https://soundcloud.com/lucakramis/feed-the-black-box-to-create-opportunities
This is the story of how I got to join the ‘Dream Team’ of the World Innovations Forum. It’s also an explanation of what I learned from a few years of struggling to find what I call ‘touch with reality’. The insights I gained lead me to the concept of ‘the black box’ – I hope you can benefit from some of my learnings, too.
Meet the World Innovations Forum
It’s a warm spring morning and I’m walking across the inner city of Zurich from the railway station to the opera house. I always walk – it helps me to sort my thoughts and gives my body some of the movement it craves so badly. I’m on my way to a meeting that will mark the start of something big. It’s not every day that you get to be on board with a group of people adamant to change the world. And even rarer – a group of people that just might be able to pull it off.
Where was I going? I was going to meet the founders and the ‘Dream Team’ of the World Innovations Forum. The WIFORUM is a Zurich-based NGO. The magnitude of what was going to be discussed that morning becomes very clear when reading about the organisation’s vision: “We envision a world where prosperity is possible in all nations, through innovation and entrepreneurship – created within each country.” You can find more about the mission here.
Imagine you’re in a team, changing the world. Does that sound interesting to you? You’re in luck – we’re hiring! Find the positions to be filled here.
Okay, enough recruitment and advertisements – what I want to share is how feeding the black box can create opportunities, sometimes beyond your reach.
Struggling to Touch Reality
Let’s move a couple of years back. I was living in Fribourg, in the French part of Switzerland. I had left my social life behind and also quit all my associations when I moved. And then reality struck hard. I realised that my master plan of doing a master’s there wouldn’t work. Not because I couldn’t or wasn’t allowed to – simply because I couldn’t summon any motivation to go through an additional three years of broad business school. I was uninspired. And after struggling with myself for a while I quit. A time of ideas and unfinished beginnings followed.
In the pilot episode of my podcast, I explain how I built a fantasy world that never made it to reality. I wasn’t exactly sure why I couldn’t make things happen at the time – but I had a lot of time to reflect since. It was because it all happened in my head. I never brought it to the outside world, never truly searched for partners for the project, even though I knew I didn’t possess all the skills and knowledge necessary to make it happen.
The one most important thing when it comes to testing your ideas is externalising them. Talk to people, ask them about their opinions and see how that feels. Get other people on board. As soon as you actually talk about your idea, you get a piece of reality on it. There are a few major aha-moments necessary until you come up with a solid concept. If you don’t externalise the idea, you miss those moments and the major learning opportunities. In my case, that meant that I wasn’t going to make anything happen, no matter how hard I was working on developing the idea. Remember, it’s up to you to touch reality. And you make it happen by literally going out there. Join associations, meet people, send cold emails asking for advice – you’ll be surprised by how helpful people generally are.
The Black Box
I had given up another one of my master plans to learn how to get in touch with reality. It was time to turn my life outward again. It was time to join some new associations and start volunteering again. I started a new master’s and even though the subjects differ only marginally, this time I was inspired. And things started to improve, my ideas started to turn into real opportunities. Based on that journey – again, reflection brought me on to this – I came up with a concept that accounts for how opportunities are created.
Life is a black box of complexity. Most things happen without your contribution and the impact of your contributions greatly depends on what comes out of that box. There is no way to foresee the actions of others. Your team may not behave the way you wish them to, your ideas may not get the attention you think they deserve, you may suffer an injury. Basically, everything can happen and most eventualities are not what you predicted. My journey helped me to understand and accept this. Once you realise that you are not in control of the world, you can let go and focus on what’s important. I didn’t invest this mindset, of course. It’s called stoicism and originated in ancient Greece, where Zeno founded a school of stoic philosophy.
So, what good is accepting that you are not in charge? I find that there is an opportunity in accepting this, it allows you to focus on yourself. Focus on your own actions, your own attitude to things. Stop feeling offended by what others do and start giving your very best to the projects you decide to join – no matter what. The pattern I discovered was that, while I have no control over what comes out of the box, there seems to be a linear relationship between throwing something into the box and something coming out of it.
Let me give you an example. From my struggle of trying to ‘touch reality’, I learned much about what I want to do and what gives me energy, which is problem-solving and helping others to solve their problems. Note that problems here aren’t necessarily synonymous to obstacles that pull you back in life but to any challenge. I realised that I want to be a coach, at least part-time. So, I started a coaching course online. That was my first action step. In that course, I received the task to ask some coaches about their work. Easy enough. But sending those emails was throwing something into the box. I externalised my wanting to become a coach and thus allowed for the possibility of receiving help. I didn’t expect any but I made it possible.
One the emails led to a meeting, which led to further contacts, which led to an internship. That is what came out of the box for sending a couple of emails. That is how the linear relationship works between giving something in and something coming out of the box. Of course the input here was much smaller than the output – and often it’s the other way around. In any case, it’s such a simple concept and yet crucial. Do something and something will happen. Do nothing and nothing will happen. Your mindset is your choice.
Create Opportunities
That is what I learned about creating opportunities. They will not just fly your way, you have to create them. But you don’t have to move mountains. Just do something, volunteer, join an association, be out there – and opportunities will come your way.
‘Opportunies will come my way’. That is my current mantra. It is the remainder of a time when I struggled to touch reality. When I started the internship that I mentioned, my boss gave me a free coaching session. This mantra was the outcome. Of course that doesn’t sound huge to you, you have your own traumas and don’t struggle with mine. To me it meant the world. And opportunities have come my way since. I intend to keep feeding that black box so that stuff continues to come out of it. That’s what keeps life interesting and what keeps me busy.
You decide for yourself whether you want to feed the box. Are you already doing it? Are you giving in enough? Are you looking for outcomes without putting something in? Do you need to externalise your ideas? Please contact me if you feel like you can use some help with these questions or you aren’t sure how to feed the box. I’m happy to give you a free (sample) coaching session and/or give you some more explanations around the black box. By the way, find more information about myself on koaching.ch.
The WIFORUM envisions to build prosperity from within developing countries. Become active if you want to feed the box, not just for yourself but for the greater good! If not, there are many other opportunities out there. ‘Be the change’, or feed the box!
Source header image: http://wallpaperswide.com/black_cubes_2-wallpapers.html
