Method Initiative – Exercise 3: 5 Close Contacts
Post-Exercise Reflection
The purpose of Initiative Exercise #3 is to reach out to the people you are most comfortable with (and therefore easiest to ask something of) and to ask them for advice on your 5 problem/solution pairs. Also important is working on a few skills as you do:
- Deflecting judgment
- Leading a conversation – not letting the conversation get derailed
- Keeping your explanations brief and concise
- Handling unhelpful advice respectfully
- Motivating people to give advice (and thanking them for it!)
Before the exercise
Because I had done the Initiative exercises before, this exercise was a lot less daunting than it was before. Whereas before, it was a little scary to ask even close friends and family for advice, this time around, the bigger concern was just not having time to make the calls.
During the exercise
The exercise itself felt really comfortable. I didn’t feel nervous at all explaining my problem/solution pairs, and I was more adept than before at deflecting judgment and leading to advice. Contrary to feeling nervous or awkward, the conversations were relaxed, fun, and easy-going. What helped me the most is just learning to be more open, honest, and clear with what I need – explaining what the project was, saying explicitly what I’m looking for, and when they tried to give advice that was more judgment than advice, just being able to say “Thanks! What would be the actionable thing I can do based on that? Like, what specifically can I do?” The people I spoke to all seemed to react positively to this and seemed genuinely pleased that I was asking them for advice and how to elaborate on their “advice” (aka. judgment).
The more I do the exercises, the more I view the people I talk to as being something akin to a teammate – this person is here to help me on my project, and how can I make them an active participant in improving it? I think the people I talked to also seemed interested in seeing where the ideas go.
What I learned
I got a lot of advice, but I wasn’t talking with experts or people who have experience in the problems I’m looking at so the advice was not all amazing, as expected – the goal is for me to practice. That considered, the advice I got helped me to think more about my problems from different points of view and just talking out the problem/solution pairs is really helpful. How I view my projects certainly changed, and I have made some changes to my problem statements and solutions after talking to everyone.
Selecting a project
One thing I actually failed to do in my conversations is ask each of my participants to vote on a project, so I’ll be selecting a project purely based on my own!
I’m actually not 100% I love the idea of the project I selected yet, but Josh, in his book, recommends that you don’t take this choice too seriously: whether this is the project for you or not, by proceeding with it, you’ll find you either love it, or that it’s not for you and you’ll be happy that you chose another project that is better for you.
My selected project! (For now…)
My original problem/solution pair that I selected was:
Problem: People in the sustainability movement feel frustrated that companies and governments don’t do more without realizing there is more that they can do themselves.
Solution: Offer a coaching service to turn that frustration into sustainable actions in their own life that have real impact and can culminate in leading others to do the same and make real change.
And after my conversations, I want to amend my problem/solution pair a bit:
Problem: People in the sustainability movement feel frustrated that companies and governments don’t do more and feel hopeless that nothing is being done without realizing there is more that they can do themselves.
Solution: Offer a workshop to turn that frustration and hopelessness into personal sustainable actions in their own life – actions that start with them and have real impact, but also teach the knowledge to share, spread, and ripple out and lead others to do the same, leading to more community and further strength for their activism as well.
The next step is to talk with 10 more family and friends about this one problem statement and get more advice! Onward!
