Method Initiative (Round 4) – Exercise 10: 10 Valuable People (And final Initiative methodology thoughts)
I’ve finally come to the end of a full set of Method Initiative exercises!
Honestly, after going through it 4 times, it feels pretty good to finally finish a set! Let’s review how I feel now that they’re done.
The Final Exercise
For the last exercise of method Initiative, I had to connect with 10 people who are potentially very valuable to my project. This meant most likely professionals in the field. In my case, because my project is for a staged storytelling/speaking event, this meant I was trying to communicate with professional MCs, public speakers, professional story-tellers, venue owners, audio and lighting technicians, and anyone who had spoken at speaking events before.
Before the Exercise
The exercises in Initiative do such a great job of building up to this final exercise. Before doing them, I could never imagine calling professionals I’d never met before to give advice on a project. But after exercises 1-9, exercise 10 felt a lot less like a huge challenge, and just the next logical step forward. I had already crossed all of the bridge except the final step to the other side of the chasm. Making that last step seemed a lot less daunting when I was already mostly across the bridge.
Connecting with Valuable People
It took me quite a few weeks to line up 10 people, but looking back on the list of people I spoke to now, I feel pretty proud of myself for having talked to that many professionals about my project.
The conversations all went really well, thanks to the practice I had from previous exercises. I learned how to present my project effectively and succinctly so people had enough to give me advice without having to spend 20 minutes explaining all the details of how I imagined the event. I got to the point where I could tailor the description of my project to the person I was talking to, and my project description changed whether I was talking to a professional MC or an event organizer.
Each person I talked to gave unique advice. Even if the advice they gave was the same or very similar to advice I’d already heard, each person had a unique perspective or tidbit that would make me see my project in a new light and give me more to think about and consider…What if my event was outdoors in a park rather than on a stage? What if I was tagging onto another event (group nature hike, a yoga class, etc.) with a similar theme so a group was already assembled? What if I had a couple curated storytellers to warm everyone up? I heard so many different possibilities for how my event could be enjoyed!
After doing this exercise, I see now that if you take the appropriate steps to prepare yourself, asking even professionals for free advice can be easy, and even fun, which can lead you to any kind of project you want to accomplish!
The 7 Principles
If you recall from my Exercise 6 reflection, the 7 key principles to the Initiative methodology are as follows, and this time I decided to include my thoughts regarding each one:
- Personality matters less than skills you can learn. – Absolutely! I don’t think my thoughts on this one have changed much at all. “Personality” to me is kind of vague and hand-wavey…To me it is more the result of how you utilize people skills. Hence…Your skills matter a lot! Especially your people skills!
- The idea of a lifetime comes once a month. – I used to be kind of iffy on this one. I understood that everyone has good ideas from time to time. But now I understand better that “the idea of a lifetime” is all just perception: it’s simply an idea that has been massaged, sharpened, and improved on until it has become useful to a lit of people who will pay you well for it!
- Better than a great idea is an okay idea plus market feedback, flexibility, and iterations. – See reflection on Principle 2.
- Start where you are with what you have. – No matter how good an idea, your project always starts with you and can be developed right now. Not once you have money. Not once you get good at something. You can start to take the next step. Right. Now.
- Pitch and they’ll judge. Ask advice and they’ll help. – This is my favorite takeaway of this whole set of exercises. Whereas it used to feel terrifying to talk to people about an idea I had, now I recognize that most (NOT all) people love to give advice and when you ask, very often you receive.
- The problem leads to the solution. – My first two runs through the Initiative methodology were forced: I wanted to do them on my solution that I had come up with and I tried to force a “problem” that made my solution valid. That CAN work, but it’s much easier to find a problem that already exists and try to solve it.
- Almost nothing inspires like helping others so much that they reward you for it. – I learned this, not through the exercises necessarily, but by Josh personally challenging me to just try to do some trial runs of my project idea by myself, then with family. After doing it with my family, my wife and daughter both said they were surprised at how much they enjoyed the conversation and said “we should do things like this more often.” That was worth more than any money I could’ve received.
The End of Initiative
Okay, so this heading is a big misleading…Initiative never really ends! The exercises have taught me new skills that have completely changed how I view developing new skills, achieving goals I previously thought impossible, and even how I perceive people – everyone you meet can be someone to help you achieve your goals!
As for my project itself, it’s one that I’m still really excited for and feel ready to take some next steps on! I don’t know if it will ever grow to a The Moth level event in a theater with a full crowd of people, but I think it needs to go through a few more iterations before it gets there. Before doing this as a paid event, I think it would be really fun to just do it with more family and friends. To just sit with family and friends and share stories from nature and connect more deeply with people that I care about around a subject that I hope we all love: the nature in which we live, from which we come, and by whom we are supported.
So what do you think? Would you be willing to pull up a seat and join me at The Campfire?
The Wrap-Up
Thanks for following along on my Initiative journey! If you’re interested in learning more, I highly recommend buying the book and going through the exercises. I promise you’ll be better for having done them. Feel free to reach out! Having gone through them a few times (each time with Josh Spodek personally helping me out), I feel like I have earned the stripes to give a bit of advice on the subject.
I’d also like to give a special shoutout to Josh Spodek and Evelyn W. Josh coached me through the exercises multiple times and was invaluable in guiding me. His advice very often led to insights that I never would’ve realized about myself, and he pushed me in ways that the book didn’t, leading me to getting extra value from the exercises. Evelyn did the exercises alongside me and was a joy to do them with. We supported each other and made it through! Thank you both!
Lastly, thank YOU for reading!
