#MondayInsight:

What it Means to be a Paradigm Changer

As paradigm changers, we love to explore the edge, continually opening up new terrain inside of ourselves and in the world.

And as service providers, it’s important to know that not everybody is ready to join you on the edge…

But some are desperately hungry for it.

So, who’s ready to join you on the edge?

It’s not for people who are still exploring the ‘easy options.’

It’s not for people who want to hold tight to their paradigm and way of viewing the world.

It’s for people who are ready to do deeply transformative work and enter into a whole new world… with your help.

But who are those people? What conditions have to be true for them to be ready for this kind of work?

They’re people who’ve already explored all the known solutions to address their problems within their current paradigm… and have come up short.

I’ve explored and burned through every solution I know of to get a solution around X, Y, or Z, and I got nothin’! I came up short and I still have my problem. In fact, my problem has gotten even bigger because time has gone by, compounding my problem! So now I have a compound problem and no solutions left.

When someone is in that position, the only place to go is into a new paradigm, where the solutions that they could not see from their old worldview are living.

And that is where you come in as a new paradigm thought leader!

Because if you are a paradigm changer, you are continually changing the paradigms in your own life, in the lives of the people you work with, and in the systems you work inside of, whether they’re corporate, governmental, or community-based.

You are changing the rules and making new ones.

Every belief system comes with certain parameters of how the world works. And inside those belief systems are a set of rules that govern that world.

For example, I grew up in the Midwest, and a belief system that governs that world is that you’ve got to work hard to have what you want. Inside that belief system, you cannot have what you want without working hard.

But when I started to have a life with a lot more flow, serendipity, and magic, it bumped up against that old belief system. “I’ve got to work hard to warrant all this amazing stuff in my life, but I’m not working hard!”

And so I’d sabotage the good that was coming my way or start working extra hard to have it, which also sabotaged it because it saps it of joy.

Every time you’re working with a client, part of what you are doing is challenging the systems, structures, and beliefs in their worldview and offering up a different form, structure, and experience for a new world.

In essence, you’re saying to them, “I know you think that’s the way it is, but I promise you there’s another path you haven’t seen that will lead you to a radically different life.”

That new paradigm comes with it a whole different set of beliefs and laws that govern that paradigm, which creates a different reality.

This is where things get fun and interesting, and sometimes a little tricky and hairy, because as much as people may want things to be different around certain circumstances in their world…

To truly change, they’ll have to enter a new paradigm.

So as an edge-rider and paradigm-changer, who are you meant to work with?

You are meant to work with people who are post-something. They burned through their set of predictable solutions and came up short.

Because if they don’t burn through the solutions in their existing paradigm first, they won’t be ready to leave that paradigm for a new solution.

So the question for you to answer is this: what is it that your people will have to have burned through before they’re ready for your best work?

Identify that, broadcast what that looks like for your people, and test for that when letting people into your world…

And you’ll find yourself doing your absolute best work with people who are absolutely hungry for it.