Out of your comfortzone? – Working-out-Loud Assignment Part II

Remark at the beginning: The original post is in German and I did my best to make it understandable to non-Germans here 😊.

The actual assignment given by John Stepper to our Working-out-loud (WOL)- Mentorclass reminds me to arts.

You cannot please everybody.

One does experience a certain colour composition as “screaming and unbearable”, others feel revitalized or potential to improve. Some do upset the wrong perspective, others particularly like extraordinary special style of breaking the “viewing rules”. Everybody will identify Picasso on the basis of his special technique of painting faces in combination with his favorite colour composition.

Especially this aspect matters in our training. Everybody should discover his/her own style. Everybody is an individual person. Others already exists why trying to copy them 100%? Develop your own talents -which you might already had before your school time- and look for your potentials to enlarge your possibilities. In fact there are some tasks which have to be executed in a certain way. Regarding the way of the execution of the freestyle voluntary exercise there are unimagined possibilities.

Instagram Profile Picture #Imaginationriver

Therefore it is necessary to feel comfortable with your saved experiences in your past in your unconscious mind. While writing it popped up a thought that I might writing rather an essay than getting quickly to the point. At the same time, as learned in my past, I followed the strategy to think about “how to summarize a topic professionally” and “to sell and promote the theme best in my personal blog”. That´s the normal way of approaching also in my job as assistant. Nothing excessively long and briefly and concisely. It is the best even to quantifiy the theme with some numbers for my scientific colleagues as they like numbers and tables.

Just this thought makes it difficult for me how to start. What should I mention first? At that moment I sit in a train on a longer train trip in the Black Forest Region in Germany in order to film a carnival procession with witch, devils and other fantastic masks in colourful costumes and unforeseen interaction with the audience. Those, who are interested in that theme, see my Youtube channel sommeradler.

Carnival Procession Weisweil 2020

All people around me are writing very concentrated and eagerly. Either on paper or with their laptops. I realize that I landed in the quiet zone of the train. I look into the English WOL short instruction in front of me. Do I really want to copy all those things which can be easily found on the official WOL website? My gut feeling is discomfort. I feel that the reader wants to get know my own “adventure trip” into the world of consciously unkown spilled talents and new possibilities which we get to know during John´s training and not only about facts.

Let´s take travel blogs. You may download some information about sightseeing spots but the personal travel experiences and recommendations build a different trust. You feel more motivated to visit a certain place.

My thoughts evaporate in Nirvana. I crossed out the first two sentences several times and phrase again and again. No, that´s not the decisive factor. The first sentence has to thrill and has to make you curious, has to come straight from your stomach/heart. This thought crosses my mind. Sudden the following inspiration helped to push the start button:”Keep at your own experiences you made, there is no auditor who demands the source of your personal statement or assumption. Forget the scientific way of approaching a task.”

Even if I forgot a detail, the reader wouldn´t know about it. I experienced that already during some of my Youtube films. This anecdote I would like to share with you as well:

During the broadcasting of the World Cup Soccer Games in 2014 in the huge Commerzbankarena in Frankfurt (between 10.000 in the first games up to 50.000 spectators in the final game) I bet with my sons that only with filming the emotions of the audience during the game I will get more than 20.000 clicks. As Germany passed one lap after the other I continued this experiment.

During the game Brasil-Germany there is a young man who makes an amazing rap performance with turns on the floor between the people standing around in order to express his joy of the third goal. I record the scene and ask him if he agrees with a publishment in Youtube. In Germany there are strict personal data rights and therefore I care for being correct in this issue. The man smiles at me and is looking forward to the film in order to share his spontaneous rap of joy within the cheering crowd.

However, it came to nothing. As I rejoiced as well I pushed by error twice the record button so that I triggered the pause function. As the rap performance was for me the climax of this event I felt quite miserable when I realized my failure. I even had a bad conscious because I couldn´t keep the promise I made. I imagined how the rap performer will be disappointed.

For all those who are interested in this theme, you find the film series under my YouTube channel babbelwasser99 – by the way, I won the bet with my sons although my personal favorite performance wasn´t included 😊..

Challenge to film a cheering in the midst of a crowd World Cup 2014 Frankfurt 

During the years this failure happened from time to time again. A steady camera work isn´t compatible with an emotional joy “neuronal synapses party” in the head of the film camera owner. 

The precious perception I know about the missing scene, the viewer doesn´t know about it and won´t give a dislike because of “you didn´t show xyz”. Admittedly once a subscriber asked me in my last World Cup 2014 Final Game Video:”You missed the reaction of the first seconds of the final goal!”. I honestly admitted:”I was so excited and enthousiastic about this goal so at first I pushed the button twice and realized this error some seconds later. Nobody else of the over 700.000 viewers put this question.

Conclusion: Use the material and talent you dispose and share it.

And even if you are limited in words, pictures or talents often other wonderful ideas and possibilities will show up. How else could it be explained that drawings of children are enchanting. Not due to the fact that they look perfect, certainly not 😊.

I made the experience that even a small thought or comment represents for others THE solution of one of their questions. So let us dare to share them.

Discover your own style, perfection and beauty is in the eye of the beholder and is subjective especially creative work.

And now I am keen on reading the assignment results of the other 30 participants of the Masterclass. How they solved their task? The goal of at least 500 words I exceeded with Part I+II a little bit – as I anticipated – a thought flow results nearly in a novel 😊.

Personal note to John Stepper: Thanks for the great facilitation and gorgeous support to get rid of ancient filters which prevent us from daring new things.👻👌💥

Expedition into subconscious areas – Working Out Loud Part I

Remark at the beginning: The original post in "Almuts Anekdoten" is in German and I did my best to make it understandable to non-Germans here 😊.

In this episode I share personal experiences with the self-learning method which shares its knowledge with others in circles. To those who want to know hard facts and details about the new „Working-out-loud“/WOL method may refer to the link below. This link is especially for those who like it rather short and simple. All undecided people should feel free to continue reading 😊..

Last week on Friday afternoon. Towards the end of our fifth global Skype telephone conference with 30 international participants of the WOL Mentorclass who are trained to be a WOL mentor: 

It was deadly silent. Nobody was writing something in the chat. Nobody says anything. It seems as if the world stands still for a moment. John Stepper, who refined the WOL method which appeared by Bryce Williams in 2010 with the explanation

Working Out Loud = Observable Work + Narrating Your Work

and who is our trainer for this period gives us an assignment which nobody expected in our group. Everybody has to post something about the experience with WOL or the own goal he/she defined during the sessions, ideally the text should cover about 500 words.

Immediately I remembered a scene during an art lesson during my school time. Our teacher gave us the task to draw a group of people sitting on their bicycles. We had no template or photo for that (mobiles didn´t exist yet). First the whole class reacted with a mixture of astonishment and silence. It seemed as if in their heads hundreds of pinions were clattering: „I can´t do that…I´ve never drawn something like that…will I succeed?...How does my bike looks like?“ The mixed feelings passed fear of failure, resignation, desperation until one of the most courageous of us outraged that this task would be too much. Most of the pupils won´t succeed quite apart from the fact that the task to draw people is truly horrible.

I realize that maybe some of our Mentorclass seem to have also these kind of filters in mind: „Did I ever do this in the past? Was it well received by others? And proved very popular? Regarding my professional context is it if at all reasonable to post such a theme? What will the people say if I posted something like that? Am I good enough to phrase? Am I really good enough? I am not an author and not an expert concerning that subject. 
This issue is  adressed to John as a question by one of our class. John repeats as in the sessions before that perfection isn´t the aim for that assignment. At the same time we all know about the brilliant posts of our management in our intranet and the perfect phrasings of our communication department. It seems so easily written. Many see this as standard yardstick.
Some of our group share their doubts what their direct manager would think about them if they posted their personal view of this training. In comparison to America the “show up yourself” isn´t common in Germany, especially for the elder generation. 

John liberates us from our thinking carousel: “Your post may contain your comment which you would give to a good friend of yours if you talk about WOL, absolutely personal.” Some of us discuss if it makes sense to write only positive aspects. I think we are part of a test program, a concept and role model for further WOL Mentorclass Trainings. Let´s imagine a prototype: if you design something new, you experience a lot of aspects in practice. Good ones and issues which might be/have to be changed and aligned for future trainings.

There is no “wrong” but there are always possibilities for improvement and need for honest feedback and trust. We have got a common goal to spread WOL-circles. Everybody of our group already experienced this process tool as a milestone in approaching problems, personal development and thinking “out-of-the-box”, in creating new valuable relationships who will probably last for the rest of our life.

Everybody of our group may spread the idea in his/her own individual personal manner. John lives this values: use your means, connections and tools you know and perhaps a way more you didn´t use before. Even if you think that this means or tool doesn´t correspond to your talent. To try something, collecting “WOW-effects” and to build trust for the next step.

In principle I experienced the reactions of our Mentorclass as multi-facetted as during school time. The following filters might accompany like shadows in our expectations and influence the perceived scope of experience:

•          Is it a challenge which I know from the past and which I already met? 
•    Did I succeed and what said/thought others about me? Were my efforts appreciated or did other laugh or criticize?
•       Does I think deep in my intuition/heart that I can trust in my talent to face the task?
•        If I never faced such a task how I should perform to fulfill it as perfect as possible?
•         Even if I did it, xy would do it surely better than I would do. 
•     Don´t I have more important things to do? These thoughts often lead to the all-known procrastination. Any other issue and task suddenly seems to be better than to cope with the challenge. Even polishing pots seems to be more comfortable.

·  How is my motivation to approach the task as a challenge. May I confirm:”It will be done in some way,” or with my self-confidence:” I am confident that somebody will like it.” ??

To be continued in part II “Out of your comfortzone”