I spent the weekend in Durham NC talking about the massage therapy industry with two people who have absolutely nothing to do with the massage therapy industry. It was one of the most professionally productive two days I've had in an age!
Background: Kitty Southworth and I are launching a new company in 2012 called The Healing Core. Our original vision was to offer continuing education, specifically in energy and business, to people in the healing arts. We went to Durham to talk to Clare Reece-Glore about adult education and Adriana DiFranco about marketing.
Clare helped us review the outline for our Energy 101 class. She helped us see what we did well (lots, blessedly!) and what we can do to make it even better (lots, just as blessedly). We also made plans to bring her to DC to teach a class on how to develop a good continuing ed class.
Adriana asked us to describe our business and our industry and then helped us imagine a business so much bigger than we had imagined. She helped us see that we could be even more than we imagined. She led us to see things we never would have been able to see for ourselves.
When you talk to people who are already embedded in the same industry you are, they have the same (frequently unknown) limits to their worldview that you do. When you talk shop with someone outside your industry they ask questions like "couldn't you do....?" and "why don't you....?" Sometimes their suggestions won't work because there are things they don't understand but just as often they will invite you to see things in a whole new light.
I enjoy talking shop with other MTs and I learn much from them. But sometimes I find it's good to get out of the "shop" and see how the world looks on the other side of the office door.
No comments:
Post a Comment