Let's Keep Learning
Hey there! Long time no see! As promised, I had to go live a little life and be fully present for some of the greatest moments of my life, go on an adventure, and then I could come back to this forum and start with a whole new outlook on life. And that is precisely what happened. The highlights:
I married Maddie, the absolute love of my life on May 20, 2022.
We snuck away immediately after to St. Lucia for a mini-moon and celebration of pulling off an epic wedding weekend less than seven months after our engagement and without the assistance of our families or a wedding planner.
We worked our tails off in June.
We took all of July off for our honeymoon and traveled through Africa and made memories that we are only really fully processing now!
All that and now here I am, ready to share, to learn, and to see if we can pick up some of the best intentions we had in the early part of this year. I don't want to say pick up where we left off, because that moment is no longer accessible to any of us, we've all lived more life and thought more thoughts and felt more feels. But we can pick up those intentions and continue the quest of learning together in a new way.
WHAT MIGHT THAT LOOK LIKE NOW?
Reflecting on the first few months of Make Room and the interactions we had together, I realized I was trying to be a content creator on my own and without a whole lot of input available to me from others. There was some back and forth, but it was more, 'cool Andy, glad YOU had that thought!' Which was very nice to have that encouragement, but it wasn't the conversation I wanted to have. As some of us talked about on our last meet-up call, we haven't cracked the dialogue part of this experiment.
As I sat on the beach in Zanzibar on the final week of our African honeymoon, I realized that many of the ideas I hold about community, innovation, relationships, and learning are ones that I've held for longer than I was aware. While I am not saying they are wrong, they haven't been challenged or pushed to evolve in quite some time. I thought about when in my life I've had the most marked increase in growth in my thinking, my network, and my energy and it was always when I was doing something new, trying to step up into a role or responsibility that was just outside of my comfort zone. I was forced to ask for assistance and seek out the counsel of others.
But that is not where I am today. My coaching practice is almost full up, my advisory work is limited on purpose, and my network is equally established and tight-knit. I am in a stable and confident place that isn't currently going through a disruptive learning and growth phase like the ones that I've experienced in the past. But upon reflection, that in and of itself just might be the growth opportunity.
In the past, I have HAD to grow or there was a negative outcome that awaited me. My growth was fueled by a fear of the consequences that would happen if I didn't. What does growth fueled by confidence look like? How does that work manifest itself? Where does that path of learning lead?
As always, I feel like I have more questions than answers, but I hope that you will find them questions you'd consider attempting to answer with me as we get back to learning together again.
Until next week,
Andy