Once again, impact is what people pay you for. It’s your ability to help them create the results they desire and transformations they want to experience.
The final professional practice multiplier is a “meta-multiplier”; it’s an accelerant for everything we’ve covered so far. If Parts One, Two and Three each cover a specific transformation, Part Four looks at how you can accelerate the whole process of transformation, taking your learning, evolution and growth to an exponential level. This is the key to breaking free from the linear, incremental models we’ve been taught and tapping into the source of exponential evolution that’s there within you.
Multiplier Number Ten: Evolutionary Ecosystem
Professional practice multiplier number ten is exponential ecosystem and this affects all three transformations: grounding, impact and leverage.
A good way to think about this multiplier is in relation to the old idea that “You become like who you hang around with.” Now, is that an absolute truth? Not exactly, but there’s a lot of truth in it because when you’re around other people who are also on the exponential practice journey, you can learn and grow very quickly.
In the first row, you wish you had the same qualities as the people you look up to. People commiserate with you about how difficult things are. You know the old saying “misery seeks company”. Well, the last thing you need is people who commiserate with you at this stage. There is a lot more value in people who will lift you up and inspire you with what’s possible for you.
In row two, you focus your professional development on tactics and silver bullets, hoping to capitalize on ‘flavour of the month’ methods. As you probably already appreciate, growing an exponential practice is a long term game; although there are definitely quick wins to be found, a lot of your biggest leverage is going to come from your grounding and your impact.
In the third row, you take a long-term view, prioritizing your professional development. You aspire to be one of the pioneers who shape your profession. If you speak to people enjoying success as a transformation professional, you’ll almost always find that they’ve made a long-term commitment to this work.
In the exponential row – row four – you constantly evolve as a transformation professional, you surround yourself with successful pioneers who challenge and inspire you to new levels. There’s huge value in being around others who are pioneering and having a game-changing impact in the field. To make progress and improve in this practice multiplier there is a very simple step. Commit to your profession and to your professional development for the long term.
In terms of examples, well, everyone I’ve spoken about so far in this book is an example because each one of them is someone who’s committed to their professional development. They’ve committed to deepening their grounding, amplifying their impact and increasing their leverage, by working on all three of those transformations.
Not only are the people I’ve spoken about examples, I am an example too. Ever since I started down this pathway back in 1996, I’ve sought out mentors, I’ve hired them to work with me. I’ve joined their programmes, I’ve read books, I listened to audios and I’ve continued to learn, develop and evolve in all three transformations.
And to this day I continue to seek out mentors, find exponential environments to hang out in and make a point of surrounding myself with people who I can support and who can support me in my own development.
So I encourage you to go through the scorecard once to evaluate where you are now and then to evaluate where you’d like to be in 6 months or a years’ time in each of the 10 categories. Keep a note of your scores right here in this book and come back to it every month to review and recalibrate. Remember, any low scores you have are often low-hanging fruit where you can get a big return, relatively quickly.
To your increasing clarity!
Big love
Jamie
Jamie Smart, Sunday Times Bestselling Author, Speaker and Executive Coach