This past Friday I attended a Landmark Education Luncheon at Masraff’s in Houston. The topic was “Breakthroughs in Business”, and the presenter was Executive Coach Bruce Saxton (whose wife incidently has a very nice little Vlog here: RichPrettyGirl.com). Special Thanks to Greg for inviting me to this event

The presentation revolved around 3 things:

1. Discovering the beliefs that are holding you back in life. Bruce says that all the things that hold us back in life can be grouped into one of four categories: Money, Time, Ability, & Support. And that a lot of times we think what’s holding us back is one thing — when really — it’s something else entirely.
2. Finding out what you don’t know that you don’t know. If you imagine that all the world’s knowledge was represented by a circle - you could break that circle into three pie pieces. One piece of the pie would hold the knowledge that you “know that you know”. Things like how to drive a car, or how to do simple addition. This piece of the pie is relatively small - when compared to the pie as a whole. The next piece of the pie would contain the things that you “know that you don’t know”. For instance, I know that I don’t know how to pilot a Hot Air Balloon - or how to speak Hungarian. Again - this piece of the pie is not very large. The rest of the pie - which is the majority - hold the things that you “don’t know that you don’t know”. This is a difficult concept to understand, but can be best described as those times when someones says something to you — and you say — “REALLY? I didn’t know that…” Remember this pie — because we’ll come back to it later
3. The third part of the presentation focused on how to find out what you don’t know that you don’t know — and how to use that knowledge to create distinctions in your life. Distinctions in this sense can be described as core beliefs we hold about ourselves. For instance, I have a distinction that says I’m a great organizer - and I have another distinction that says I’m a good friend - and another that says I am a designer/developer/web geek. But there are also distinctions I don’t have — but I wish I did. For instance, I wish I had a distinction that said I have a head for Business and am a “Business Woman”, and one that said I’m passionate about my health. For me, those are areas that I need to work on.

So, throughout the luncheon, we took short breaks where we turned to the person next to us (a complete stranger for most of the people in the room) - and poured out our deepest desires for our life. We talked about how we currently see ourselves, what’s holding us back - and what changes we needed to make to reach that next plateau.

Bruce also talked about an interesting pattern that he has noticed when working with clients. Most successful people don’t just have up and downs that steadily increase in an upward path. They have ups, downs, “rockets of success” (my term), and plateaus. So as we’re going along in our lives, or in our businesses we’ll have some good weeks - some bad — and then all of a sudden we’ll have a major Breakthrough — and we’ll rocket toward the stars. Then we may plateau - or the cycle may start all over again. Either way — the reason that we suddenly rocketed toward success usually means that we have broken through a barrier (money, time, ability, or support) and made a new distinction.

This has happened to me, time and time again. For instance, I used to have a belief that said I wasn’t “pretty” enough or “smart” enough to lead an organization. But one day - I decided those things didn’t matter - and suddenly doors opened for me that I never even knew existed. And I got to make a whole bunch of really cool friends in the process. Nothing really changed — I was still the same person as before - but now I saw myself as a leader.

Which brings me to an amazing post by Chris Brogan (founder of PodCamp) - and a distinction that I hope you’ll all vow to make - if you haven’t already. This distinction is not just a personal distinction - but a distinction about our Community (The “Geek” Community) as a whole.

Chris writes:

“I believe that spreading encouragement and developing camaraderie amongst all the various folks working in this space (be it blogging, podcasting, videoblogging, second lifers, etc), becomes core to building this community up and out.

There are people out there highlighting the work of others every day, by building link love into their blogs, and pointing out each other’s work on Twitter. There are people seeking out collaborations and experiences that form the communities around action, and build us all up with something to really sink our hearts and minds into. And at every turn in the road, there are people out there doing great things for each other, just because it’s the right thing to do and because we all want each other to succeed.

It’s not all kumbaya and “peace, brother.” It’s a common bond we’re all feeling towards wanting to figure out this personal media revolution and do our best work within it.”

I read this and I suddenly had an entirely new distinction for myself - and this involves all of you - the distinction was “There is dramatic power in sharing the best within myself, with MY community”. Because I’ve just owned the fact that it’s mine. That I’m a part of what is being built - and of the amazing changes that are happening in the way we are all learning to share and communicate. That I’m not just watching from the sidelines. That I’m not a passive user. That I am helping to build a new world - and that I have a responsibility to help keep this community passionate and open. The motto of Social Media Club is “If you get it, share it.” I think our community needs a motto too. Something that expresses what Chris so eloquently wrote.

Now back to the pie, this was definitely something that I didn’t know that I didn’t know — at least on this deep a level. I’ve always known there was power in sharing - but I think up until now I’ve been holding something back — and been waiting to be invited into this community. I’ve been seeking permission to be a member - instead of owning the fact that I already am. So now I say to all of you — please join us. You will only make the experience richer for us all.

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