Week One Comments - Mollie

Chapter 1: It’s All Invented
Let me kick off this post by saying I’m so excited this book is our required reading for this month. I love books that challenge me to change my thoughts and actions. I know that Prof. Bustillo’s asked us to blog about our personal interaction with the reading (which I’m going to do) but I’d also like to use my blog as a place where I can keep a running outline of my notes and the passages that sparked my interest, so from time to time you might see me included references or recaps from the text.

In Chapter 1, the idea of getting over pre-conceived notions is the main theme. This is serendipitous to my professional life right now. I work in sales, and just came back from an annual sales meeting where the idea of “selling to the opportunity” was the main theme. This fits exactly with the practice outlined in Chapter 1. As a salesperson, it is very easy to get in a rut and be in a place where you know your customer and accounts so well that you go in assuming you’ll “only sell 100 units.” Because of that assumption, you don’t take the extra time to ask a few more questions, or put together a proposal for 500 units. You might make your quota of selling 100 units, but you miss the larger opportunity.

Chapter 1 Practice
Ask yourself:

What assumption am I making,
Than I’m not aware I’m making,
That gives me what I see?

After you have that answer, go on to this one:

What might I now invent,
That I haven’t yet invented,
That would give me other choices?

Chapter 2: Stepping Into a Universe of Possibility
This chapter looks at the idea that we all walk around with the assumption that life is about staying alive and surviving. I know that I personally fall prey to this way of thinking ALL THE TIME. Like so many others, I’m a busy, working mom. I’m a slave to my to-do list. I’m always on the defensive. I love this quote from the book and hope to retrain myself, at least to some degree, to think about setting the context for my life rather than measuring how many more boxes I need to check of my daily tasks!

“In the measurement world, you set a goal and stive for it. In the universe of possibility, you set the context and let life unfold.”

Chapter 2 Practice
Ask yourself:
How are my thoughts and actions, in this moment, reflections of the measurement world?


Chapter 3: Giving an A: Giving Yourself an A
I completely agree with the idea that the grades given in school are constructed simply to help society compare one student to another and tell us almost nothing about a student’s mastery or potential. I come from a musical background myself (went to college on a wind instrumentalist scholarship) so I really related to the anecdotal info Ben put forward in this chapter.

Mollie,
I agree with your comment about students being graded only to compare one another. It is unfortunate that we use the grading scale to measure student’s performance. Having the opportunity to engage in a school that graded with pass/fail concept, I was able to experience the freedom of expressing myself without the worry of failing. I wonder how many more Einsteins we would discover if the grading concept were revised in such a way that students weren’t afraid to fail. When we fail, we have the opportunity to learn and grow.

Sources:
Photo courtesy istockphoto.com
Blog Title: Week 1 Post 4: The Art of Possibility Chapters 1-3
Blogger: Mollie Sterling
Url: http://web.me.com/molliehoff/Mollie_Sterling__Media_Asset_Creations_Blog/Week_1/Entries/2010/11/27_Week_1_Post_4__The_Art_of_Possibility_Chapters_1-3.html#
Retrieved on November 27, 2010.