My wife is sitting at our kitchen table scrolling through Facebook when something catches her eye and she starts to laugh out loud.
A moment later she calls me over to read the post and when I do, I’m confused.
I had never heard about the #TargetDressChallenge and needed some context to appreciate how clever this post was.
This surprised my wife.
Her feed had been flooded with posts about #TargetDressChallenge over the last few days.
My feed had nary a mention of it.
I know I’m existing in a social media bubble when it comes to political points of view, but hadn’t realized just how pervasive this was.
On the one hand, this means I’m seeing content that I *want* to see when I look at my social feeds.
I’m catching glimpses of my friends’ lives and we’re sharing a common language, common worldviews, and common challenges.
The downside is that I know how critical it is to diversify our networks because our most innovative ideas will come from the edges of that network.
Opportunities will also come from those places where our worldview and experience overlap a bit with another person or community’s worldview and experience.
This is illustrated in Steven Johnson’s “Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation” where he discusses how innovation and evolution thrive in large networks.
“Studies have shown that the most creative individuals have broad social networks that extend outside their own organization and hence get new ideas from many different contexts.”
But without some effort, I believe there is great potential to miss out on the benefits of being part of large networks.
Your Challenge For This Week
Start by creating a mindmap of your Personal Learning Network (PLN), the people or organizations you connect with to learn from their ideas, questions, and reflections.
Put your name in the middle of a sheet of paper (or screen) and draw lines to specific topics you have experience in or would like to learn more about.
For each of those topics list the people you would go to to learn about or discuss these topics.
Pick someone you know fairly well for each of these topics and ask them what other topics they are passionate about or very experienced in.
The other topics *they* know about are hidden gems when it comes to learning new information that may create opportunities for innovation.
Try this and let me know how it goes!
Business Growth Strategist & Business Coach
As a relationship-based business growth strategist, I work directly with a limited number of self-employed professionals, aka solopreneurs.
WHO YOU ARE:
You want to have a greater impact and increased income. The problem is that there are so many options for how to build your business that you can feel stuck, overwhelmed, and like you’re running out of time.
The reason options are overwhelming is that you’re looking at them as a series of disconnected steps, when to make the most of your time, you need a strategy that connects only the most important and highest impact ones.
You know that if you try to do everything, you’ll accomplish nothing. This means, to achieve your goal, you have to invest in a strategy to put time on your side.
What’s Included:
As a relationship-based business growth strategist, I will work with you to design a year-long plan that consists of three 12-week sprints, each followed by 4 weeks of reflection/assessment, rejuvenation/vacation, and strategic planning. This will allow you to sequence your goals, create momentum, and leverage your limited time.
We can build your plan through a half-day strategy session, a coaching engagement, or a mastermind program.
These are not right for everyone; they’re personalized offerings and are priced accordingly.
What might you work on?
In my coaching work with entrepreneurs and solopreneurs, we focus on the areas where you’d like to grow, which may include:
- Creating a strong sales conversation framework
- Building your referral network
- Lead generation through a relationships
- Growing your visibility in your industry
- Increasing your ability to attract the right kind of clients
- Identifying and launching a minimally viable offer
- Breaking through whatever bottleneck is holding you back from getting the results you want and deserve
- Becoming a published author and marketing your book successfully
- Improving your virtual presentation skills
Learn more about the different ways we can work together – deep dive 3-hour session, private 1:1 coaching, and masterminds. I’m excited to support you in reaching or exceeding your goals.
- Connect with me on LinkedIn to see the content I share.
- New to my website? Start here
- Listen to my On the Schmooze podcast – weekly since July 2016.
