time, we hope to go from dufus to expert in whatever skill it is. If we keep it up, it seems to become a part of us, and we start to explore and experiment in all the nicks and crannies of our technique for doing whatever we're trying to learn to do.

If we're learning to golf, the first thing is just learning how to hit the ball without driving half the landscaping along with it. Once we can do that, we can start noticing little things about the swing that we can change to make it more directional or increase distance. By the time someone is a pro, their body just seems to know what it has to do. A pro player seems to focus on what he wants to accomplish, and his body follows through with practiced precision.

Same thing with writing, riding a bike, or doing mathematics. There are always mountains of nuance to conquer once you are accomplished with the basics. With practice you start to see the joy of doing, as well as some of the paths you might take to get even better.And more practice helps you do that.

I guess that's a kind of spirituality. Does that make any sense?

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CBWPRMC

Early last month, I was honoured with a Certificate in Business Writing, Public Relations, and Marketing Communications from SFU's Writing and Publishing Program. I guess I can add CBWPRMC after my name now :-) Ok, maybe not.

Seriously, I've been writing professional stuff for a long time, but most of my training has come through short courses, picky editors, and plenty of practice. That, and a short stint years ago as an English and History major at UBC, has served me well. But for some reason I thought I'd formalize things a bit. Ergo, the courses at SFU.

Continuing education is always good, and you just never know where it will lead you. Eons ago in another life, I quit a boring janitorial job and started working as a pest control technician for a small company. I found a related correspondence course at Purdue University and signed up. That got me started towards even more formal education, and ended up with me working as an extension biologist, managing a research and development group. Go figure.

So where is this new accolade going to take me? Who knows. Don't care. I enjoyed the courses, learned a lot, met some new people, made a few friends. Anything else is gravy.

Tags: continuing education, writing

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Adapter vs adopter

In this article, Seth Godin notes:

"the folks you mean to be talking about are "early adopters." And the distinction is critical and demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of what's happening. An adapter is someone who is able to deal with changing conditions. This sort of person isn't ruffled by a new policy or an environmental change. Let's hope that penguins are good adapters.

Adopters, on the other hand, seek out change, want the new stuff. They like it. Big companies with power are used to a person adapting when they exercise their will. Small, nimble companies look for adopters."

I think I'm both at times. An early adopter, in that I really like searching out and trying new things; an early adapter, when I accept that those new things don't solve all my problems ;-)

There's lots of innovation out there. That's what make the world an interesting place. The trick is in finding out what innovations are useful for your situation.

An example: I can't count the number of innovative software programs that I've download and vowed to use religiously. And I do. At least until the next innovation comes along.

Still, sometimes a progam will catch on. EccoPro is an example of that. It's a PIM that came out during the time of Win 3.1. I used it religiously at work (WinNT) and at home (Win3.1, Win95, WinMe, Win98, WinXP) until just last year. It provides a calendar, todos, and notes, and syncs flawlessly between copies that are on different computers - both ways. It also synced with my palm PDA.

The only reason I'm not still using it regularly is that I'm more outlook centric now because of email. I do still use it for project planning and a personal diary though.

To bad development stopped in the 90s. There has been talk of moving it to open source or another developer, but so far I haven't heard of any success. Sad.

 

 

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Learn from success or failure?

I ran across this little quote in an article by Amy Stone at absolutewrite.com the other day:

"The problem with success stories is that there are too many of them, and they almost always seem to hinge on happenstance. Not that there isn't a positive message to be gleaned from a right-place-at-the-right-time story... But there's a big difference between gleaning and being able to follow a concise set of instructions designed to help you achieve a desired outcome. I've been the recipient of many a success story, and each has been as varied as the individual behind it. Stories of failure, on the other hand, are universal. They can also be replicated. Considering we learn more from our failures than our successes, I offer the following as advice..."

Later on she says:

"The question you should ask yourself is: Do I want to make my own mistakes, or learn from somebody else's?"

I hope she's kidding with the first part above. It's bugged me for a couple of days now, and I wasn't sure just why. Then it hit me. The author really needs to read Discover your strengths by Markus Buckingham.

One of the reasons we learn from our failures is because we usually spend a lot more time wondering how we could have been so stupid. We go through all the potential reasons we might have failed and think about how we might have done better. Sometimes it affects our mood for days. Sometimes it makes us cautious about moving forward on something new. It usually results in some 'cause' that we can point to, either a something or a someone.

On the other hand, we usually just bask in our successes. Sure they affect our mood for days, but we seldom spend time looking back over the process we used. We're ready to move on to the next success, sometimes oblivious to just what it was we did right.

Buckingham suggests that we focus on our strengths and build on them. As time goes on, any weaknesses will become less important in the grand scheme of things.

Perhaps we need to treat success and failure in the same way. As we try to avoid the 'causes' of failure, perhaps we can adopt the 'causes' of success. Everything won't work for everyone, but we can use what works for us and grow.

Seems to me that gurus like Brian Tracy, Stephen Covey, and others use this approach. They try to find the common features of successful people and offer those up as options for other to adopt.

I get so tired of today's focus on the negative. I'd much read stories about success and learn from them. Perhaps if success stories were more 'universal', the world would be a better place.

Tags: writing, success, business

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Woops

Sorry, forgot a couple of links in the last post.

TechVibes

Massive

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Ducks all in a row? I doubt it.

'Ducks in a row' often means that things are planned and ready to go. Is that the best way to make things happen?

When I started out on the path to being a small business owner, it took a long time before I saw the light. I hummed and hawed for what seemed like forever about what wonderful, creative name it should have, and how it would fit with the domain. The business couldn't start until I'd made that decision.

Finally, I said to h*ll with it and registered a business with a variation of my own name. That was 2.5 years ago, and I haven't looked back. As a sole proprietor, people relate to me, rather than my company anyway.

But the web site was still waiting. When I get the time to design it; when I have a ton of content for it; when I ...er, just wasn't happening. There were too many excuses.

Anyway, last month I attended the TechVibes Massive technology conference in Vancouver, BC. I collected lots of information from service providers and took it all home to a file. A few days later, I thought...what am I doing. Let's get on with the domain and web site thing.

In the file at home, I came across a special related to Massive. Heck, it offered 3000 email addresses as part of the all inclusive price. How could a sole proprietor go wrong ;-)

So I bit the bullet, registered the domain and generated some content for a basic template home page.

Done: www.dws-co.ca or www.dws-co.com They point to the same site. [update: fixed the links, I think]

There is still lots to do. It's not all that pretty, but at least I've made a start. That start will probably keep me motivated now, and the design and content will evolve with time.

So, the moral of this story is: if you wait for everything to be ready and perfect before you start, good luck. It will be a long time coming. Your ducks will never be in a perfect row. There will always be some excuse holding you back. What's the old maxim: ready, fire, aim. (Who said that anyway?)

Today, in an alumni session with a business group I belong to, three out of four of us made reference to the 'ready, fire, aim' concept in our reports to the group. We've all had the same discovery in the last month or so. One put it this way: like a bicycle, if you're not underway, it's hard to aim it toward the target. Makes sense to me.

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Inspiration comes in many forms

Earlier in the month, I went to Northern Voice in Vancouver, BC. A great conference and I learned a lot. One of the sessions was on how to get started blogging. The theme: just do it.

So here I am. I started this blog to record some thoughts on how I make the transition from full-time employment, to full-time solo business owner. The only way to do that is to write it down. Any specific themes will emerge, or not. I'll just have to try it and see.

 I occasionally need some inspiration. It's easy to lose track of just where you're going, and it's sometimes useful to pause and give it some thought. I've mentioned in an earlier post that I refer to a number of authors periodically to jog my memory and spur me on. Well, I also attend various workshops.

One of those workshops is a series offered by Max Impact in Surrey, BC. So far they've offered a number of hour and half breakfast sessions dealing with goal setting, leadership and sales. I understand that there are more to come.

The workshops are based on the teaching of Brian Tracy and include a short DVD presentation from him, some group discussion, and a bit of time to give the subject some thought as relates to your own situation.

What I like about it is that I can just invest a short amount of time and money each month. There is no large up-front payment for several days of workshop. Yes, I have to remember to register and commit to an early morning, but if I can't afford it one month, I have the option of not going.

It also keeps me on track over a period of time. We all know the hazards of attending intensive workshops. You get all pumped for a few days and quickly forget about it afterwards in the day to day onslaught of things. This way, I get a monthly reminder to review what happened last month and learn something new in the current month.

Oh, and I get a breakfast too.

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Life begins today

Kurt Rosengren has a great post over at Occupational Adventure. He talks about change:

"To them I say, "Life begins today!" However much time you have left in your career, whether it's five years or fifty years, it's far too long to spend it unhappily. Forget the past. That - to use an economics term - is a sunk cost. It's gone and there's nothing you can do about it. Your past is relevant because it has brought you to where you are today, but don't use it to limit your future."

Very true. There are always reasons not to make changes in your life. But if you want to make a change in your life, do it.  Carpe Diem, as the story goes.

 

Thanks Kurt.

 

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Comment policy

We all hope for comments and feedback, and a chance for new conversation, but wow, that last post wasn't up for more than a minute and there were 2 spam comments.

That's no good. This is not a place to just advertise.

Policy 1: a comment relates to the post or it's nixed.

Let's see how that goes.

Geting out of the dumps

I got a call from a business associate this morning. She and I are part of a larger group that meets regularly, in the aftermath of a several week workshop we attended.

 

She felt like she wasn't getting anywhere, and that was affecting her confidence. Sure, there were a number of projects underway, but she had to hire others to help with the technical aspects of a couple of them. Unfortunately, the 'others' had experienced unexpected delays, and all she could do was wait for them to finish. Her personal deadline had passed, and the frustration was dampening her previous enthusiasm. That was making her feel less confident about approaching new clients.

 

I think most of us go through periods like that.  I know I sure do. Things often take much longer than we expect, especially when working with other people. The question to me was, how to get out of it and back on track.

 

I'm no business guru, but here's some ideas that I passed along to my friend. Add to them if you want.

 

Pull out that business plan and revisit the mission you have for your business. This can remind you about your enthusiasm for what you're doing.

 

Read what you wrote about your past accomplishments and what you offer now. Reinforce the fact that you are skilled at what you do and that you provide value.

 

Realize that working with others takes time. Sometimes life gets in the way.

 

Realize that a self-imposed deadline for a new project is often really just a best estimate - things often take longer than we think. Set  a new deadline and get on with it.

 

Visualize what you expect to happen, after the step you are working on is done. What else do you need to get done? Can you refine your presentation? Are your processes all in place? Can you do something to make them better?

 

Pull yourself back and look at your business from the outside. What else is missing? What else can you do? What more can you learn about your clients?

 

Read a favorite, inpirational book, or visit an industry website that you find inspiring. I moved from full-time to freelance communication, so I find books like Dan Pink's  Free Agent Nation and A Whole New Mind good for that.

Thinking back on that list, I guess most of the options are a diversion, and perhaps that's what I was suggesting. If we only focus on problems, life does tend to become..well..problematical.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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