Flow-State: Fueling Our Quest, Finding Our Why

“It’s on the strength of observation and reflection that one finds a way.”? Claude Monet

Recently, Rebecca Cuevas (creator of the Course Design Formula? and CEO/Founder of Learn and Get Smarter, Inc.) and I, (Anessa Collins, SHE EO and Coach at Anessa Collins Coaching) published our fourth in a collaborative series of articles on the topic of mindset.?

Our focus for the series of articles is how to change our own mindsets for the better, as well as how to teach mindset change through online courses and coaching.

Previous articles have focused on-distinct types of mindsets-unhelpful/fixed and helpful/growth, the delicate relationship between our Why and our mindset and how these impact entrepreneurial strategies, business models, decision-making process and tactics chosen. Here are links to articles 1-3:

https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/fixed-mindset-how-limits-us-business-wilderness-life-anessa-collins/

https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/growth-mindset-anessa-collins/

https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/overcoming-roadblocks-our-why-business-wilderness-anessa-collins/

In this final article, we will share our experiential knowledge?as well as what we have discovered in our hours of Zoom meetings and research on these topics. Specifically, we will discuss how the current entrepreneurial culture surrounding marketing can mislead us on our journey to finding our Why (in pursuit of a growth mindset), as well as how to coach and teach our clients and maybe the world, about the complex nature of these subjects, and ultimately their application in day to day life.?

We will achieve these goals by continuing to use role models from the History Channel's "Alone" survivalist series, as illustrative examples. Specifically, we will use participants' Alone experiences, to help us understand relevant parallels between business, and our lives.

Let’s start by talking about our collective Why’s-mine and Rebecca’s,?behind writing this series. (This is sort of meta – talking about our article WHY’s so we can write about our universal, human WHY’s – but I believe it is a worthwhile adventure and want to make sure our readers really understand why we invested this time and energy.)

-Teaching mindset change to others is unlike teaching other types of subject matter, and if our goal is to help our clients learn and ultimately reach a transformation, this is pretty important but very often quickly passed over as just another module or worksheet.

-Our WHY impacts every aspect of our business and requires revisiting during our journey because it inherently involves a degree of self-actualization and I would argue, external support. Suffice it to say, getting to the source of who you are and understanding why you act and think the way you do stretches far beyond the bounds of a marketing strategy. Revisiting our WHY requires a commitment many of us are simply unable or unwilling to keep. (In Alone terms, we have created a boat that floats only in steady water-when bad weather strikes, it flips.)

Who you are, how you have experienced your life and what you believe to be true are all ingredients to finding your WHY, laying a foundation for a helpful mindset and building a business in alignment with YOUR HIGHEST SELF.

Obviously, we can point to countless individuals who have reached the pinnacle of “success” but we can equally agree many of them struggled to be happy.?

-Finding your WHY, maintaining a growth mindset and increasing the likelihood of our “success” in business, life and the wilderness may require us to think counter-intuitively to systems that have taught us to be convergent thinkers (many variables, one right answer-think math) and instead dedicate ourselves to being more divergent thinkers (multiple correct answers and one substantially more correct than the others).

There seems no more essential time to be a divergent thinker than when we are under pressure from external forces or constraints (like a pandemic, a recession, a changing market or in the case of Alone, the unrelenting aspects of nature herself.)

If nothing is pushing us to adapt in business or the bush, what is the probability that we actually will overcome the current obstacle or any obstacles at ALL??

Read that again and then consider how much our WHY-and mindset impacts our willingness to pivot under pressure.? A growth mindset (recap)-

1. Are we open to new ideas and embracing learning or have we decided there is simply no solution?
2. Are we exerting effort toward mastery or have we decided nothing can be done?
3. Are we able to celebrate the success of a competitor or does it generate other unhelpful emotions??

Now that you know the WHY behind this series of articles, let’s focus on examples of? obstacles and strategies to help you find, redefine or claim your own WHY, and consider them in the context of your courses and coaching curriculum as we continue to draw parallels from the Alone series participants.

(To learn more about these inspiring role models, you can check out their bio’s here):

Season 9-Contestant Biography)?

Teimojin Tan, Age 31 and a physician from Montreal, arrived not only with incredible skills but a distinct and identifiable connection to his WHY-to “test his knowledge, talent and abilities” in Labrador Canada. Prior to Alone, Tan traveled to several impoverished countries and learned from the indigenous Cree Rangers of the Subarctic, and tribes of East Africa, how to be resilient, even in the face of hardship. And in his 18 days on Alone, he has had to lean into this mindset to survive.?

Struggling to source regular protein from fishing, Tan subsists largely on bunchberries and begins to struggle with early signs of starvation. Rather than lament and sleep or continue to fish when fishing was not working for him, he decided to get curious about the details of his site and its abundance of? squirrels. Tan stalks the squirrels' food source, green balsam fir cones, and decides he needs to begin to set spring-pull snares along their game trails, and also leverage his bow for grouse.?

In a nutshell, Tan observes what is not working (fishing),? what could work (catching squirrels or shooting a grouse), and then he intentionally pivots.?

Both setting traps for squirrels and leveraging his bow become successful strategies for Tan and he eats well, for now. Most importantly, Tan KNOWS and BELIEVES, he can find new ways to get food, when he must, and this mindset is resolute. Tan has lived in similar situations, observed how to find joy in hardship and has had illustrative mindset role models of his own, during his indigenous experiences. Most of all, Tan has embraced how these past experiences can contribute to his present situation.

So what makes Tan adapt and source resilience in the face of hardship, while others fail to?

Tan was connected to his WHY, he had seen people live with very little, and not only subsist, but thrive. These life experiences and countless others he has likely had as a physician, were associated with emotions, beliefs and ultimately behaviors that encouraged growth, innovation and adaptation in the face of obstacles.? Tan knew the story behind his WHY and was able to reflect on role models who demonstrated these character traits.?

The characteristics Tan exhibits on Alone and those we must pursue as entrepreneurs are remarkably similar-knowing the genesis of our story, (the source of our WHY), surrounding ourselves with successful peers (role models), and being in community are game changers in both settings. Most of us would agree with all of these tenets so what's in the way?

Resistance to discomfort?and disconnection from our emotions.

Human nature often works against us as entrepreneurs. Comfort and/or safety are critical in the wilderness and when our life is at risk, but in business and leadership, leaning into discomfort is a necessary adaptive skill.?

For example, let's consider a few hot buttons of regular entrepreneurial resistance: sales calls, ad spend (without immediate results), writing regular value-centric emails/blogs without expectation of a response, being ourselves on social media and the list goes on.?

Finding our WHY and a helpful mindset require us to learn to embrace discomfort and connect to our emotional self with intention, bringing me to my next point.?

Most of the resistance we experience in sourcing our WHY is due to having what Rebecca calls “the wrong prior knowledge.” Many of us were raised in environments (home and educational) where emotions were either not expressed,?not expressed productively or where we explicitly taught to ignore them, be quiet and keep going.

Given these two obstacles-resistance and disconnection from our emotional selves, is it really surprising we struggle to find our WHY and own it as an anchoring point in our business?

Simply being aware of these obstacles-learning opportunities, can transform the way we consider our WHY, and the mindset we hope to maintain as entrepreneurs, course creators and coaches.?

In support of your continued journey to your WHY, a helpful mindset and your Alone entrepreneurial experience here are a few methods you might consider using-?

Storyboard. Storyboarding is a highly effective tool for sourcing the genesis of your WHY and is frequently used across different industries and sectors. The concept is simple: reach back as far as you can in your life, note events substantial to you, identify the emotions or intensity of emotions associated with the event and the beliefs arising from the experience itself.?

And, finally, analyze themes across these timeline events without judgment. In the end, you have a timeline of events that have shaped how you experience the world in the present. Finally, you observe common themes across those events and how you have responded, ultimately informing you of why you believe the world needs to understand, learn or know something, only you can teach. This is the source, in my mind, of your WHY.

Based on my experience with clients using this technique, I offer the following suggestions to help you get the most out of this process:

1. Degrees of trauma will impact this process -what you can remember and how it surfaces. Please be prepared to build in safety and control for yourself and gain support if you already know this will be difficult.?
2. Acknowledge your own nature-if you rarely seek external support because you are more internally oriented, this is one of many times as an entrepreneur, you will need to reconsider and lean into the right type of partner or coach.
3. Be prepared as the paradigms/environments/people around us have influenced our abilities to access and express emotions. If you are having a difficult time sourcing your own on the journey to your WHY, here is a preliminary tool from my practice, you will find helpful. Release Writing Ritual from Coach Anessa Collins.pdf?
4. Additional resources for sourcing your WHY include multiple books on the topic by? Simon Sinek and working with a coach Anessa Collins Coaching or a mentor who has Storyboarding experience.?

Season 9 of Alone will likely not conclude for several weeks and we have no way of really knowing which contestant will acquire the coveted $500K. Soon, the weather on the show will undergo drastic change and access to consistent food will become even more difficult as will the psychological impacts of being alone for an extended period.

In a nutshell, things will be getting harder in many respects, for everyone remaining. Persistent uncertainty will continue to be the theme and there is much the audience cannot foresee. (Sound familiar?)

However, as I prepare to pass the keyboard to Rebecca, so she can help us explore teaching these topics in our courses and coaching, I am certain of one thing:?

Teimojin Tan may not win this contest but he will WIN in life and this is a gift that keeps on giving.

Rebecca~

Thanks, Anessa, for your powerful guidance and fascinating techniques for helping us find our WHY.

I’m struck by something Temoijin said as part of his reflections in Episode 4. He said:

“A lot of indigenous people live in such rough climates and they’re incredibly happy and resilient… Everything is just a test, and they’re so confident in the Universe that their bodies, minds, and souls can tolerate anything.? Things can happen, but they’re so grateful on a daily basis to experience that. It just changes you. It’s ok to suffer a bit. Things will turn out ok.”

There’s so much to unpack there… including some things that were NOT said, but that we know from our daily lives. Let’s start with those unsaid things by looking at the quote above as if it were a photographic negative, so we can get the full picture and understand its implications for our OWN lives. Here’s what Temoijin did NOT say, but we can imply:

“A lot of people today live in such comfortable conditions and yet are incredibly unhappy and lacking in resilience. Everything can feel overwhelming if you don’t have a strong sense of belonging to a bigger whole, connecting to a bigger WHY. That lack of connection makes our bodies, minds, and souls intolerant of challenges and stress. When things happen, it’s easy to forget to be grateful for every experience that comes our way, no matter what.? We are resistant to being changed and feel that suffering is wrong, that we should not have to experience it, and that if we are suffering for any reason, that means that things will not turn out ok.”???

When we have an expectation of comfort and ease as our right in life, it’s easy to become discouraged when things go wrong. An alternative, and more helpful mindset though would be to see things not going as planned as opportunities for learning and growth that increase our resilience and expand our skill sets.?

One thing I see here is the discrepancy between the constant and regular PRACTICE in dealing with physical and environmental challenges, that people who live in difficult climates get… versus the lack of that type of practice that a sedentary urban lifestyle affords.??

Would any of the Alone participants be motivated to spend 100 days in the frigid wilderness by thinking to themselves, “Let me leave behind everything I know so I can catch squirrels in snares and brook trout in gill nets, while I? sleep?”? The proposition is laughable, right???

I mean, sure, most of the participants DO manage to snag some “passive income” that way. Many online course creators do as well. But those are just small subsistence snacks on the way to achieving the REAL motivation behind participating in such grueling ordeals as solo wilderness survival…or? solopreneurship. ? The real motivation, the truly meaningful WHY, lies in what’s behind the statement Temoijin made:

A desire to push our limits and test ourselves, day after day, in a challenging environment (whether natural or digital), constantly perfecting our skills, serving as inspiring role models, connecting to something beyond us in which we have absolute faith…. and most important… being willing to suffer a bit while knowing deep down that things are going to be ok, because we have faith in our bigger WHY and the importance of achieving it.?

Our WHY? is bigger than that squirrel that got away, or that fish that didn’t bite. If we are relying on such squirrels and fish (which often DO get away, and often DON’T bite) as many Alone contestants who tapped out early did… we too will run short of the energy and resources needed to go the distance.

That energy can only come from connecting to a mission, vision, and purpose larger than ourselves.

Anessa’s powerful coaching techniques can be helpful for finding a deep overarching WHY for one’s whole life. Let’s say you’ve done that, or feel you know what your WHY is, intuitively, and you’re eager to apply what you’ve discovered about your own motivation, to your online teaching or coaching practice.? How can you find and express your WHY in those contexts?

For example, let’s say that you want to create an online course to share with the world and sell. Let’s say that course is going to be the foundation of your online business.

The first question to ask yourself is: What’s the transformation the course will provide? How will people be different and better than they were before, as a direct result of completing your course?

I’ll use myself as an example, and then we can extrapolate to you and your course.

My course participants will be able to confidently teach anything they want to… at any scale (from an elevator pitch to a presentation to a workshop to a course to a whole academy or program), to anyone, in any context… and especially, online.

Now we know WHAT my course participants will be able to do (teach) and HOW they will be able to do it (with confidence and skill) – but we still don’t know WHY that matters.?

So let’s break that WHY down next.

WHY does being able to teach confidently online matter to my course participants?

It matters to them for many reasons, for example:

• Teaching online is the next step in their professional growth
• They want to reach a larger, more geographically diverse, audience
• They want to make more money and/or work in retirement
• They want to turn their unique expertise and creative life’s work into their legacy

Aha, now we are getting somewhere. My course participants want to leave a legacy. They want to effectively and impactfully pass on what they know, in ways that go beyond their immediate physical presence in space and time.? They want to create an impact that breaks through limitations of space and time.

Wow. That’s pretty powerful once we understand it that way, right?

So now, why do I, as the creator of my business, want to help people do that? What's my WHY for helping people? fulfill THEIR WHY through teaching online? (Meta indeed, as you said at the beginning of this article, Anessa!)

• My short term immediate WHY is that I want to help people get unstuck so they can get their courses online and start making the difference they’re here to make.
• ?My long term overarching WHY is that I want to change the way people teach and learn online globally, so that teaching and learning are easy, achievable and FUN, for everyone, everywhere.? I want to help people grow and change by making it easy for everyone, everywhere, to learn effectively.

WHY?

Because learning is critical to survival, highly meaningful, and? fun – and helping people learn effectively is tremendously satisfying.?

If we define learning, as I do in my book, as the process of adapting to one’s environment in ways that promote survival, we can see that that’s exactly what Temoijin is talking about in his reference to people who live in challenging climates.

He says that people are willing to go through suffering, to adapt and change and grow, in order to survive in harmony with their environment, by doing things that WORK sustainably as part of the greater whole of which they are part. They are willing to do whatever it takes to learn how to get along effectively wherever they are.?

That’s what learning is.? (Notice how “I’m? going to CRUSH this!”, is NOT, therefore, the same as effective learning. “I’m going to CRUSH this” is an expression of a fixed mindset that says, “My way, going into this experience, is better than anything I might encounter or find.? I am? unwilling to learn from the experience or have it change me. Instead of being receptive to this experience and learning from it, I am going to CRUSH it like a bug.” Hmmm.)

True learning promotes? a feeling of self-efficacy…of being able to take effective action on one’s own behalf.? Understanding how to “read” a river so one can reliably catch fish, being able to respectfully participate in the cycle of life that requires us to either eat or be eaten…being “incredibly grateful” for everything that comes our way, because we can learn from it…these are all experiences that promote self-efficacy.

Pitting oneself against the environment as if one had all the resources of modern society (that we take for granted) at one’s disposal… like bulldozers, and electric sanders, and levers and wenches and gears… when one doesn’t have any of those at hand… is only going to lead to disaster.?

For example, I’m struck by the number of Alone participants in various seasons and climates, who set out to make large, complex, dwelling structures of heavy logs, and usually don’t get to ever complete or live in them because they burn through all their available calories first.?

That happened to Igor in episode 4….his shelter was simply too big and energy-consuming to construct with the resources he had available.? Igor, however, did learn from the experience, and did allow it to change him. One of the main things he learned, and can teach all of us as an inspiring role model, is the importance of self care. You can’t fulfill your WHY without it.

So now let’s unpack the process I just took us through for MY course and business, and see how you could use it to find the WHY for YOUR business:

• WHAT will people be able to do as a direct result of your course, your coaching practice, or your entire business?
• HOW will they be able to do that?
• WHY do they want to have/learn/do/be that?

Ok that’s why THEY want to learn that… Now:

• Why do YOU want to help them achieve it?
• WHY is that important to you?
• And why does THAT matter?

(Keep asking questions, going deeper and deeper into your WHY for doing what you do… you can do three why’s, seven why’s etc… keep asking “why” until you get to something that feels deeply resonant and flows).

What’s your immediate short term reason for wanting to help people?

And what’s your overarching big picture reason?

Now, can you answer that in an elevator pitch?

I can!

"My mission is to help you fulfill your mission, through teaching online.

Together we can light up the planet, one mind at a time."

(It even rhymes, lol).

Can you turn your WHY for having an online course/business/ coaching practice, into a fortune-cookie/ haiku/ elevator pitch? If you can, it would be great if you could share it in the comments…it would be powerful to see!

Once you’ve found your WHY, how are you willing to let it change you?

What suffering are you willing to put up with, if necessary, for the sake of adapting to your big overarching WHY and learning to succeed within its constraints?

Do you have a growth mindset of being willing to be changed by your WHY in unexpected ways, or a fixed mindset of needing to dominate and CRUSH?

What are you willing to give up in order to achieve and fulfill your WHY?

What have you given up already?

It all comes back to the value, power, and meaning of constraints:? given that our time, energy, and resources are limited, what do we prioritize most?

"If we prioritize doing things that are in alignment with our WHY, we will be in the flow, regardless of any temporary suffering involved, regardless of what we need to give up to get there. (As the famous saying goes: “How much are you willing to give up in order to be happy?”?

But as the Alone participants’ experiences make dramatically clear,? if we are giving up the wrong things (such as important relationships, or physical? health) we are not in alignment with our WHY in a sustainable way.

It’s only when our WHY is focused on bringing in the greatest good in ways that benefit our whole “ecosystem”, that we find ourselves living in a flow that? becomes a self-sustaining positive feedback loop.

We will be like Benji, who, while setting a trap for the bear he’s hoping to catch, exclaims, “I am in a complete flow state. I feel like I belong here.”? What a beautiful way to feel!

That’s the same mindset Phil Connors adopted by the end of the movie, Groundhog Day. He had stopped fighting the constraint of being forced to live the same 24 hour day over and over again (which is the same constraint we all face in actual life. We all get exactly 24 hours every day, and a fresh chance to live those 24 hours to our highest and best ability). Instead of focusing on the future or being stuck in the past, Phil eventually learned how to make the most of his NOW.??

How do we optimize the NOW in our online teaching or coaching practices?? In coaching, we are trying to help our clients (or ourselves, if we are the coachee), build a better future by working through issues from the past. If we are teaching online asynchronously, that means NOT being with our learners in the same time and space they are in. So how does the “now” fit into those scenarios, and how can we be sure to be in the flow and in alignment with our WHY?

The answer lies in DESIGN: in the way you structure your coaching practice or the online learning experience you provide.?

If you structure your coaching practice in alignment with both your WHY and the client’s? WHY, you will always be in alignment with what the client needs most from you, at any moment in time. (I talk about how I do that in my coaching practice, in this blog post:

https://www.learnandgetsmarter.com/the-magic-of-coaching-what-makes-it-work/).

If you structure your online presentation, course, academy… or any learning experience at any scale… in alignment with what it takes for learners to take in and process information one step at a time, your course participants will experience? learning and growth in a continually evolving NOW.

Like the participants on Alone, we all only have the current moment, the moment we and our clients and learners are currently in, to create transformation and positive change.

When you design online learning to be consumed later, you are using your WHY to create a NOW your learners will experience later. Since you won’t be there with them while they’re going through your course material, it’s critical that you be with them … connected with them, in a flow state with them… WHILE you are creating the material.?

You’ll know you’ve found and tapped into your big, overarching WHY… your true reason for doing what you do... when your experience feels beautiful, alive, and flowing with meaning, when you? feel like you’re on the path to becoming who you can truly be at your highest and best…and helping others do that too.?

Being in the?flow state that Benji described is how you’ll? know you’ve found your WHY.

Your WHY is? your pole star, your true north, and everything else you do in your business revolves around it. If you let it guide you, you will always find your way? home.

When you start out on a new venture, whether that’s entrepreneurship or wilderness survival in an unfamiliar environment, you don't realize what you're getting into.

How can you be prepared to adapt to unexpected contingencies in an unknown and unfamiliar situation?? You can't always be prepared, and that’s real life.

You've got to be connected to Source, which is the same thing I said in article #2 in this series—you’ve got to be connected to the central sun providing energy to the entire system. That central energy source IS your big, overarching WHY for doing what you’re doing.

When it comes to your online teaching or coaching practice,? YOU (the teacher and/or coach) are the central sun of your system.

You are the role model for your students and coaching clients. And that role model is serving as an energy source, providing relevant prior knowledge for your learners and clients.

You find your WHY through practical, hands-on experience that sometimes leads you to discover what your WHY isn't-- like Jacques did. So that wasn't a failure. That was a success. That's a rapid prototyping process.

We have to recognize that nothing's ever going to be perfect. You make design decisions and try them out. Then if you don’t like them you can redesign things a different way. In the process, you keep getting closer and closer to living your WHY.? This is an iterative process. It will keep evolving.

Your WHY is a moving target, and being closer to or farther from a flow state provides you with a feedback gauge that tells you whether you’re closer to or farther from connecting with it.

The pandemic is causing us all to have to reevaluate our WHY.

If you have a fixed mindset, even about your WHY… if you're unwilling to adapt and be more fluid in your business, if you can't have these guideposts and move between them, you'll get stuck and be unable to move forward. You will, metaphorically, “tap out”, due to lack of energy coming from an alive, organic, and evolving WHY. Your WHY eight years later is probably going to be some different version of what it was the first year of your business.?

On the way to finding your WHY you will discover interesting questions, and you can use techniques that help you go deeper and deeper into those questions (like the “Seven Why’s” technique) to help keep asking why at a deeper and, and deeper level.

Do you know your WHY? And can you articulate it? Do you feel that you're in alignment with your highest purpose? Does your online teaching and coaching process leave you feeling energized and alive… like you are in a flow state?

Your WHY evolves. It changes over time. Maybe finding it is not as important as searching for it.

This is an ongoing exploration that we're all engaged in together.

Anessa and I? started this series of articles by saying everybody pays lip service to mindset, but what is it really??

We discovered that finding your WHY is the heart of what makes mindset work. Perhaps the real key is not so much FINDING our WHY, as continually SEARCHING for it.

We’re not going to wrap up the ultimate answer to “How to find your big overarching WHY” in this one article today. It will probably take a year or two, and input from you–our whole online community – to fully? explore this topic.

Having all the answers would not be in alignment with my highest purpose right now because it would shut down the discussion. Instead, I’m looking forward to all of us continuing that exploration together, as a community.

Me too-Anessa!