Paradigm Shift

Sometimes in business, we reach a point of decision which, if we choose one path over another, will make a fundamental change in how our business operates, and where it takes us. Sometimes when those shifts occur, we hardly recognize them except in retrospect. I’ve learned to see them better on the choice side lately though.

One occurred today, for me, and for one of my associates. This lady is a VA. At one time, we entered into a collaborative agreement where I built a website and maintained it, and she did the grunt work to build the content and promote it. It was a good collaboration for both, and should grow to be something that benefits us both.

Today, she told me she was asked to do a website, and that at first she thought she’d just pass the work on to me, except for the content additions, which she could do. She did not consider that she could actually build the website. She asked me for advice on options for building it, just in case she could. I suggested that perhaps website developer training was what she really needed.

Two shifts occurred in that conversation:

1. She made the shift from “I don’t do web design because I am not qualified.” to “I can do anything with web design if I have the right person backing me to train me as I go.” From this point on, website issues won’t be a ceiling for her, the possibilities for her are wide open.
2. I made a shift from feeling that I did not want to train people who are close to me to be my competition, to being willing to teach ALL that I know, with no reservations.

Both of us crossed a line, and neither of us will ever be the same because of it. We have entered a larger world, and our lives will change from this day forth. There is no going back to fearing the unknown for either of us.

We don’t fully see now how it will change our lives. But this is one time when I’ve recognized when it happened that it was a significant thing. Something big, that I won’t fully understand for years. I know the bigness of it, though I don’t completely see the effects in their detail. I only know that in some way, I’ve just untethered myself from a set of limiting ideas, and have given myself permission to soar beyond what I could allow just this morning.

There have been many of those lately. Simultaneous with explosive growth in our company. I don’t think one came from the other, there has not been time. I just think that a business and an owner have to age in to some things, and the growth of the business and my thought concepts occurred around the same time because we just had to mature to that point together.

I know that my associate’s business will take on a life of its own and become something other than what it is now. I know that ours will also. Because both of us had the courage to step beyond boundaries we had this morning, and enter a larger world.