The last 24 hours have been a kaleidoscope of thoughts, feelings, and newer pressures placed upon my life that have made me realize that I need to start effectively making my work a real reality that I can actually economically sustain myself with or I’m going to have to put it on the back burner and seek full time conventional work to help make ends meet but which means it will dramatically reduce the time for my life’s work.
With this in mind, I’ve giving myself until the end of October to actually begin embodying the knowledge I’m creating and if I’m unable to do this, then I’m going to give myself November and December to find conventional work, even if it means taking something menial to do so (which I’ve actually enjoyed in the past because the physicality of the work keeps me in shape).
To get started in embodying my own knowledge that I’ve been creating though, I see two primary areas, potentially even three, that I can add to my website.
Quests
Quests for a new explorer often initially revolve around questioning the assumptions and beliefs of their conventional worldview. As a somewhat veteran explorer though, I’ve gone beyond that and I’m quest(ion)ing what is required for this new worldview, based upon what I’m understanding and making sense of it. So I’ve explored this new world(view) and made sense of it (mapping its edges) but now I’m navigating a way to make it a reality now (so that I can actually step into it).
So you could think of these quests like Richard Feynman’s 12 favourite problems as questions you continually keep in the back of your mind. More on why this is important below.
Character Sheet / Levels
A Character Sheet is effectively my name for something that goes beyond a resume. It is something more complex that communicates a person in a deeper and broader way.
One of the number one ways I’ve seen to do this is by communicating the “level” the person is at. This is achieved using the values related to the level of consciousness the person is at, as it relates to values-based leadership within the context of vertical development.
For example, in terms of myself, I realize I’m nearing completion of one level, where I’m striving to attain an internal sense of cohesion with myself by fully communicating my passion and purpose in a meaningful, creative, and authentic way that truly embodies who I am. Yet at the same time, I’m beginning a new stage of development which will help me to level up and begin to make a difference in helping others than just myself, thus beginning to partner, alliance, and mentor with others.
BTW the reason why this is so important and why it goes beyond a resume is that most job-based work often doesn’t include the cultural environment that the work is contextually immersed within. In other words, it doesn’t take into account the culture and values of the leadership that defines the environment of that company which is often the very thing that makes or breaks a work experience within a company. In other words, a person may love their work but actually hate the environment it’s within.
So by defining the level of consciousness a person is at, you’re effectively not only defining the similar values they are seeking but often the similar questions they are undertaking as well. By doing so, these questions become like quests that bring a “company“ of people together, all adventuring in the same direction and seeking the same things of value that they treasure.
Heroic Company / Adventurers
And the most amazing thing of all is that all of these explorers as adventurers don’t even need to be collaborating synchronously, as they are often working asynchronously without even realizing it.
For example, a lot of my own life’s work is built upon other people’s work who helped me to articulate in words what I was intuitively seeing but often couldn’t put into words. So I see all of these people as other adventurers that I am in heroic company with, even though I haven’t directly worked or even chatted with most of them. So creating a list of these adventurers that I’m in heroic company with is something I’d like to do (perhaps highlighting how their work resonates with mine as well).
And I don’t use that word “heroic” lightly because many of these people have overcome their own fears ( just as I am struggling to do so) and in doing so, they have levelled up in their own lives and are showing us a way forward into a new world(view), just as I am striving to do.
To be clear, this isn’t about learning in the form of sharing existing new knowledge; it’s about learning in the form of creating new knowledge. Every context is unique and every context is evolving at an accelerating pace. To truly understand our contexts, we need to pull ourselves out of the classroom and immerse ourselves in the context, take action based on growing understanding of the context, and then learn even more as we reflect on the impact that we’ve achieved.
John Hagel, Navigating From the Industrial Age to the Contextual Age
