I’m not usually the type to dedicate blog posts to people. This isn’t the great American novel, after all. But these people have been such glowing examples of teaching as they learn, that I have to give a shout out to them for their inspiration in writing this post. If you haven’t yet discovered Lissa Boles, Chris Guillebeau, Mark Silver, or Jonathan Fields (and especially this gorgeous post of his that was so moving to me) please go discover them.

I have to come out of the closet on being a wee bit uncomfortable with the “practice building expert” role that I’ve stepped into. Yes, I feel like I have the experience and know-how to effectively (and passionately) teach people how to grow their practices. And yes, I have a deep desire to turn my experiences into something tangible and useful that can contribute to other people’s lives.

What I don’t have is the desire to guru-ize myself. And when you step into a role as a writer and a teacher, there’s this funny underlying pressure to adopt the guru track.

Let me clarify. There are real gurus in the world. By “real gurus” I mean spiritual masters who are kind enough to be patient with those of us who are behind them in our own evolutionary paths. People who are worthy of a devout respect.

The kind of guru I’m talking about though are the false gurus we see everywhere. The people who are eager to step into the “I have this all figured out” role and who want to step on that stage and preach to you about how you can be as “empowered” as they are. They fan the flames of their own egos and work hard to convince the people in their audience that they are worthy of the pedestal they’ve put themselves on.

This kind of guru- who usually has little to no spiritual message but more often preaches about making dollar signs appear in your life- is so ubiquitous now that the idea that anyone should ever be on a pedestal goes largely unchallenged.

The pedestal says, “I’ve completely figured out what you seek to learn.” I’d like to argue that there is no official, concrete endpoint of figured-outness that we attain. In short, the pedestal is bullshit.

If we’re honest and awake to life, we’re always on some new learning curve. Teachers are people who may be ahead of you on any particular trajectory- whether that be growing a successful practice, having successful relationships, or any number of other things that we seek to learn- but they aren’t finished learning.

Without the admission that  we’re still on that trajectory with our students, we get lost in this flashy ego place. Worse, we stop learning because we decide we’ve arrived at the endpoint and we stop engaging.

In truth, there’s always the missteps, the bumbling around, and the epiphanies that come along with life and learning. Don’t buy the “I have it all figured out” guru message that we all get sold. We all learn from one another at our different stages, and we just keep on keeping on.

And so, in the spirit of un-guruing myself, here’s what I had going for me that allowed me to grow a full practice in a month:

Preparation.

Yes, it all boils down to one very un-sexy word. Lately this is the A number one thing on my list of what’s needed for success in anything. Which kind of sucks, because it’s not all the flashy things that we’re told we need (especially in America) like charisma or a a will of steel. And it requires a lot of patience. And work. The myth of overnight success and riches is, well, a myth.

My preparation for this particular endeavour came in the form of nine years in practice, and this being the third time I’ve started a new practice from scratch. So much for overnight success. My ability to grow a full practice in a month wasn’t really about that month, it was about the nine years that preceeded it. 

That means that this time around I got to skip all the wandering down alleys that are dead ends. I cut out so much of the wasted time, the heartache, and the confusion simply because I’ve done it before and figured out what works.

I knew how to pick a town that would enthusiatically greet a Rolfer, I knew how to pick the right office location and the right office mates, I knew how to grow my referral network I knew how to make a website and how to write great copy to attract my ideal clients. I knew what the hell an ideal client was, for that matter, and that I would talk directly to them. All this stuff I learned, slowly, drip by drip, over many years.

On the other hand, with this website and related projects that I’m working on to shine a big ol’ light on the holistic health world, I’m four years into what still feels like a new learning curve (The Well Practice hasn’t been up for four years. But the preparation that got me here has been four years and counting).

In this I’m still that person who is wandering into alleys that have dead ends. However, these days I can look way down that street and see the brick wall, whereas before I would have kept walking until I smacked into the brick wall. Only then would I have noticed that I should turn around and walk aaaaall the way back, nursing the big lump on my forehead. So that’s progress. I don’t fear brick walls as much any more- each lump on my forehead taught me something new that has allowed me to keep moving forward.

Fortunately and unfortunately, there is no over the rainbow. Keep stumbling, keep learning, that’s what we’re all here for. That’s where the juciness of life is. I’ll be stumbling into alleys and epiphanies right along with you.

Tags: guru, learning, practice building

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 14th, 2009 at 10:19 am and is filed under For When You Feel Like You Can't Keep On Keeping On, Starting From Scratch. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.