To everything there is a season.

We gather information, processes it/think it through, and act on it.

GATHER

During gather time, I read, listen to interviews, watch videos and movies and talk to everyone I meet.  This is a rich, productive discussion and sharing time.  I share what I find and my initial thoughts.

Processing time usually requires quiet time.  This is when I find myself heading off for walks, going to bed early and staring into space.  During processing time, I stop reading non-fiction, blogs, listening to interviews and I even stop watching new movies – I only want to see movies I’ve seen before.  I don’t want any new inputs.  I want what’s in my head to settle into the right order.  This is a time I treasure my dreams.  They are my subconscious working hard for me.  I don’t get aha’s so much as shifts in my thinking.

PROCESS

This can be a time of change, too.  These shifts can be big.  Change times bring all sorts of strange things.  Sometimes even illness.  Change means an ending of one thing to make room for another.  No matter how much we want the new thing, letting go of the old one can be traumatic.  When I made the change of thinking of myself as an owner/operator of a bookkeeping business to business owner ready to start the next, it was scary.  I have great ideas for new businesses, but letting go of who I was to make room for who I want to be, was traumatic.  By the time I got through it, I was an owner of businesses and I was comfortable with that and impatient with doing bookkeeping, because it got in the way of doing the work of owning businesses.

ACT

Then I act.

NOW

Right now I’m in the processing stage.  My first clue is that I started reading more fiction.  I have several projects on the go and they are nearing do time.  I have stepped up to be a leader, but I miss having a roadmap.  Roadmaps make the going easier.  In the real world, I’ve never been lost.  I may not always be where I want to be in a strange place, but I always know where I am.  I have been lost as a leader.  Part of my current processing is to get comfortable with that thought and be prepared to forge out anyway.  To be ready to start without knowing the route or even the exact outcome.  I can have objectives and a vision, but if I am a true leader, I need to be ready to let others step up and take the project to places I couldn’t or wouldn’t have thought about.  I’m getting there and I feel the excitement building.

I can’t wait!