In this Treasure Tuesday, I invite you to take off your “Brilliance Handcuffs.” What do I mean by that?
I recently conducted a survey. This survey is still going on, but I’m reaching out to software developers who are business owners, Founders, and CEOs. I’ve handpicked them because I wanted them to ask people who have proven themselves successful.
I’ve asked them this question: “Are you time-constrained doing certain things over and over again because it is simply too difficult to teach someone else to do it as well as you would?“
I’m curious to discover how common this problem is in various disciplines, from software development to robotics or sensor development. Truthfully, of course, this question afflicts many business owners.
A Common Answer: The Challenge Is “Unsurmountable”
Here is a representative answer I have gotten:
“I know I need to teach others effectively so they can do more of what currently only I can do, but it seems like an insurmountable challenge. Even if others try to take over the tasks I repeatedly do, it doesn’t work out well. It’s just simply exhausting.”
That’s exactly the phrase one business owner used, “insurmountable challenge” – and others used similar words to describe the same issue.
If you are experiencing the same challenge, you are not alone.
The reason why it seems so insurmountable is that what you do so well is, in fact, hard to teach. The reason for that is that you are only aware of some of what you do to create the success that you’re creating. There is the part you know you know (it is conscious). Then there is the other part, which is unconscious knowledge.
Step 1: What Do You Do Repeatedly Even Though You Would Love To Delegate It?
What we do in Brilliance Mining™ is first to identify which tasks you repeatedly do – tasks you would like to delegate if you could. We call that Brilliance Mapping.™ Where would it make the biggest difference to you to lessen the load on you and give you more freedom to do the things you truly enjoy doing? For many creative people, it’s returning to being creative and innovative. What would make the biggest difference for you?
Step 2: Extract Your Brilliance (Conscious and Unconscious Knowledge)
Next, once one has that in hand, we can go about the business of extracting your brilliance (Brilliance Extraction™). The first bit we can get is by gathering the materials you have already written in some form or recorded in videos or audio. Then we can have a conversation -I can learn much from that. 4:09 Or your brilliance extraction coach can learn a lot from that.
Step 3: Make Your Brilliance Teachable and Immortal
Third comes the effort of sorting this information and making it teachable. This step makes your brilliance replicable and immortal! The good news is that you don’t have to do all this. We can do that if you like.
The Result: Lots Of Leverage, A High ROI, And Process Improvement
These three steps result in you not having half of your “Secret Sauce” or half of the knowledge/brilliance it takes to do what you do. Instead, you have gathered, documented, and made teachable the whole picture. The leverage of that is amazing!
Speaking of making it teachable: We often provide more context and more of an introduction than you would (most likely, you know way too much to see how necessary this is). We simplify the information (without losing important information) and make it much more easily absorbed by others.
The cool thing is that you can do two things with the resulting Training System:
- You can use the training material over and over again and
- You can make it better and better over time
I always say, “Don’t wait until you have it perfect because perfect doesn’t exist.” I mean, I’m a recovering perfectionist just as much as you are. I’m a big fan of getting the “minimum viable product (MVP).” MVP might be a term you use in your work: Create a useful product you can start using and testing. Then make it better from there.
Start to get the beginning of this immense ROI from it as soon as possible (often within a few weeks).
I’m Curious
In this Treasure Tuesday, I want to give you a little insight into what it looks like and what people in the software development industry have said to me so far in response to my survey.
I invite you to think about it: Is this a problem in my world too? If it is Brilliance Mining™ could be the answer, that’s what we do. We teach it, and we can do it with you. Ultimately, it’s about taking those handcuffs off. Your life’s too short to do things over and over again, things that have become routine and boring to you. So, let’s get them out of your head and put them in other people’s heads. Drop me a line and tell me what you think about it and how this plays out in your world. Drop me a line!
Live brilliantly,
P.S.: I appreciate you commenting and sharing this Treasure Tuesday with others. Thank you!
