Archive for September, 2009

I met with a former client today – I love hearing stories of how people are moving forward with the work we’ve done together. Doing versus being was a big part of our conversation … how we need both in the practical combining of our spiritual energy and creation of things.

What struck me about our conversation was how people coming from very spiritual perspectives can be uncomfortable with language like ‘making things happen’ and practical topics like ‘making money.’ Similarly,  people coming from practical perspectives, especially financial, can eschew language such as ‘being as a way to create value’.

I believe now is the time for these two perspectives to come together.

Think about it: How often have you seen the practical entrepreneur who acts without regard for matters of the spirit and heart – that becomes a callous, shallow (and not very effective) doer? Or the spiritual devotee who reads, and reads books, but isn’t investing their beliefs into practical endeavors?

Doing without being, and vice versa, results in a life lived without courage and risk taking. Both extremes are hiding out in ’safe houses’ of tradition – either focused on ivory tower intellectual pursuits or seeking safety in the daily grind where doing is the caffeine of the high achiever.

How about doing that is inspired by our being? That is infused with our creative passions and sense of purpose?

How are you living your live by both being and doing?

Hi Everyone! It’s good to be back on the blog! We took an unexpected break from writing when we realized that we had a huge opportunity to shift our single product delivery of IAM Career SMART! to a multi-product, community, social networking experience. We literally made this transition in 6 weeks. And it’s been a whirlwind…

Have you ever had the experience of just know when something is right and then you dive in 100%? That’s what happened to me.

Six weeks and one day ago, I had a conversation with George Tran (www.socialmarketingman.com) that catapulted me forward what feels like light years.  I was talking with George because I was frustrated with the Learning Management System (LMS) we were using to deliver IAM Career SMART!.

The old LMS felt like a lemon. It worked ok – we were trying to make a go if it – but we couldn’t seem to get traction. Ok, honestly, we didn’t try very hard. We released the product on the old site, had a lukewarm response, and then I asked myself where I was holding myself back.

My honest answer to myself: I didn’t feel like the LMS was a solid platform on which we could build our business and I wasn’t feeling the love from the people providing the LMS. As a matter of fact, my experience with them had gotten to the point that I was weary with every interaction with them. Not a good sign.

Enter George Tran. In one 1.5 hour conversation I was lit on fire. I saw how everything I had been working toward with the IAM material could be supported by his Social Sam platform. Our values of abundance, living life in beta, being real and transparent, building relationships with people, giving people lots of access to information and free help – plus purchase when people were ready -  was supported by this product. I also discovered a word to now use when describing IAM: a movement.

From here things just came together. Now, I’m feeling really grateful for the ‘old LMS’ experience. We learned a ton about what we wanted – and what we didn’t want. We are grateful for the incredible functionality available with our new system, and for the multiple people supporting the system and the many, many positive customer service experiences we have already had. George likes to call these ‘wow’ experiences. We’ve been wowed.

So, we’ve gone from lemons to lemonade, and we’re savoring and enjoying the lemonade more than you can imagine!

You can checkout our new site at www.iamlearningcommunity.com. We are waiting for a credit card processing bug to be fixed, and then we will launch to a core group of what we’re calling Seed Members – people who will help us launch and found this community.

Check it out … if you are a hummingbird, I know you’ll enjoy! (Watch the video on the front/home page and you’ll find out what I’m talking about…)