One Man Show - Featuring the Authors and Shakespeare

In 1985, I established my one-person company and began the journey along the road of self-employment as a One Man Show.

A road-journey over many years will involve travel along highways and byways. There will be:

• major highways where you engage the cruise control,
• busy 2-way streets where the degree of ‘travel risk’ depends upon the nature of destinations linked by the streets, time of the day or night when travel is either possible or required,
• behaviour of fellow-travellers,
• number of crossings – trains, trams, major streets,
• access to or exits from major highways or bridges,
• availability of service centres or rest areas,
• possibility of snow, sleet, fog, storms, drenching rain or direct rays of strong sunlight that can’t be avoided by wearing sunglasses or tilting the shades provided in the car,
• holiday traffic escaping the cities for beach, mountain, river or outback breaks, or the hairy experience of the school drop-off hours.

And there will be lanes, byways, side streets or cross-country tracks that invite and allow you to
explore ‘off the beaten track’.

Most importantly, there will be lots of traffic lights and railway crossings, where signage and coloured lights will offer direction on how best to proceed from the point of signage.

As a One Man Show, you should heed the traffic lights and plan accordingly. Traffic lights demand quick decisions. When approaching a green traffic light, you can be tempted to increase your speed to make sure you make the crossing before it turns yellow for a brief moment then the inevitable red. As it turns yellow, you must decide whether to stop or continue to cross: this involves looking quickly at your rear-vision mirror in case there is a car close on your heels that could bump into you if you stop suddenly. Sometimes, it’s safer to continue to cross than to stop suddenly. A yellow light may cause you to stop and think, or may cause you to speed up if it seems safer to do so.

There may be times when the red light looks more like a challenge to be overcome rather than a direct statement to stop.

When you are travelling on foot rather than in a car, pedestrian crossings with lights present the same options. And the main thought in your mind, whether as a driver or a pedestrian, is the safety of yourself and others. So it is with your One Man Show.

These lists present a series of green traffic lights that are definite go signs, yellow traffic lights that are definite cautions, and red traffic lights that are definite stop signs.

Red Traffic Lights – Stop!

Must not do’s – run away from these:

1. False pride
2. Making decisions based on your wants, not your business or product needs
3. Believing everything you read, hear or are told
4. Finding reasons to disbelieve, doubt or discredit your inner thoughts or feelings
5. Not creating and maintaining a factual basis for decision-making
6. Neglecting debtors
7. Not looking after yourself – which can lead to de-motivation and ‘dropping your bundle’
8. Ignoring clear and factual signs that your business is not healthy, or your product is missing the mark
9. Failing to plan – and when you do plan, failing to monitor and measure progress
10. Taking your eye off the ball – which for you as a One Man Show means losing or ignoring your vision
11. Not expressing your vision in practical terms as ‘short-term achievable goals’ and as a set of annual performance indicators, measures and targets
12. Not marketing regularly, especially when you are at your busiest
13. Not monitoring life cycles of (a) your product and (b) your business
14. Not watching your finances as closely as you watch your own satisfaction or comfort level

Yellow Traffic Lights – Caution!

Must always be wary about:

1. Be selective in what you believe – always test what you read, observe, hear or think against your practical every-day experience and insight
2. Develop your own definitions and check that the meaning of key words and terms you use in conversations or documents are clearly understood by each audience
3. Always test your – and others’ – assumptions
4. Protect your intellectual property or capital to the extent that you decide you need to
5. Treat yourself as your greatest and most reliable asset
6. Treat the past as the basis for planning your future – and use the present to assess/review the past and examine options for the future
7. Examine the perspective and motive of any person or group who suggests you need them in your business – or associated with your business in any way. Make them earn your trust.
8. Finding, attracting, developing and retaining and maintaining staff
9. Maintaining direction and motivation
10. Managing instability or uncertainty
11. Managing your workload, and rewarding/acknowledging effort as well as achievement
12. Managing your time and tasks
13. Keeping vision and focus
14. Being effective, energetic, and practical
15. Remaining pro-active as opposed to reactive
16. Manage your resources with skill and care – this includes finances, systems, procedures, advisors, products, services – and keep a constant watch on facts and figures
17. Being innovative – as well as realistic
18. Balancing innovation with maintenance
19. Deal with each problem or difficulty as soon as you are aware of it: if these situations creep up on you as a surprise, you have a different and bigger problem! This should never happen.
20. Create the appropriate image, and check to see that this is the way you, your business and your product/component/service are perceived.

Green Traffic Lights – Go!

Must do’s – and must do well:

1. Capitalise on your skills, experience, qualities, qualifications, observations – ie what went on and was going on in your life at the time of starting your One Man Show
2. Define and write your business objective/s in practical terms, and place it where you can see it each day
3. Know the difference and relationship between cost, price and value
4. Plan your business and product life cycles, and know that there will be peaks and troughs, times of pleasure and times of grind – and give as much energy to celebrating effort as you do to celebrating results
5. Work out your understanding of ‘trust’ and ‘trusting’ – and monitor reasons to distrust as well as reasons to trust
6. Constantly develop, check with and tap into your inner wisdom
7. Know, understand, respect and love yourself – remember that you are your most important and valuable asset and resource
8. Go the extra mile in customer service – gaining customer loyalty and respect should lead to repeat business, which is the cheapest and best form of marketing
9. Develop strong supplier relationships – find and retain suppliers who are (a) reliable, (b) display a commitment to providing a consistent quality of service that meets your standards and requirements, and (c) show respect for you and your business
10. Do what you do best, and pay suppliers or contractors to do other necessary things
11. Accept that a time of challenge or ‘back to the wall’ is an open invitation to display entrepreneurial activity and initiative
12. Display a high level of commitment to your own effort and potential – this is a strong selling point for your business and your product
13. Be proud and passionate about your business and your product
14. Moving from business activity to business reflection
15. Be specific and confident about your:
    • Uniqueness – what is the ‘point of difference’ about your business and your
      product/component/service that can be presented, packaged and marketed
    • Competition – identify and assess current or potential competitors to maintain and strengthen your uniqueness, and
    • Credibility and viability – these are marketable features which you should always aspire to maintain
16. Coordinate your marketing activities within a carefully structured and resourced marketing strategy
17. Negotiate ‘space’ with your personal or private relationships
18. Create – as well as recognise – opportunities
19. Be capable of living with the prospect of success
20. Be capable of growing and developing as a successful One Man Show
21. Find a role model or mentor – no matter how successful you become: you will always need to have a person who will offer advice or a considered response with your best interest at the heart of such advice or response

One Man Show further expands the concept of traffic lights and provides suggests on how to change red lights to green.

One Man Show - Featuring the Authors and Shakespeare

Contents

About the Author
About the Book

Section 1: Setting out as a One Man Show
Jean – as a One Man Show, from 1985
Shakespeare as a One Man Show, from 1592
Why Shakespeare?

Section 2: The Resource Base of a One Man Show
The ritual of celebration
What I had to work with in 1985 (at the age of fifty-one)
What Shakespeare had to work with – from 1592 (at the age of twenty-eight)
Some features of Shakespeare’s life and times – which contributed to his Resource Base

Your Resource Base
You – being a One Man Show involves your whole person
The ‘Person’ Spider-web
Work/life balance
The Intimacy of Daily Life
The Generational factor
Similarly in Shakespeare’s life and times

Your resourcefulness
Business principles and values
Understanding the relationship between Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Creativity
Momentum
Risky Changes
‘Unshakeable Facts’
There is always a degree of risk associated with a One Man Show
Risk Management – some useful definitions
Engaging suppliers
Risk Management Checklist
Crisis Management
Similarly with Shakespeare
Crisis Management Strategy
Business Brainpower – left- and right-brain orientation
Business Brainpower Tool
As easy scoring tool
Discussion with Business Starters
Application of Business Brainpower to selling and buying
The issue of Trust in your working relationships
Your resources – available or accessible
Cost, Price, Value and Return on Investment
Marketing
Who and What you know
Be wary of making assumptions
Similarly with Shakespeare

Section 3: Two different – and useful – business life-cycles
The relationship between ‘core business’ and business life-cycles
Theoretical Frameworks
Business life-cycles
Example 1: Four-stage Continuous Business Life-cycle
Innovation Stage – new things, or new ways of doing existing things
Research and Development (R&D)
Establishment Stage – business readiness
Project Mentality and Project Management
Planning structure
Growth and Development, Trial and Refinement Stage
Managing Fear
Critical Success Factors – Jean’s A-Z
Evaluation Stage as basis for further innovation
Using the Four-Stage Continuous Business Life-cycle
Example 2: The Sigmoid Curve Business Life-cycle
Similarity of the Sigmoid Curve Business Life-cycle and the Four-Stage Continuous Business Life-cycle
Jean’s Sigmoid Curve Business Life-Cycles
Shakespeare’s Sigmoid Curve Business Life-Cycles
Application of the Sigmoid Curve as a business life-cycle for
Business Start-ups
Checklist to guide planning at each stage in these two separate but similar business life-cycles
Retrospective Planning – a revelation in 1999
Similarly with Shakespeare

Section 4: Traffic lights for One Man Show business start-ups
The One Man Show journey
Green (Go) Traffic Lights – must do’s
Yellow (Caution) Traffic Lights
Red (Stop) Traffic Lights – must not do’s
How to turn Red (Stop) Traffic Lights to Green (Go)
Epilogue Jean’s tribute to Shakespeare
Bibliography

Buy online

$79.00 GST incl.

Related posts

• Jean’s Core Business Strategy No. 9: Retrospective Planning (0)
• Jean’s Core Business Strategy No. 2: The Art and Science of Business: ‘Critical Success Factors – Jean’s A-Z’ (1)
• A decade of action-research in supporting services for people living with difficulty, disadvantage or disability (0)
• Jean’s Core Business Strategy No. 6: Traps in Tendering and Outsourcing (0)
• Jean’s Core Business Strategy No. 3: Performance Indicators, Measures and Targets (0)

Riding the Waves of Community Development in Australia

Community Development had begun to take shape and form by the mid 70s: it was an idea whose time had come!

Author: Jean Roberts, 2007. Publisher: Roberts Management Concepts Pty Ltd
ISBN 978-0-646-4850

Chapter 1: The 3 major components in community development – people, tasks and environment

In developing any community, there will be the need to plan, implement and evaluate one or a number of individual tasks or situations. It is predictable that each task or situation will consist of 3 major components:

• the task itself
  • what needs to be done, why, how, when, where, at what cost
• the person or persons involved with or affected by the task
  • who, who for, by whom, who else, together with their needs, interests and aspirations
• the environment within which the people will accomplish the task
  • the broad environment (eg political, cultural, social, economic, geographic) and the immediate environment (eg organisational issues, access to facilities and equipment, physical comfort)

Community activity will need people to be involved, tasks to be achieved and an environment that will need to be understood.

People of any age, background or culture may be involved as individuals, groups or organisations. However they are involved, they will need to be empowered as individuals before they can be effective in empowering the wider community. Each person brings with them:

• immediate relationships (immediate and extended family, those they live and love with, those with whom they share important aspects of their lives)
• present and past experiences (workplace, personal, social, economic, spiritual, educational, physical, emotional, intellectual, cultural experiences)
• formal and informal learning (qualifications, courses, workshops, self-paced learning, reading, studies)
• community networks and linkages (groups and organisations with whom they are already involved and through which their lives are enriched)

No community is without a community memory, tradition, culture, personality… often called ‘a rich tapestry’. The challenge for people is to capitalise on the existing strengths of their community, and to collaboratively plan their desired future. Previous relationships and established networks need to be respected, as these also contribute to the ‘rich tapestry’ of any community.

Tasks that range from simple through to complex will need to be planned and implemented by the people who make up the geographic community or community of interest, which may include:

• arranging discussions or meetings
• prioritising needs and interests
• considering possibilities for immediate or future action
• acquiring additional resources
• maintaining interest and motivation
• keeping people informed.

Individual tasks need to be:

• appropriate to the community’s needs, interests or aspirations,
• acceptable to the people who will be involved, and the environment within which the tasks is to be accomplished, and
• achievable within available or accessible resources.

Environmental factors that can influence both the people and tasks, and these may be:

• obvious (such as access to distance, terrain, transport and availability of facilities), or
• needing exploration (such as criteria for funding, quality of relationships between existing community-based organisations, government policies and priorities, previous attempts at community initiatives).

‘Obvious’ environmental factors need to be identified, acknowledged and accommodated. For example, an identified community that is situated within a specific geographic boundary offers different challenges and opportunities in comparison to one that is spread across hundreds of kilometres.

Environmental factors that need exploration include language that is currently in use in relevant government policies and funding programs. If the wrong language is used when corresponding with a government department, or a community group has misinterpreted the department’s language, the result may well be a total lack of understanding between the two parties.

Language

Language seems to be a moving target. As we have moved into the 21st Century, a new language has taken preference over the traditional language of community development, community empowerment and community management.

Today, the language includes – and is not confined to – such terms as:

• community building
• community strengthening
• community engagement
• community consultation
• community communication
• community capacity building
• social capital
• social responsibility
• social partnerships
• corporate citizenship
• corporate social responsibility
• neighbourhood renewal
• neighbourhood strengthening

Activity of any kind and at any level of any community – whether formal or informal, whether a geographic community or community of interest – involves the making of decisions.

With regard to language, the first decision any group should make is to agree on their own definition of terms frequently used in their area of influence or activity (such as those above). Start the process of clarification and agreement by trying to obtain definitions of specific terms from the people who use them frequently or have introduced them. And do a search on the internet to see how widely such terms are used and defined. For instance, a search for ‘social capital’ opens a list through www.NonprofitHub.com, where ‘social capital’ is defined as the effort of the individual of a community to come together in order to build a social infrastructure of shared values and challenges. This site also presents a nonprofit dictionary, and this list of ‘upcoming terms’:

• social cohesion
• social development
• social enterprise
• social entrepreneurs
• social investing
• social marketing
• social policy
• social venture capital
• social venture funds
• socially responsible investing

For clarity, here’s a repeat of my own definitions of the three sequential steps in community building, community strengthening, neighbourhood renewal – or whatever language is being used:

Step 1 – Community empowerment, where a defined community is given – or given access to – the resources needed to enable it to make decisions on its own behalf. This means that the community itself determines not only how decisions are made, but that decisions are made with the support and commitment of the community itself

• the community must be defined, and
• given access to the resources it needs to facilitate local decision-making

Step 2 – Community development, where a defined community determines its direction, priorities and activities

• the community has access to the resources it needs to facilitate local decision-making, with
• the community developing its own action plan with priorities, and
• the community identifying any additional resources necessary to implement its priorities, and locating these additional resources

Step 3 – Community management, where a defined community manages its own resources through an agreed and appropriate structure and process

• the community may manage implementation of its own priorities with the support of established community or support agencies, funding sources – or through its own efforts and energy

In his book The Different Drum (an Arrow publication, first published in 1990), M. Scott Peck writes about community-making and peace. He sets out 4 stages in the making of a genuine community, and presents a number of scenarios to illustrate these stages. In chapter 5 on Stages of Community-Making, Peck states that:

Communities, like individuals are unique. Still we all share the human condition. So it is that groups assembled deliberately to form themselves into community routinely go through certain stages in the process. These stages, in order are:

• Pseudocommunity
• Chaos
• Emptiness
• Community

 

Peck explains that the:

Pseudo-community Stage finds members attempting to be an instant community by being extremely pleasant with one another and avoiding all disagreement.

Chaos Stage always centres around well-intentioned but misguided attempts to heal and convert.

Emptiness Stage – There are always two ways out of chaos (ie a period of time squabbling and getting nowhere). One is into organisation – but organisation is never community. The only other way is into and through emptiness, the hard part, which means that they need to empty themselves of barriers to communication – expectations and perceptions; prejudices; ideology, theology and solutions; the need to heal, convert, fix or solve; the need to control.

Community Stage – Having worked through Emptiness, the community has been born. The group has become a community. Where does it go from here? What, then, is its task?

Peck infers that when the people have worked out how to work together in their community, they need to know where they want or need to put their collective energy. And in working together, they are able to examine options for action, and to understand their environment.

The waves of community development include the acquisition of resources

Looking back to the 1970s, many community-based initiatives grew into informal groups, and many more into legal entities. A lot of time was given to writing submissions to attract funds from governments, foundations, trusts and corporations to support community initiatives. Such submissions emphasised ‘inputs’, ie additional resources required to cater for the needs, interests or aspirations of their service-users or members. And the greater the need, the more chance there was of attracting funds.

Then, in the 1980s, the focus of submission-based funding moved from inputs to ‘outputs’. This meant that community groups needed to emphasize the new or improved services or programs that would be possible with the funds being sought – rather than the nature and extent of need.

In the 1990s, came ‘Re-inventing’ of government – the purchaser/provider relationship’ at local, state and commonwealth levels of government. The focus of submission-based funding moved from ‘outputs’ to ‘outcomes’ – and to measurable outcomes. By way of explanation, an ‘output’ is what is created through application of available resources: an ‘outcome’ is the impact or effect of outputs on the life or lifestyle of people in the community. For the funding source, the measurable outcome becomes the return on investment of their funds.

Community development has moved from justifying inputs, through designing and sustaining outputs to being accountable for achieving measurable outcomes. Community-based organisations were now providers of contracted service providers rather than groups of like-minded people offering services or assistance to people with a need, interest or aspiration.

Since the 1990s, legislative frameworks for service standards and accreditation have become highly sophisticated, leading to an increasing requirement for continuous quality improvement – in many cases through external audits. In many segments of the nonprofit sector, accreditation is a pre-requisite for funding or contractual agreements – and this will surely become the norm through the next 5-6 years.

The 1990s also saw a concentrated rationalisation in most segments of the nonprofit sector. The purchaser/provider relationship with governments either enforced or encouraged strategic alliances and mergers.

Now, as explained at the beginning of this Chapter, the concept and practice of community development has been divided into a myriad of sub-titles. However, the unifying fact is that they are all dependent upon people to be involved, tasks to be achieved, and an environment to be explored.

In Chapter 2, we will focus on People, and examine the human factors that impact on the people involved with or affected by community development.

We will look at individuals of different ages and cultures, self-help groups, project teams, community-based organisations, commercial organisations, institutions, local authorities, and the 3 levels of government.

We will also look at behaviours that were prevalent in the 1970s and through decades since then – and dip into behaviours that can be expected to be prevalent in the future.

Read more:

Riding the Waves of Community Development in Australia

Contents

Introductory Chapter
Definitions and descriptions associated with the title
Chapter 1 – The three major components in community development: People, tasks and environment
Chapter 2 – People – human factors that impact on the people involved with or affected by community development, eg cultures, traditions, choices, language, expectations, lifestyles
Chapter 3 – Tasks – task analysis of community development, eg exactly what is involved?
Chapter 4 – Environment – a variety of community development environments, eg planned, imposed, organic, accidental, crisis, desperation, innovation
Chapter 5 – Impact of a variety of waves on people, tasks and environments
Chapter 6 – Concepts and theories that can guide practical action plans to help
us understand, respect and capitalise on a variety of waves
Chapter 7 – Reflections and thoughts for community development into the future

Buy online

$24.00 GST incl.

Related posts

• A decade of action-research in supporting services for people living with difficulty, disadvantage or disability (0)
• Entrepreneurial Initiative as a Sole Operator (0)
• Jean’s Core Business Strategy No. 2: The Art and Science of Business: ‘Critical Success Factors – Jean’s A-Z’ (1)
• A day in the life of a dynamic Association CEO (0)
• Non-profit sector assignments (0)

• ‘art’ is the doing of a thing, and
• ‘science’ is the understanding of a thing.

For the first half of my life, I was ‘doing’ my spiritual journeying, with total focus on the ‘doing’.

Since then – and almost certainly through the remainder of my life – the challenges, opportunities and rewards have and will contribute to a steady and evolving ‘understanding’.

As with any journey, there have been unanticipated events along the way, with unexpected pauses to assess what I already knew, and what else I needed to know. Examples include misunderstandings or misinterpretations – either on my part or the part of others. At such a time, I heed the wise saying that it’s not what happens to us that’s important: it’s how we react or respond to what’s happening to us that’s important.

‘React’ can imply an immediate and often unconsidered action: whereas ‘respond’ indicates allowing – or taking time to allow – my emotions to subside, then to consider options and alternatives, and finally to initiate a planned action – or in many cases, my planned action is to do nothing.

There have been, and are, risky experiences:

Some risky experiences I’ve accepted or allowed in order to better understand a particular situation, a relationship or a reaction. I’d call these ‘calculated’ risks – I’ll try this and see how things turn out:

• there is great benefit in keeping a spiritual journal: mine is now a major electronic resource, having started out as hand-written notes in 1986
• I can read back through the years and recognize how and how often this strategy has worked or not worked, and am able to appreciate short- and longer-term influences on or even changes in my behaviour and language

Other risky experiences have simply crept up on me, and I’m left wondering – How did this happen?

• with the best of intentions, I have set out on a particular path only to find that the path has not led to where I had expected or planned to go – but rather it has brought me back full-circle to where I had started from, and happily with an increased understanding of my spiritual journey as a result
• the benefit of the path had been the increased understanding gained, rather than the path itself.

In a few instances, some risky experiences have overwhelmed me to the extent of confusion, and even during the confusion I’m asking – What’s this all about?

• as well as learning to understand our own motives and behaviours, it’s most important that we learn to understand the motives and behaviours of others
• I’m constantly reminded of the scripture that unless we love ourselves, we cannot love others – and, in this case, unless we understand ourselves, we cannot understand others

There is one risky experience that I frequently bring to mind and respectfully share with others. On this occasion I was ‘put’ into a situation by one manager that would enable him to further his workplace credibility. It followed that I was then accused by another manager of acting in a particular manner that was totally uncharacteristic of me, and expected by both managers to forget that this situation had ever happened.

• the understanding that I gained from both managers – and from this experience – was that some people expect you to behave as they would in a given situation
• in effect, there are people who treat others as if they are replicas of themselves
• this is often referred to as controlling behaviour – using others to achieve their own ends, or at least trying to do so
• not only has this experience helped my understanding of human behaviour, but others as well when I share the experience without compromising the managers involved

Understanding human behaviours is a key factor in the concept and practice of trust, and I’ve written extensively on this in my 2008 book One Man Show – the smallest of small business – featuring my own and Shakespeare’s experiences as sole operators.

Trust is a critical issue in running your own business. Believe me, Shakespeare had a significantly more complex environment within which to operate 400 years ago that we have today!

Back to Chapter 5 of this e-book:

In the concluding comments of Chapter 5, you’ll find five underlying principles that have supported my continued learning and understanding. They are also relevant to risk management in any person’s spiritual journeying:

• to value my time – and to invest it wisely,
• to read the mind of the Universe – and learn more about Universal love,
• to be confident that I am ‘in place’ – with wonderful events and experiences moving toward me,
• that learning by observation is as valuable as learning by experience, and
• that life is just one continuous journey – with peaks and troughs, with laughter and tears… in constant one-ness with the collective consciousness, which is the manifestation of our patient Creator.

My focus now is on the underlying principle that learning by observation is as valuable as learning by experience. I’ll expand this principle to show its relevance to risk management – firstly in physical journeying, and then in any person’s spiritual journeying.

Risk can be defined as what you may lose less what you are willing to lose – which leads to the need to know the nature, level and extent of risk you are willing to accept. The nature and extent of risk can be quantified by the effect of a risk should it occur.

There is ongoing discussion as to there being only and always one cause to any problem: this implies that solving or addressing any problem must start by identifying and addressing that one cause. However, my experience shows that with risk, there may be one causal factor – but many contributing factors.

Let’s look at two examples by which we can learn about risk by observation:

• TV documentary Why the Titanic Sank, and
• 2008 BDO Nonprofit Fraud Survey.

TV documentary Why the Titanic Sank

In November of 2008, I arrived into my Belfast hotel in preparation for the Institute of Small Business and Entrepreneurship annual conference. On the television that night was a documentary Why the Titanic Sank, and I watched with great interest – Belfast being the dockyard in which the Titanic was built and from which it was launched, sailing into its first and final journey.

We all know that the cause of the sinking of the Titanic and ensuing loss of several hundred lives was collision with an iceberg followed by a desperate and tragic mismanagement of lifeboat evacuation.

However, the documentary went on to present 14 contributing factors to this event and outcome. These contributing factors are presented in the order in which they were introduced and explained in the documentary:

1. substandard rivets
2. design of the ship
3. questionable quality of steel/iron
4. unusual iceberg behaviour
5. Marconi officers were only paid for transmitting passenger messages, therefore priority was given to these above the iceberg warnings received from other ships in the vicinity
6. lifeboats – 16 only had been installed instead of 49 that would be needed to evacuate the number of passengers and crew
7. no lifeboat drill had been initiated, therefore the crew were not trained on evacuation of this ship, which was on its maiden voyage
8. the Captain of a ship is the law aboard ship: but Captain Smith was not acting as ‘the law’
9. when instructing crew on shepherding passengers into the lifeboats, the Captain said ‘women and children first’ but the crew member heard ‘women and children only’
10. that the ship was unsinkable had been the accepted and continuing Company’s marketing message
11. the sister ship, Olympia, needed dock space in Belfast to repair the anchor that had been damaged on that ship’s earlier voyage when Captain Smith was in charge of the ship and voyage. This repair delayed the Titanic’s maiden voyage by a month, resulting in the Titanic’s First Officer being replaced by the Olympia’s First Officer – due to seniority
12. when leaving the ship prior to departing from Belfast, the Titanic’s First Officer accidentally packed the key to the cupboard in which the binoculars for the look-outs were stored: therefore the two look-out officers on iceberg-watch duty that night had no binoculars
13. there was no moon, therefore the wash at the base of the moving iceberg had no light by which to show movement to the Titanic’s look-out crew
14. Captain Smith was in a state of mental break-down – therefore no one person was in charge of the total evacuation procedure, and crew members had no-one they could go to for direction

Some observations:

One could observe that it was this collection of contributing factors which laid the foundation for the causal factor to sink the Titanic with the loss of several hundreds of lives.

One could also observe that if only one or a small number of these contributing factors had occurred, then this disaster may have been averted or minimised.

However, the key observation is that there is a difference between a causal factor and a contributing factor.

2008 BDO Nonprofit Fraud Survey

Note: The contents of this publication are not a substitute for specific advice and should not be relied upon as such. Accordingly, while every care has been taken in the presentation of the publication, no responsibility is accepted for persons acting on this information

Management of fraud within both the not-for-profit sector and organisations is only effective when the specifics of fraud are understood. In this section of the survey, respondents were asked to address the single largest fraud that has occurred in their organisation over the past two years.

Key findings include:

• the most common type of fraud reported by respondents was cash theft (33%);
• the typical fraudster is in his/her forties and is a paid non-accounting employee; only 8% of fraud was committed by unpaid volunteers;
• collusion was present in 25% of frauds reported with the typical colluder a female, over 50 years of age and a paid employee;
• the average value of the largest frauds in the not-for-profit sector is under $50,000 ($45,527);
• of all reported cases of fraud, 54% of respondents believed they discovered the full extent of the fraud;
• internal controls are the most successful method of discovering fraud, with 36% of frauds discovered this way;
• the average duration of a fraud was 14 months;
• respondents indicated that financial problems and pressures are the most common motivator for fraud;
• the majority of respondents did not report fraudulent matters to the Police;
• 20% of organisations did not terminate the employment of the person who committed the fraud.

By examining the specific fraud incidents of organisations we are able to provide the sector with information regarding what is the most likely type of fraud for their organisation size and type. Once again this enables organisations to remain on the front foot in the prevention of fraud.

There are some obvious correlations between the type of fraud and the category of the organisation that suffered the fraud. If an organisation handles a lot of cash then it is logical that cash theft would be the primary type of fraud occurring, in that the opportunity exists for those individuals who may be tempted.

While the information in this section can provide assistance to organisations in identifying key risk areas, it is also important not to categorise employees and volunteers and be blinded to other possibilities. The greatest weapon in the fight against fraud is prevention.

Learning by observation is indeed as valuable as learning by experience – and this applies to spiritual journeying as it does to physical journeying.

This method of learning can be as valuable as personal experience, and the gaining of formal qualifications. As well as your own, you can learn from the observations of others.

Observing others on their spiritual journeys can almost be a full-time activity. There is a wide range of options available, and many choose an option after observing the experiences of those who have already chosen a particular option.

We need to constantly remind ourselves that we may well be the subject of observation as we move through our spiritual journey. The manifestation of our spiritual journey is our physical journey – how we behave, make decisions or choices, respond to unexpected events, work our way through various risk experiences – and most importantly, how we integrate our observations and experiences into our knowledge and understanding.

Risk management means being able to see through the likelihood of risk to the potential and new level of understanding.

Risk management in spiritual journeying relies on having a toolbox of strategies based on personal observation and experience, together with knowledge and understanding of available tools and strategies.

It is necessary to understand and appreciate the practical implications, possibilities and potential of your spiritual journey.

In the next and final chapter of this e-book, I’ll re-cap on the tools and strategies offered in this and previous chapters – and encourage you to test and try tools that could be of interest and usefulness at the time of your reading: these are listed, in the sequence in which they are introduced, should you wish to review them in the meantime:

1. Retrospective Planning
2. Rennes paper
3. Journal keeping, including your dreams
4. Definitions
5. Choice-making
6. Entry/exit maturity
7. Multi-dimensional being
8. Enlightenment (art) and communication (science)
9. Experiencing the collective consciousness
10. Seven categories of growth and development
11. Deliberate practice
12. Principle of relativity
13. Genius
14. Adult learning principles
15. Innovation formula
16. Genius explained
17. Conscious/unconscious competence/incompetence
18. Risk management
19. Contributing and causal factors
20. Learning by observation

Related posts

• One Man Show – the smallest of small business – extract from Section 4: Traffic lights for One Man Show business start-ups. (0)
• One Man Show – the smallest of small business (9)
• Skills Involved in Tendering (1)
• Jean’s Core Business Strategy No. 9: Retrospective Planning (0)
• Jean’s Core Business Strategy No. 3: Performance Indicators, Measures and Targets (0)

One of my favourite tools is to write a group of words across the page, and then to break them up vertically. In doing this, I can see and consider them as individual and independent expressions: each offering its own train of thought which adds to a greater understanding and appreciation of their collective meaning. Take the title of this chapter for instance:

Identifying – this word brings other words to mind, such as finding, recognising, knowing, understanding, legitimising.

structuring – my mind turns to planning, drawing up specifications, introducing form and substance, building, and to the benefits of a logical sequence.

and – indicates progress upon the first two words.

working with – my mind describes this progress as pushing and pulling, shaping, extending, testing, refining and improving, preparing for use and application, being able to stand back and appreciate process, progress and outcomes.

my own belief system – and here I find the focus of this group of words, which is a belief system that I have created through a life:

• filled with experience, observation, conversation and introspection – and 75 years of personal, local and global events and influences;
• spent questioning a range of feelings that can travel from confidence through uncertainty to confusion and back again; and
• influenced consciously and subconsciously by the personal, local and global experiences of my parents and their respective forebears.

As I consider these words separately, I have a greater understanding of them than would be possible by just reading them horizontally.

Watching the effect and impact of my own belief system on myself and others is like holding a mirror up to my spiritual journey – being able to observe not only the effect and impact on my own life and experience, but also on the effect and impact on the lives and experiences of those with whom I come into contact.
Not all relationships or experiences in one’s life are peaceful, supportive or without challenge. There is wisdom in the statement that it’s not the things that happen in our lives that are important – it’s how we each respond to them that is important.

The title of this Chapter states the obvious – that each of us needs to have a belief system, to know and understand it, and to be sufficiently confident to be able to use it as a tool in shaping our relationships and experiences.

Therefore… ? This is the important point I’ve wanted to make since the start – and have spent five chapters, and taken over 18 months, to arrive at this point.

The structure I’ve chosen to illustrate the wisdom from identifying, structuring and working with one’s own belief system is one that trainers and educators will be familiar with:

• Unconscious incompetence
• Conscious incompetence
• Conscious competence
• Unconscious competence

I don’t know where this structure originated, but I’ve used it frequently in the context of training, consulting, relating, observing, knowing and understanding.

I usually introduce it this way:

Having been a driver now for more than 40 years, I find it interesting and useful to reflect on these four stages in relation to my driving. The first and second stages were simply a means of getting to the highly important third and fourth stages of:

• Conscious competence – relating closely to deliberate practice (introduced in Chapter 4, and expanded in Chapter 5), and
• Unconscious competence – relating closely to the confidence one gains through deliberate practice, until something suddenly or unexpectedly happens that returns me to conscious competence

However – and here’s the truth – we never return to the level of conscious competence that we had achieved prior to a spell in unconscious competence: we always return to a level of increased maturity, ie with more knowledge, understanding and intelligence than previously.

The predictable experience from this point is to ‘tap-dance’ between conscious and unconscious competence – all the time growing and evolving into wisdom.

And so it is with our own belief system. At some stage in our experience, we will become aware that there is such a state of mind as a belief system (moving from unconscious incompetence to conscious incompetence), we will then structure and begin to work with it, (moving to conscious competence). Then, over time and with sufficient and deliberate practice, we will achieve or acquire unconscious competence.

Then – we will graduate to the ‘tap-dance’ that enables us to grow and evolve into spiritual wisdom! This is the fluid movement between conscious and unconscious competence – a movement that is best likened to ascending a spiral staircase. Each time we return to conscious competence, we will be able to recognise, understand and accept our growth since were last were there! If we didn’t return to conscious competence, we wouldn’t know or understand our growth in wisdom.

The starting point to this amazing experience is to know that it is possible to have your own belief system – and then, to discover and explore it.

In chapter 7, we’ll turn to the art and science of risk management – and discover that it is as relevant in spiritual journeying as in physical journeying.

Related posts

• A decade of action-research in supporting services for people living with difficulty, disadvantage or disability (0)
• One Man Show – the smallest of small business – extract from Section 4: Traffic lights for One Man Show business start-ups. (0)
• Managing Governance in Nonprofit Organisations in Australia (1)
• Jean’s Core Business Strategy No. 8: Project Mentality and Management (0)
• Jean’s Constitution Checklist (0)

• the connectedness between Spiritual Development and each of the seven categories of growth and development – and
• the connectedness between each of the seven categories of growth and development.

In my youth, I assumed that my spiritual experience was limited to church-related activities through the week and of course on Sundays. There was a definite line of separation between my spiritual experience and all other areas of my life – until the ‘Grappling with God’ moment in 1986, which I’ve shared in the introduction to this e-book:

“I felt weighed down with everyday things – which seemed to fill my thoughts and feelings. After my desperate talk with my God, which was an actual time and place, I expected my ‘load’ to be miraculously lifted and my feet to be planted on a different path. However, as the days and weeks passed by, I became slowly aware that ‘the everyday’ and ‘the mundane’ were how God intended to continue to talk to me. He had truly been talking, but I hadn’t recognised his voice. ‘My, how you’ve changed since I’ve changed’ is a favourite saying of mine since that time – because I changed to seeing everyday things as discourse with God. And of course this opened for me a 24 hour communication channel that had always existed. A patient God indeed!”

My stepping outside of the traditional and expected spiritual experience began with my knowing and understanding that it was possible to do so – which is always the first step in achieving behavioural or attitudinal change. The second step is acceptance of this new knowledge and understanding. Acceptance grew out of a willingness to change and be changed, to move from my perception of the separation, to an expectation of connectedness. You and I cannot move from, without moving to!

As displayed in the circle diagram above, connectedness exists between each of the seven areas of growth and development in our lives, as well as between each of these with our spiritual development. There can be just one life – within which we grow and develop as a human being with a continuing and all-embracing spiritual experience.

Now, I’m not going to say that it has all been easy – there are peaks and troughs in stepping outside of the traditional and expected spiritual experience! But with even limited spiritual enlightenment and connectedness comes the opportunity to view events in our daily lives from a spiritual – as well as human – perspective.

Dreams have always been important for me, and this is how I wrote about a 1997 dream at the time, with the message – and reminder – to let go:

I have just woken from a sleep but I woke earlier, I think around 2o’clock or so from a dream. I was sobbing in this dream, to the extent that my sobbing woke me. Although I had no tears in my eyes when I woke in my dream, I was breaking my heart. My dream was that I owned a cat which was for some reason making life very difficult for me; unbearable! I was taking it everywhere and having to hold it and restrain it and control it: it was doing everything it possibly could to leap out of my hand, to run away. It was a constant problem.

Then I was taking it to some place where I was going to leave it with a person who would confine it to one room – the room I would soon leave as I recognized a new door into a new room.

I was breaking my heart because I felt so bad about giving this cat into this confined space from which it would never be free again. It had known such freedom, which in turn had caused me so much anguish. I was walking away from it breaking my heart because I knew this cat was never going to be free again. I was sobbing, sobbing, sobbing, and I was so sad and upset – walking away into a new-found freedom, and sobbing about the reason for my harassment being at last controlled.

On reflection, I saw that this cat, which was so much trouble to me, represented the definite line of separation between my spiritual experience and all other areas of my life. And the freedom ahead of me would be the opportunity for spiritual growth and development, unfettered by that self-imposed line of separation.
It is a scary prospect indeed, walking away into a new-found freedom, with the reason for my harassment being at last controlled!

As I later reflected on this dream, I recalled a much earlier dream about a large old cat and a tiny kitten, in which the old cat (my earthly nature) was trying to destroy the tiny kitten (my newly discovered spiritual development) – seen as a threatening presence by the large old cat.

I had been reading about consciousness and creativeness: how my mind needs to be open, without any intellectual debate – simply to be open through my consciousness to the creative energy of the Creator and the Universe. I could sum this process up with the well-known dictum, “Let go and let God”. However, I know very well that it is so easy, that it is so hard. In other words – it is so easy to say, but so hard to put into practice: and so difficult to practice regularly.

Yet – with practice comes conscious improvement, and with conscious improvement comes the confidence that it will work… which leads us back to Deliberate Practice, as introduced in Chapter 4:

In the introduction to his book Genius Explained, Michael J. A. Howe reviews the early life of Mozart to draw out seven relevant factors that seem to comprise Deliberate Practice:

1. motivation,
2. preparation,
3. commitment/focus,
4. mentor,
5. skill development,
6. memory – remembering new facts that can be linked to whatever the individual already knows, and
7. enthusiasm.

Constantly practicing the connectedness between Spiritual Development and each of the seven categories of growth and development – and the connectedness between each of the seven categories of growth and development – requires:

Motivation:

My Grappling with God experience at an actual time and place (as shared in the Introduction to this e-book). After my desperate talk with him, which was an actual time and place, I expected my ‘load’ to be miraculously lifted and my feet to be planted on a different path. However, as the days and weeks passed by, I became slowly aware that ‘the everyday’ and ‘the mundane’ were how God intended to continue to talk to me. He had truly been talking, but I hadn’t recognised his voice. ‘My, how you’ve changed since I’ve changed’ is a favourite saying of mine since that time – because I changed to seeing everyday things as discourse with God. And of course this opened for me a 24 hour communication channel that had always existed. A patient God indeed!

Preparation:

As a self-employed and independent consultant since 1985, I have been responsible for all aspects of my business – ranging from the innovative through to the mundane. Setting priorities, deciding which services to offer and how to offer them, keeping up to date with trends and opportunities, enjoying the good times, and most importantly, supporting myself through the rough and tough times which can be quite a challenge.

It has been necessary to build a strong bond with my ‘inner-self’ – as my confidante, to challenge my assumptions, to check my values and to determine my direction. And often, these have all been necessary at the same time!

During these years, I have kept a personal journal – not so much about my activities, but of my thoughts, feelings, questions and answers – as a means of knowing, understanding and appreciating myself and others. It is in fact a spiritual journal – a record of my spiritual journey.

Commitment and Focus:

My experience has clearly proved the benefit of breaking the process of my spiritual growth down to one step at a time, one layer at a time, and one day at a time. This makes the process more comfortable, easier to monitor, and definitely allows me to control the pace of my journey.

Mentor:

I began to consider the collective mind, the collective consciousness, which speaks with one voice because it is truly collective. I accepted that I was a full and active member and therefore a contributor to and benefactor of the collective consciousness. I decided to call this collective consciousness ‘the Council of Minds’.

By taking energy directly from the collective consciousness, my productivity was to rise markedly – because of my continuing experimentation with the way that I attracted, allocated and monitored that energy.

Skill Development:

Enlightenment is the art of knowing – it is the knowledge and information into which one expands as a spiritual being:

• enlightenment is the movement of knowledge and information through expansion and exploration into conscious, subconscious and unconscious awareness, acceptance and confidence.

Communication is the science of enlightenment – it is the understanding of enlightenment:

• communication is the method, the technique, the action of understanding.

The difference and relationship between enlightenment and communication requires an acceptance that they are each of equal value and importance in the spiritual journey. They have the potential to be two sides of the one coin.

Memory – remembering new facts that can be linked to whatever the individual already knows

Retrospective planning is the ability to direct your attention back over a series of actions taken over a period of time after the impact of those actions has become tangible and real in order to recognise and appreciate:
1. Purpose,
2. Form,
3. Structure,
4. Rhyme,
5. Rhythm, and
6. Reasons.

Retrospective planning also allows objective observation, where the emotional component can be suspended during silent and unaccompanied reflection. For myself as a long-term small business owner/manager, this has enabled my acknowledgment of the fact of my survival as such. At least I can recognize that I’ve come through my years of self-employment, surviving and withstanding the substantial factors and reasons for small business failure in years 1, 2, 5 and 10 of operation that are the subject of continual and extensive research, study and publication throughout the world.

The process of retrospective planning requires a cluster of return journeys, a sequence of mind-travel to look over previous activity and non-activity. And the act and benefit of ‘looking’ is always advanced if we are using the relevant magnifying lens.

Enthusiasm:

Each person brings to the collective consciousness their individual experience and memory. Together, the collectivity of our minds becomes a collective consciousness – as a collective mind.

Time is unimportant in the collective mind. Time and distance and space do not exist. So when a thought that conveys any pressure related to time or distance or space presents itself, you can discount it. Communication and conversation with the collective mind equips one for any challenge, for any joy, for any opportunity, for any expression, for any presentation, for any group.

This realisation is an example of enlightenment.

Information comes to different people in different ways. To some it comes as a revelation, to some it comes as a result of digging and searching, and to others it comes by just listening or watching and observing their own behaviour or the behaviour of others.

And yet others seem to absorb knowledge through their skin. They learn through the hunger to learn, and their hunger to learn is an openness, an attitude.

What am I learning by stepping outside of the traditional and expected spiritual experience?

In reflecting on Howe’s seven relevant factors in Deliberate Practice, it’s valuable to consider my continuing learning and development – even after my 25-year journey to date:

• to value my time – and to invest it wisely,
• to read the mind of the Universe – and learn more about Universal love,
• to be confident that I am ‘in place’ – with wonderful events and experiences moving toward me,
• that learning by observation is as valuable as learning by experience, and
• that life is just one continuous journey – with peaks and troughs, with laughter and tears… in constant one-ness with the collective consciousness, which is the manifestation of our patient Creator.

Related posts

• A decade of action-research in supporting services for people living with difficulty, disadvantage or disability (0)
• My Spiritual Journey as an Independent Consultant – Chapter 4: Seven categories of growth and development – involvement and importance of the Spirit (0)
• Improve your strike/success rate with tenders, submissions, grant applications, proposals, estimates, quotes (0)
• Entrepreneurial Initiative as a Sole Operator (0)
• Annual General Meeting (AGM) and Annual Report Checklists (0)

However, my journey of preparation explains the extra time taken to share chapter 4 with you – it was scheduled for March, and here we are in May.

For most of my adult life, I’ve been in love with three men – Shakespeare, Mozart and Einstein:

• In studying their lives, I’ve learned much about the way they learned, studied, observed, handled difficult times, responded to challenges, and invested countless hours over many years in practising their craft, and
• In studying their work, I’ve learned much about human nature and experience from Shakespeare; the emotional and theoretical beauty of music from Mozart; and the predictable relationship between mass and energy through a reliable conversion factor from Einstein.

And for most of my adult life, I’ve been closely involved with adult learning – both as a learner and as a facilitator of learning.

Since 1986, my adult learning has extended to and consistently included the spiritual aspect of daily living.

Preparing this chapter has been an interesting journey in itself.

It was always my intention to feature Daniel Stufflebeam’s work on the seven categories of growth and development: as I re-read this material, it became obvious that the work of Malcolm Knowles in self-direction in learning and informal adult education is equally appropriate. Then, in re-reading the background to Knowles’ work, I came across the name Alfred North Whitehead – and his principle of relativity, the essence of each entity is determined by its relation to everything else. And of course, Whitehead led me to Einstein, and to a review of David Dobbs’ book E=mc² (and a lot of hard work).

The Age newspaper (in Australia) featured an article about David and his book on 16th October 2006, and here’s a short extract from that article:

It seems the ability we’re so fond of calling talent or even genius arises not from innate gifts but from an interplay of fair (but not extraordinary) natural ability, quality instruction and a mountain of work. This new discipline – a mix of psychology and cognitive science – has now produced its first large collection of expert reviews, the massive Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance.

The book essentially tells us to forget the notion that “genius”, “talent” or any other innate qualities create the greats we call geniuses. Instead, as the American inventor Thomas Edison said, genius is 99 per cent perspiration – or, to be truer to the data, perhaps 1 per cent inspiration, 29 per cent good instruction and encouragement, and 70 per cent perspiration. Examine closely even the most extreme examples – Mozart, Newton, Einstein, Stravinsky – and you find more hard-won mastery than gift. Geniuses are made, not born.

During this journey, I heard about Anders Ericsson and his work on Deliberate Practice. An internet search soon located the following paper:

1993, Vol. 100. No. 3, 363-406
Copyright 1993 by the American Psychological Association, Inc.

The Role of Deliberate Practice in the Acquisition of Expert Performance
(K. Anders Ericsson, Ralf Th. Krampe, and Clemens Tesch-Romer)

This article introduced me to the theory of Deliberate Practice, and in turn drew me back to a book in my own library – Michael J. A. Howe’s Genius Explained (published in 1999 by The Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge), which introduced me to the practice itself.

This article introduced me to the theory of Deliberate Practice, and in turn drew me back to a book in my own library – Michael J. A. Howe’s Genius Explained (published in 1999 by The Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge), which introduced me to the practice itself.

In the introduction to his book, Howe reviews the early life of Mozart to draw out seven relevant factors that seem to comprise Deliberate Practice:

1. motivation,
2. preparation,
3. commitment/focus,
4. mentor,
5. skill development,
6. memory – remembering new facts that can be linked to whatever the individual already knows, and
7. enthusiasm.

Several authors (who are mainly researchers) writing about Deliberate Practice quote the figure of 10,000 hours of practice. Howe writes, on page 4, about his and others’ research findings in examining links between musicians’ performance standards and the training they have undertaken:

The research findings make it clear that in all performing musicians, high levels of skill depend upon large amounts of daily practice. In one study, for instance, researchers estimated the number of hours of formal practice notched up by German student violinists in their early twenties. By the age of twenty-one, the best students in the performance class of a conservatoire had accumulated around 10,000 hours.

And, on page 5:

Practice and preparation are equally vital in other fields of achievement. For instance, around two years of sustained training are needed for a chess player to each international levels, and it takes comparable periods of time to reach the highest standards in mathematics, the sciences, tennis, athletics, and a number of other sports. As in music, although it is widely believed that certain gifted individuals can excel without doing the lengthy practicing that ordinary people have to engage in, the evidence contradicts that view.

How does all of this preparation relate to my spiritual journey as an independent consultant?

The seven categories of growth and development (below) summarize the key aspects of our daily life through which each person is able to experience the collective consciousness on their spiritual journey by:

• listening to others,
• accepting challenges,
• displaying a genuine and caring interest in the people that you work, live or study with,
• sharing and teaching as you go,
• threatening walls of uncertainty, unseen barriers, and pools of doubt and anger, through
• the presence and power of the collective consciousness – which are limitless and endless.

I have been a long-time admirer of the words and work of Daniel L. Stufflebeam, of the Evaluation Center, College of Education, Western Michigan University. In a paper he presented at the AERA Evaluation Conference in San Francisco, USA, on September 23rd 1977, he proposed this set of primary areas of need in education:

‘Needs’ in education derive from the purpose of schooling which is to promote human growth and development. In my view, the following seven developmental areas apply:

1. intellectual development – development of the power or faculty of the mind by which one knows or understands, as distinguished from that by which one feels and that by which one wills: the faculty of thinking and acquiring knowledge.
2. emotional development – development of the capacity to deal effectively with feelings of joy, sorrow, fear, hate, or the like and development of a realistic and positive self concept.
3. physical development – development of motor coordination, body fitness, and hygiene and athletic abilities.
4. moral development – development of principles and habits with respect to right or wrong conduct and acquiring the ability to conform to these principles rather than to custom or even to law when these are at variance with one’s moral convictions.
5. aesthetic development – developing a sense of , appreciation for, and ability to create beauty, especially as manifested in the areas of music, art, drama and dance
6. vocational development – developing a conception of the world of work and of one’s career interests and aptitudes, and preparing to engage in gainful and fulfilling employment
7. social development – developing the capacity and habit of living in friendly companionship with others in family and community settings and developing and implementing a sense of responsibility for promoting and sustaining civilization.
   These ‘primary areas of need in education’ seem to be as appropriate to life-long education, or to the education of life and living, as they are to formal education.

As well as defining these categories, further definitions are called for:

• growth: an increase in years, maturity, experience, knowledge, etc – and is usually measurable,
• development: the process of growing – and is best appreciated through reflection or retrospection, and
• involvement and importance of the Spirit: improving and increasing one’s spiritual communication through enlightenment (the art of knowing) and communication (the science of enlightenment) – as in Chapter 3.

The diagram below is intended to show that these seven categories of growth and development contribute to any person’s life experience (Stufflebeam), are related to each other, and with everything else in one’s life (Whitehead et al), can be explored through – and subjected to – adult and self-directed learning (Knowles) and are able to be improved and refined through deliberate practice (Ericsson et al, and Howe).

In the introduction to this e-book, I’ve explained Retrospective Planning:

Retrospective planning is the ability to direct your attention back over a series of actions taken over a period of time after the impact of those actions has become tangible and real in order to recognise and appreciate:

1. Purpose,
2. Form,
3. Structure,
4. Rhyme,
5. Rhythm, and
6. Reasons.

Retrospective planning also allows objective observation, where the emotional component can be suspended during silent and unaccompanied reflection. For myself as a long-term small business owner/manager, this has enabled my acknowledgement of the fact of my survival as such. At least I can recognize that I’ve come through my years of self-employment, surviving and withstanding the substantial factors and reasons for small business failure in years 1, 2, 5 and 10 of operation that are the subject of continual and extensive research, study and publication throughout the world.

The process of retrospective planning requires a cluster of return journeys, a sequence of mind-travel to look over previous activity and non-activity. And the act and benefit of ‘looking’ is always advanced if we are using the relevant magnifying lens.

Retrospective planning is greatly assisted with the theories and practices to be found in the words and work of Stufflebeam, Whitehead et al, Knowles, Ericsson et al, and Howe.

In my 2008 book, One Man show – the smallest of small business, I’ve introduced Entrepreneurship with this reference and quote:

In their book The Innovation Formula – how organisations turn change into opportunity (published in 1988 by Ballinger Publishing Company), Michael Robert and Alan Weiss state that entrepreneurs are often viewed as ‘business swashbucklers who catapult new ideas into public prominence while they storm the walls of the establishment’.

However with the benefit and wisdom of 20 years of research, these authors present a very different picture with their descriptive yet prescriptive statement that they found ‘true entrepreneurs aren’t pirates, but disciplined sailors who anticipate the winds and tides of change’.

(This book is based on the practical and recorded experiences of two One Man Shows – my career as a One Man Show since 1985, and Shakespeare’s career as a One Man Show from 1592 to his death in 1613)

As mentioned previously, I’ve kept a spiritual journal since 1986.

Most of my work as an independent consultant has been closely involved with people – with individuals, groups, organisations, bureaucracies and institutions. Attitudes and behaviours, likes and dislikes, skills and abilities, and particularly willingness to interact with colleagues and context have been the focus of both my work and study.

During the 1990s, I recorded this reflection after watching a television news item about the rescue of lone-yachtsmen:

I realised that they were not just yachtsmen, they were master yachtsmen and had survived because they were prepared. They had come through – they hadn’t just got up one morning and then sailed around the world single-handed. They had worked and trained and practiced and mastered their craft of yachting. Each of these three men had practiced their mastery and sustained themselves against all sorts of odds, and were able to be rescued. There was great ability among the rescuers, but there was also great ability among the rescued.

They knew what to do, they were clever – they were masters of the craft of yachting. They knew what to do in an emergency and crisis, and they did it. They used their equipment, they used their knowledge and they used their single-mindedness with their environment and with the Universe.

One of them has announced that, together with the yachtsman who was involved in his rescue, they are going to work at developing some means that the yachts won’t turn over: they are going to use their experience to improve the art of yachting. They are going to give, because of their experience, they are going to take yachting a step further and improve all those who follow them.

As I was thinking, I accepted the understanding of the mastery of these men and the mastery of their rescuers. I realised that it is possible to master the craft of spiritual communication, of moving toward my destiny, of single-mindedness in my spiritual path, and that I am on a marathon journey in this life.

When reading The Innovation Formula, it was a simple process to appreciate a spiritual application of this fact through reflection on actual events.

So, I’ll share one memorable experience with you and invite you to ponder on it, in the light of the theories and practices shared in this chapter:

This is a real-life incident from April 1993, recorded on the same evening in great detail and while still experiencing the after-shock!

This morning, I drove up through Lilydale and Yea and across to Benalla, joining the Hume Highway there. I stopped at the BP Service Centre for a coffee and sandwich and phoned ahead to tell my client that I was about an hour away and got in the car.

Just further along the freeway was a turnoff to Wangaratta. I was following a truck. The continuing freeway was obviously very new and had some barriers across but the truck moved through a gap in the barriers and I followed the truck because I didn’t need to go in to Wangaratta.

In steaming along this new section of the freeway, there were now no other cars in front or behind me: and on the other side of the Highway for Melbourne-bound traffic, I saw a car travelling along in the same direction as me! So I quickly decided that the other side wasn’t open yet.

After a few miles, I suddenly came across a sign in the centre of my road which said ‘no road’. What to do? Where do I go now: can’t go back again because this is a one-way freeway. I looked over to the front and left of me. A couple of hundred yards away were three road-making vehicles and a few guys walking around so I thought I would drive over to ask them what I should do.

I drove over a little way toward them, stopped, had another look at them, then started to move the car towards them. Suddenly, I was aware of this enormous transport pulling parallel with me on my left (passenger) side. I stopped suddenly. He was veering off the road and I realised that he had had to do this to avoid me. I looked behind him and there were about 5 cars pulling up abruptly.

I realised that I had pulled out across the road in front of oncoming traffic – and that the transport had desperately and successfully avoided me. I could see the driver looking at me through his rear-vision mirror. He got himself back on the road and away he went.

I looked back at the cars and everybody was looking at me and wondering what on earth I was doing. The men at the side of the road were looking very concerned and one of them was waiting for the traffic to go by before coming over to me.

I realised then that I had been on an unopened road: I had been meant to go off at the Wangaratta exit and drive through the town until the road joined the new freeway – which was where I was now. I got out of my car and the gent came over to ask me if I was alright. My car had miraculously not been touched. I said the good thing about that was that I didn’t see the truck until it was next to me. I said that I didn’t see any of them. I told him what had happened and he said ‘you’ve had a preview… that will be opened tomorrow.’

He asked me if I was alright. I said I was. He said ‘that’s all that matters: that’s OK then. You’ve had a preview.’

I replied ’that could have been a tragedy. I could have caused a tragedy’

Resuming my journey, I was feeling as calm as could be. I knew I had experienced something of great importance to me, that I had been protected, and that I had been shown something of great importance to my spiritual growth.

This was a lesson. I was learning something, I was being shown something. I know it was important. I remembered the words that the gentleman said – and he had been so kind, so very kind.

I had gone along the road which wasn’t yet officially open. I had followed a truck with great confidence, and now I was re-entering the mainstream from this virgin territory. It was unopened, it was an unavailable road. In re-entering the mainstream, I had forced the transport off the road, caused a stir, certainly got noticed! Then this kind man had told me that I’s had a preview and could use it tomorrow.

Related posts

• Improve your strike/success rate with tenders, submissions, grant applications, proposals, estimates, quotes (0)
• A decade of action-research in supporting services for people living with difficulty, disadvantage or disability (0)
• Entrepreneurial Initiative as a Sole Operator (0)
• Jean’s Core Business Strategy No. 2: The Art and Science of Business: ‘Critical Success Factors – Jean’s A-Z’ (1)
• Author (0)

This question was on my mind in December of 1993: How can I improve and increase my spiritual communication?

I wanted to better understand the content, meaning and challenges within this new level of communication.

Gradually, the concepts of the transitional lens and the continuing discovery of new doors, new rooms and yet more new doors became practical reality, and I began to understand the difference and relationship between communication and enlightenment.

These are my considered definitions:

Enlightenment is the art of knowing – it is the knowledge and information into which one expands as a spiritual  being.

Enlightenment is the movement of knowledge and information through expansion and exploration into conscious, subconscious and unconscious awareness, acceptance and confidence.Communication is the science of enlightenment – it is the understanding of enlightenment. Communication is the method, the technique, the action of understanding.

The difference and relationship between enlightenment and communication requires an acceptance that they are each of equal value and importance in the spiritual journey. They have the potential to be two sides of the one coin.

My concern at that time was that I was more attuned to communication than to enlightenment.

I had earlier discovered that the ‘everyday’ and the ‘mundane’ provided an effective language in my spiritual communication, and these life-experiences could easily be recognized, described and considered. These included such occasions as a dragonfly appearing on my doorway, a flower falling from a vase, a number appearing on my digital clock, particular words being spoken, an image being captured, and a feeling being registered.

Enlightenment seemed more often to be a gradual expansion – although occasionally experienced as suddenly as a bolt of lightning. But on the whole, enlightenment is a gradual process of expansion and exploration – often contributing to or resulting in an awareness of choice, a decision or change of direction. Reflection and observation are useful here, and many refer to this specific process as meditation. However titled, the objective is to inform one’s consciousness, thereby moving through expansion into enlightenment.

Time spent aside from the normal routine, or away from the usual working, study or family environment, can lead to valuable insights that facilitate enlightenment. It’s almost like reaching a plateau in acknowledged spiritual growth. Such a time may be relaxing while at the same time generating a higher level of understanding or acceptance of particular events or people in the normal routine.  Enlightenment can be peaceful; yet it can also bring a feeling of physical and emotional exhaustion.

Here’s a practical image for meditation:

Notice how your mind is being organised. As you connect your thought processes to the spiritual dimension, picture the tidying up of your mind. Storage and retrieval processes in place – bringing system and structure and order – so that whatever piece of information or wisdom or knowledge or intent you need is at your fingertips and at your disposal.

Think of it this way – that each area of knowledge or thought or processing of information has its own filing cabinet; and each filing cabinet is attended not by one entity but by an army of entities, filing, culling, expanding, clarifying and cross-referencing. Their only role is to keep your mind in order so that you access the information in which you live and move and have your being.

What more could you want than that?

Examples of methods of spiritual communication:

Collective consciousness

Each person brings to the collective consciousness their individual experience and memory. Together, the collectivity of our minds becomes a collective consciousness – as a collective mind.

Time is unimportant in the collective mind. Time and distance and space do not exist. So when a thought that conveys any pressure related to time or distance or space presents itself, you can discount it. Communication and conversation with the collective mind equips one for any challenge, for any joy, for any opportunity, for any expression, for any presentation, for any group.

This realisation is an example of enlightenment.

Information comes to different people in different ways. To some it comes as a revelation, to some it comes as a result of digging and searching, and to others it comes by just listening or watching and observing their own behaviour or the behaviour of others.

And yet others seem to absorb knowledge through their skin. They learn through the hunger to learn, and their hunger to learn is an openness, is an attitude.

Experiencing the collective consciousness on your spiritual journey

Listen to others: their observations and interpretation of your words, actions, responses or behaviour can open your eyes and add to your own understanding of how and what you communicate. If you don’t listen to others, you stifle the important flow of information through the collective consciousness. You may not always agree with the observations or interpretation of others – and you have the right not to agree: but you also have the right to learn from these comments and to integrate them into your own consciousness. There’s so much about ourselves that we take for granted. Because you do or say things easily and often, you can become so familiar with these actions or words without recognising their benefit to others. You need to see and know what you do well, and why you do them so well – and you need to see what and how you can do better or differently.

Accept challenges: simply accept the fact that anything can be improved. Whether it’s a relationship, a performance, an instruction, a structure, a mission, a purpose, an objective – just assume that it can be done better, more easily, more satisfying, more effectively, more efficiently.

See through the present to the potential. When you look at anything that is a mess, recognise not only that it can be improved, but that you can know how it can be improved. Address your energy, your inspiration, your imagination, your creativity, your logic and your mind to setting about that improvement. Go out of your way to talk to who it is necessary to talk with, to encourage and inspire – and spread the same confidence that you hold, that improvement is possible.

Don’t compare the nature and size of the challenge. Just know that the collective consciousness is working with you, and is constantly available.

Display a genuine and caring interest in the people that you work, live or study with: watch and enjoy their growth. And as they grow, they will see how much further they can grow. Inspire small leaps in growth, together with the love of growth.

Share and teach as you go: make sure that the people you are with have the opportunity to learn new things, or new ways of doing things. Be accessible, and provide practical information as well as encouragement.

Threaten walls of uncertainty, unseen barriers, and pools of doubt and anger: know that you will encounter animosity as inefficiencies or inadequacies within yourself or others are brought to the surface. Sadness, disappointment and frustration are emotions which have their origin in real or perceived limits, boundaries and constraints.

The presence and power of the collective consciousness are limitless and endless. They are constantly at your fingertips and at your disposal.

Related posts

• Time and Task Management (0)
• The Business of selling and buying (0)
• Supervision and Delegation (0)
• Representative Board/Committee members in a nonprofit organisation (0)
• Outsourcing (0)

Moving as a multi-dimensional being. I have entered a new style and depth of communication, and will traverse between the dimension of the spirit and the dimension of the body with great ease and regularity – communing and communicating with equal ease on each level, with each being with whom I mix and move. I will have a depth of perception of mind and spirit, which will be new to my memory.

A major stage of my journey has been completed over these past few days, but bear in mind that in the world of the spirit, in the dimension of the spirit, what seems like a long journey has been but a fleeting instant. I will become more at peace regarding the nature of the illusion of time and distance and space – they will become less and less important and less and less relevant in moving into this new level of experience.

As with any move from one level to the next, there are new and different responsibilities and a new and greater authority: and the rewards will be appropriate – and immediate. Watch and wait. This is the day of confirmation.

The end of a journey carries with it the tiredness of the effort of the journey, as well as the exhilaration of the experience of the journey, and the knowledge that the journey is completed successfully – that the mission is accomplished, that the purpose is fulfilled, that the benefits have been gained, that the need has been met and that growth has been absorbed.

Think of being in the eagle’s nest – I am the nest, I am the eagle. They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength: they shall soar with the eagles. What greater vision could there be than through the eagle’s eye – the majesty of the panorama, the ability to soar, to swoop, to select, to convey? To feed, nurture and care for those who are looking for food and nurture.

This move will give recognition to the preparation that has been going on all through my life and right through my memory, which encompasses more lives than this one – resonating again and again with people, places, promises and opportunities.

These notes emphasise the truth that the passing of time is an illusion.

Time is a perspective. In our physical development, it gives us a means of measuring and comparing, of recognising, allocating, categorizing: but its use in spiritual development is very different.

The real benefit of the concept of time is as an investment. At particular times, we invest our energy – and then monitor the return on that investment. Each time we monitor, we may then adjust the manner in which we continue to invest – the quantity or quality of energy we invest or the circumstances of our investment – and then that is monitored again.

For me, in 1996, the investment of time was to continue practicing, refining and perfecting strategies, checklists, tools and ideas that would be featured in my later writing.

By taking energy directly from the collective consciousness, my productivity was to rise markedly – because of my continuing experimentation with the way that I attracted, allocated and monitored that energy.

Accepting myself as a multi-dimensional being

It has become a custom in my life, when working toward acceptance of a new level of understanding, to consciously connect with my Council of Minds – the collective consciousness. I’ve emphasised ‘consciously’ because I firmly believe that I am always connected: it is my consciousness of this connection that I have to re-affirm. My belief is that the collective consciousness is universal wisdom in relation to both the spiritual and the physical. Not only is it universal wisdom, but also universal life and love. How could I do better??

Working toward acceptance of a new level of understanding involves several steps, beginning with the desire to grasp the new, then to appreciate the difference between the present and the new, and finally to understand how to move to the new – which means moving from the present. One of my favourite lines in my notes is you cannot move ‘from’ without moving ‘to’:

• leaving something or someone behind is simply making space, time or opportunity for something or someone new,
• moving toward something or someone new means leaving some of the present behind.

In pondering over the acceptance of myself as a multi-dimensional being, my dreams assumed a teaching role – as is my practice. I always make notes of my dreams as soon as I recall them – which may be as soon as I wake, or later in the day when something triggers my memory.

One particularly powerful dream began with me standing on a footpath somewhere, and looking intently at a very ordinary house – not being sure why I was looking or what I was looking for. I soon found myself at the open front door, so walked through into the hall. From the hall, there was only one door. I opened that door and walked into a room that had no other doors than the one I had just walked through. As I became comfortable and familiar with that room, I suddenly noticed a door – which I was sure hadn’t been there when I walked in. So I opened the new door, and walked into another room – again without any other doors.

This process continued – entering a new room, becoming comfortable and familiar with it, then suddenly noticing a door which hadn’t been there when I had entered the room: opening and walking through that door into yet another room without any doors.

After a while – and still in my dream – I realised I had entered far more rooms in the house than had been obvious from the footpath.

I was able to grasp the pattern: as I became comfortable and familiar with one level of understanding (one room), my acceptance of that level of understanding enabled me to recognise that there was a new level of understanding that flowed from this one (a new door, a new room). The new level of understanding had always been there, but it was only my comfort and familiarity with the existing level of understanding that enabled me to see it and then to walk through it.

I woke from that dream with great delight, realising that my Council of Minds was taking me through these levels at a pace that I could manage and control: not over-whelming me with knowledge that could cause me to lose my nerve, but gently revealing layers of truth in a way that was totally comfortable for me. I was able to move at my own pace. This has to be the ultimate in self-paced learning!

Spiritual growth can be compared with physical growth. There is only one way to enter this physical life, and that is through the birth process. Birth is the beginning of our physical growth – but our growth is gradual and predictable: for example, we don’t suddenly leap from being a small child to being a fully grown adult.

The process of physical growth may not be as comfortable for some as it is for others – but here I suggest we are thinking of material comfort, or the comfort of our physical circumstances. We may have control over the nature and level of our material or circumstantial comfort – or we may not.

The process of spiritual growth may not be as comfortable for some as it is for others either! But the matter of control could not be more different. My experience has clearly proved the benefit of breaking the process of my spiritual growth down to one step at a time, one layer at a time, and one day at a time. This makes the process more comfortable, easier to monitor, and definitely allows me to control the pace of my journey.

Some days I’m aware of a high level of control – perhaps this equates with having gained comfort and confidence in a new room as in my dream. At this stage, control moves to the collective consciousness as I become aware of a new door waiting for me to enter a new room, a new experience and the opportunity to receive a new level of consciousness. Some days I’m aware of almost no control at all – and on reflection, this is when I try to force my spiritual growth or to move beyond my level of comfort and familiarity. On these days, I know that I have to ‘let go, and let God’: to retreat, to relax and to observe what is – and is not – going on around me.

One day at a time – some thoughts from my spiritual journal in November 1996.

One day at a time. Each day has its own set of experiences, actions and reactions, choices and decisions, emotions, feelings. At the beginning and ending of each day, I have a moment of connection – of union and communion – to think only of this day.

As I moved into this particular day, I saw that I was gradually embracing the reality of the ‘now’ moment, the day. There is only this moment, this day. Then at the end of the day I review, reflect and consider the day and prepare myself (often during my sleep) for the next day. This confirms my growing understanding of constantly and consistently being in the two dimensions, and of the language of the day’s events, environment and activities – which allows my spiritual enlightenment to communicate with my human mind.

Driving into the city yesterday, I approached the corner of a busy intersection just as a tram moved across the road in front of me. On the side was a banner advertising plastic lenses which change colour with the light. There were 3 sets of spectacles, each darker than the previous one as they moved into a stronger light – the effect and impact of which was to darken the lenses, making the practice of ‘seeing’ more comfortable and more distinct by easing the glare of the strengthening light. The darker lenses did not prevent sight – they facilitated it.

The banner was headed ‘the transitional lens’ ! !

Related posts

• The role of Board Chairperson in a Nonprofit Organisation (0)
• The Business of selling and buying (0)
• Outsourcing (0)
• Managing Governance in Nonprofit Organisations in Australia (1)
• Jean’s Nonprofit Critical Success Factor Checklist (0)

There is so much to learn and understand about consciousness. There is a world of meaning in consciousness.

Some definitions – each of which has its own world of meaning:

• Awareness
• having knowledge
• informed of current developments
• feeling
• to perceive something by touching
• to have a physical or emotional sensation of something
• to examine by touch
• to find by testing or cautious exploration
• magnitude
• relative importance or significance
• relative size or extent
• a number assigned by a quantity as a basis of comparison for the measurement of similar quantities
• completeness
• having every necessary part, entire
• finished
• thorough
• perfect in quality or kind

To be conscious of something is to know and understand it, to experience it, to conceptualise it, to touch and feel it, to move around it and look at it from all sorts of angles, to analyse it – where did it come from, where is it now, where is it going, what’s it attached to, how else can I view it, what is it teaching me, how is it causing me to grow?

Consciousness is what I am. I am consciousness. I am in the world. My body, my mind, are consciousness. My being is consciousness. My senses are tools of consciousness: and being aware of this fact is transformation.

Being aware of the potential and meaning of the fact of consciousness is the transformation from seeing my self and my being as a ‘self-centered end’ to seeing me as a ‘transcendent means to an end’. The end and purpose for which I am consciousness is to transform this world, this physical plane. I am not only here to experience and to grow as an entity; I am also here to give to the whole. I am here to grow and I am here to give to and cause growth.

This is the transformation: and as my motive moves, so the flow of creativeness is facilitated. Think of it that the creativeness of the Universe has been in my growth until now: the creativeness of the Universe is now transformed to the physical plane through me.

The focus of my thought is the recipient of the creativeness of the Universe, of the energy of the Universe. I used to talk about God being creative energy. I am now that energy. I am creative energy. My words, my thoughts, my feelings, my actions, my deeds have the power of the Universe in them.

The power of the Universe can be overwhelming to my body and to those around me. But the power of the Universe is love. And I have learned so well – that the first step is to love myself. That’s what the Universe helps me do, to love myself. Only then can the transformation take place.

Choice is the mid-point between option and action: choice is an act of creativity – thoughts from my spiritual journal, written in September of 1996:

Choice is the mid-point between option and action. Choice is the deliberate selection of a preferred option. Choice is an act of creativity: it is the beginning of the translation of thought into action.

Options are usually in thought-form, either by brainstorming, writing on paper, visualising – building a pattern of possibilities, a range of possibilities. To choose one option above others is the beginning point of creativity.

Whether the human mind is conscious of making the choice is another thing, but choice is the stage between options and action. It’s a necessary stage of creativity to be conscious of choice, and to the fact that there is a definite stage at which I will make a choice. To be conscious of the stage of choice means to be conscious of a range of options. I need to give as much energy to identifying and examining options and implications as I do to the act of choosing the preferred option – and then to the process of implementing my preferred option.

When the human mind is conscious, then the concentration of mind-energy is a component of the mind-action, which is the result.

My choice to be and be known as a writer
On 3rd September 1996, I acknowledged that I was involved in choices. On that day, I was choosing to be and be known as a writer. I was choosing to transfer my energy from consulting and training into writing. Having made that choice, I established both a scenario and the energy for further ‘flow-on’ choices.

Having made the choice, the implementation of the choice demanded a framework:

• to be, and be known as, a successful writer,
• to be less active as a consultant and trainer to the point where I would eventually be known predominantly as a writer,
• to be a key person in supporting the nonprofit sector, which means being willing to be a speaker, presenter, writer and commentator – a person with both wisdom about and experience in many of the challenges and opportunities facing the nonprofit sector, and
• to enter every experience as a writer – working out what I could share, how, and with whom, through my writing.

Flow-on choices included matching particular writing to particular audiences, and discarding behaviours and attitudes that would not be conducive to or compatible with my choice.

Choice-maker – rather than decision-maker

I further realised that I needed to replace my use of the word ‘decision’ with the word ‘choice’ from that moment. ‘Choice’ has far more energy to it, and indicates more personal ownership in that it presents the decision-maker as the ‘choice-maker.’

Collective consciousness

I then began to consider the collective mind, the collective consciousness, which speaks with one voice because it is truly collective. I accepted that I was a full and active member and therefore a contributor to and benefactor of the collective consciousness. I decided to call this collective consciousness ‘the Council of Minds’.

As a member of the Council of Minds, I saw that I needed to review my own consciousness to bring it into line with the collective consciousness. The Council of Minds speaks with one voice, with authority, with compassion and with direction. I recognised immediately that I had to let go of one of my behaviours in particular, that of easy and ready self-deprecation.

My usual behaviour after presenting or facilitating a training course had been to accuse myself of a poor performance. I would then reinforce this severe self-judgement by mulling over the ‘happy sheets’ – the so-called evaluation forms that participants completed at the end of a course. They are called ‘happy sheets’ because they can only record the level of happiness felt by each participant with the course itself, the room, the food and the trainer. Participants would have had neither the time nor the opportunity to trial the use or effectiveness of the material or methods offered or developed at the course before completing this so-called evaluation.

So I replaced my focus on these happy sheets with a focus on the experience of each course, so that I could then capitalise on that experience in perfecting my further writing on the course topic.

The art and importance of adaptation

This change of focus led me to continue presenting my courses as I had initially designed them – instead of trying to constantly change the content, format or style in response to the happy sheet evaluations. I saw that the basic course didn’t need improving or changing: it just needed adapting to each separate audience. It was the adaptation that was my challenge, not the course content or format.

Adaptation meant acknowledging and responding to the level of consciousness within the group, within the room. It meant dealing with the sum of energy brought into the room by the individuals in each separate group.

I clearly saw that adaptation had nothing to do with the course: it had everything to do with where each person in the group was ‘at’ when they entered the room, and what they would chose to do with their thoughts and personal energy throughout the course.

Participant entry and exit maturity levels in training courses

This led me to understand and acknowledge what I’ve called ‘entry maturity’ – the level of maturity with the course topic or theme brought by each course participant as they entered the training room at commencement of the course.

‘Maturity’ is a combination of confidence, competence and comfort with the course topic or theme.

Participants whose entry maturity was low would drain the group energy: participants whose entry maturity was high would contribute to the group energy, and participants whose entry maturity was uncertain would challenge the group energy. Together, these three levels of entry maturity would create the group’s collective consciousness. And I could rely on the collective consciousness being an amalgam of the entry maturity level of all participants – at least for the first hour of each course.

Most importantly, I recognised that each separate group‘s collective consciousness needed to be monitored throughout the course. It was capable of encompassing a wide range or entry maturity levels – speaking with one voice, with authority, with compassion and with direction.

My tools and methods for adaptation needed to respond to the group’s collective consciousness in each training course. (Trainers often refer to their own connection with a group’s collective consciousness as ‘having their antennae tuned into the group’ or ‘using their intuition’ to check the response level of a group throughout a course.)

The course topic or theme would have brought the participants to the room and given them the context, the purpose, the framework for attendance. My responsibility was to ensure that my notes and the course format were adequate to satisfy their immediate need for confidence or competency or comfort in relation to the topic or theme.

However, the collective consciousness in the room was an energy that we all had to acknowledge and respond to: and some of us were better than others in doing so.

At the end of a course, individual participants would have achieved or acquired an ‘exit maturity’ – desirably a higher level of maturity (ie competence, confidence and/or comfort) with the course topic or theme that they would take back to their workplace or private life for use, application or reference.

‘Flow-on’ choices

With this enlightenment, I made the following ‘flow-on’ choices:

• to strengthen the course content and notes with examples, anecdotes or scenarios appropriate to each separate group of participants,
• allow each participant to be responsible for his/her own actions and behaviours during the course,
• allow our collective consciousness to work with and through the group, and with and through the individuals in the group, and
• draw my own energy from the Council of Minds, and deflect any energy
  in the group that was not contributing positively to the collective consciousness.

Further ‘flow-on’ choices were to relax; be aware that time, distance and space are not relevant on the spiritual journey; and to continue receiving gifts that flow easily and freely from the Council of Minds.

Related posts

• Jean’s Core Business Strategy No. 8: Project Mentality and Management (0)
• A decade of action-research in supporting services for people living with difficulty, disadvantage or disability (0)
• Jean’s Core Business Strategy No. 2: The Art and Science of Business: ‘Critical Success Factors – Jean’s A-Z’ (1)
• Entrepreneurial Initiative as a Sole Operator (0)
• Skills Involved in Tendering (1)

Entrepreneurial women begin their apprenticeship as innovators through a process of trial and error, gradually finding their way through the maze of ideas and opportunities, options and alternatives, implications and possibilities, fact and opinion, evidence and intuition, risk and reward, cost and investment, outcomes and consequence, regret and celebration. For some, this apprenticeship becomes a recognized and acknowledged mastery early in life, perhaps through a series of innovative accomplishments either as an individual, as a member of a team or through a group of people who are called ‘an organisation’. For others, this apprenticeship lasts a lifetime and it is only in the glowing years called ‘the age of wisdom’ that they look back and see the until-now hidden evidence of mastery.

But I must begin by stating that I have only recently acknowledged within myself that I have completed my apprenticeship. This enlightenment began with receipt of the blue brochure advertising this Conference and inviting papers on the theme of ‘women entrepreneurs’. This blue brochure was the external catalyst that started my mind thinking actively about what being an entrepreneur (and a woman entrepreneur at that!) is all about. This blue brochure stimulated a sequence of retrospection in my mind, culminating in my decision to respond to the invitation for papers.

My paper introduced something I had been practicing for many years, and I gave this practice the title of Retrospective Planning -

All planning is useful: but retrospective planning is a particularly useful tool, especially for entrepreneurs.

Retrospective planning is the ability to direct your attention back over a series of actions taken over a period of time after the impact of those actions has become tangible and real in order to recognise and appreciate:

1. Purpose,
2. Form,
3. Structure,
4. Rhyme,
5. Rhythm, and
6. Reasons.

Retrospective planning also allows objective observation, where the emotional component can be suspended during silent and unaccompanied reflection. For myself as a long-term small business owner/manager, this has enabled my acknowledgment of the fact of my survival as such. At least I can recognize that I’ve come through my years of self-employment, surviving and withstanding the substantial factors and reasons for small business failure in years 1, 2, 5 and 10 of operation that are the subject of continual and extensive research, study and publication throughout the world.

The process of retrospective planning requires a cluster of return journeys, a sequence of mind-travel to look over previous activity and non-activity. And the act and benefit of ‘looking’ is always advanced if we are using the relevant magnifying lens.

How did my spiritual journey as an independent consultant begin?

For me, being self-employed has been the means of my steep learning curve in spiritual growth.

My paternal great grandfather travelled from Montenegro by sailing ship in the 1850s at the age of 18, and was of the Catholic faith. He settled in Colac, Victoria, where he married Elizabeth who had arrived here from England. My grandfather was one of their seven children, and he may have had some influence in my father’s decision as a young man to become closely involved with the Methodist Church. My father continued this close involvement until his death in 1976.

Consequently, I was born into an active Methodist family, and remained an active Methodist until marriage in 1954. Building our own house, having no car and only a week-day bus service, and with two very small sons meant we could no longer attend the Methodist church in which we had married. However, we were able to walk to a small local congregation which we found to be a Full Gospel or charismatic congregation.

In this congregation, I was faced with an understanding of God that was new to me. I had always thought of God as sitting on a throne, in Heaven and therefore not personally accessible to me as a young wife and mother, facing the reality of what was to become known as ‘suburban isolation’. There were many housing estates taking shape in what were then the outer suburbs – ours was just 12 miles from the centre of the City of Melbourne. This was in 1958.

However, back in 1952, this estate had been shaped with street names on unmade streets, with no sewerage and no electricity or gas connections to the blocks. We bought ‘Lot 51’ in 1952 and at the beginning of 1954, paid for four light poles to bring electricity to our block from Burwood Road, the nearest electricity supply. We were the first to start building in our short street, and as other houses were built over the next three or four years, the owners of these houses purchased access to these light poles from us.

When our second son was 4 years old, in 1962, our road and footpaths were made, and we had the telephone connected. Sewerage was available years later.

As you can glean from this short description, my life was a busy one and the paradigm shift of an accessible God – after a life-time of a seemingly inaccessible God – had to be managed within the busyness of daily existence. Through the next twenty five years, my spiritual belief gradually and slowly moved to a ready acceptance of a personal god – in fact I was by then thinking of this personal god as a ‘god-ness’, and most importantly, a god-ness within which I lived, moved and had my being.

Grappling with God!

A strong memory is an actual moment that I refer to as ‘grappling with God’. It came as a result of many attempts to establish direct conversation with Him. I wanted to do his will, but couldn’t be sure of what his will was for me. So, in a specific moment of time when I felt confused, abandoned, overwhelmed by circumstances and almost totally without faith in any future that would be God-centred, I spoke loudly and directly to him.

In my mind’s eye, I saw myself as taking God by the throat and shaking him vigorously to get his attention – demanding that he talk directly to me. I wanted desperately to be ‘one with him’ and to be aware of his presence and strength every step of my journey through this life. Life in total felt like a huge burden that I didn’t have the strength to carry alone.

I felt weighed down with everyday things – which seemed to fill my thoughts and feelings. After my desperate talk with him, which was an actual time and place, I expected my ‘load’ to be miraculously lifted and my feet to be planted on a different path. However, as the days and weeks passed by, I became slowly aware that ‘the everyday’ and ‘the mundane’ were how God intended to continue to talk to me. He had truly been talking, but I hadn’t recognised his voice. ‘My, how you’ve changed since I’ve changed’ is a favourite saying of mine since that time – because I changed to seeing everyday things as discourse with God. And of course this opened for me a 24 hour communication channel that had always existed. A patient God indeed!

So began the keeping of my spiritual journal in 1986. I had divorced in 1983, entered self-employment in 1985, and have been from that time solely responsible for the financing of myself and my personal and business responsibilities.

Here are a few thoughts from my spiritual journal, written in 1996 and 1998:

Heart-singing (1996)

You do things that make your heart sing. Your heart doesn’t sing because you are doing these things: you do them because your heart is singing.

The heart doesn’t sing because of what you do. The heart sings because you open your heart and are tuned into the Universe through your emotions. It is a combination of thought and emotion which creates. It is the singing of your heart which creates the things that you do. Your heart sings, therefore you do. Your heart sings, therefore you create.

It’s like the RKO signal. There are waves of energy, joy, healing, light and love emanating from you because your heart sings.

The now moment – Christ Consciousness (1998)

We are just beginning to see and understand the majesty and the power of the now moment.

It is the essence of creativity. Not so much the now moment – but the understanding, the grasping of the now moment.

If we understand the majesty and the power of the now moment, then we create the now moment. We harness the energy of the now moment and produce an outcome through the harnessing of that energy.

If we understand that we live in the now moment, that we live and move and have our being in the knowledge that everything we think and feel and say and do carries the majesty of eternity and infinity and the Universe with it. Here we have creative energy.

Listen, do you want to know a secret? (1998)

This is the most important secret that you can share and expand and fill in the detail with all the people that you mix and move with, that you work with, that you relate to.

People are what and where and who they know they are.

And that’s the secret. That’s what you have to find. That’s the secret even to people themselves – to know what they know about themselves.

They have a perception of themselves, and that perception leads to an understanding of themselves. It is that understanding which either limits or facilitates or motivates or inflates their sense of self. This is the knowledge base from which they make decisions.

It begins with the perception of themselves. There’s the literal perception, and there’s the interpretation of that literal perception.

Now, to bring people along, to give them the opportunity to expand, to grow, to blossom, to develop – you have to find what is their perception. If their perception of themselves is that they are power-less, that everybody is against them, that their benefactors are actually their enemy, that nobody loves them – then that is the understanding that they will operate from.

No matter what message you give them, the knowledge base they operate from is their perception of themselves. And that’s what you must find, that’s where you work from.

Your question is: ‘How do you see yourselves: how do you understand who you are and what you are?’

Their response is: ‘Listen to me – this is what I understand about myself, this is what I know.’

Together, you move from and with that understanding.

Peace (1998)

There is peace of mind, because the mind controls the body. How the mind thinks and feels determines how the body responds – whether it’s alert and alarmed, or whether it’s restful.

Peace of heart is the peace of the emotions. It’s being able to keep your emotions on a safe, even keel – not slipping into anxiety, not slipping into fretfulness or worry – but just flowing.

And there’s a peace of spirit. And the peace that passes all understanding – Christ Consciousness.

Related posts

• Entrepreneurial Initiative as a Sole Operator (0)
• A decade of action-research in supporting services for people living with difficulty, disadvantage or disability (0)
• Understanding the relationship between Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Creativity (0)
• One Man Show – the smallest of small business (9)
• My Spiritual Journey as an Independent Consultant – Chapter 4: Seven categories of growth and development – involvement and importance of the Spirit (0)