In this episode, host Beth Cougler Blom talks about some of the mindsets that she holds as an entrepreneur, leading a team who engages in learning design and facilitation work. Beth talks about abundance vs. competitive mindsets, navigating uncertainty, considerations around being client-centric, ethical decision-making, and having passion for the work.
Links from the Episode
Connect with the Facilitating on Purpose Podcast
- Follow Facilitating on Purpose on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, or YouTube
- facilitatingonpurpose.com
Podcast production services by Mary Chan of Organized Sound Productions.
Connect with Beth Cougler Blom
- Give feedback or suggest upcoming show topics or guests at hello@bcblearning.com
- Visit bcblearning.com to explore Beth’s services as a facilitator and learning designer
- Purchase a copy of Beth’s book, Design to Engage
- Follow Beth on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn
Show Transcript
[Upbeat music playing]
[Show intro]
Beth
Welcome, to Facilitating on Purpose, where we explore ideas together about designing and facilitating learning. Join me to get inspired on your journey to becoming and being a great facilitator wherever you work. I’m your host, Beth Cougler Blom.
Beth Cougler Blom
Hello, how are you doing today? Thank you so much for choosing to listen to this episode. This is number 27 and in this episode, I’m going to be exploring some of the mindsets that I sit with and think about and maybe don’t think about enough in my work as a learning designer and facilitator, but doing this work as an entrepreneur.
So mindsets of a learning entrepreneur is the focus of our conversation today and explore with you, and within my own brain, some of the behind the scenes things, I guess, that I think about in doing this work. Some of these mindsets have to do with how we work with clients. Some of these things are about how we work with and interact with other people who do what we do in our field. And some of the mindsets are about how I want to work and I hope I do work with the team that I built around me in my company.
I started my business over 12 years ago. It’s fall of 2023 when I’m recording this episode. So for over 12 years I’ve had a business doing learning design and facilitation work with a number of different types of clients in different sectors. And the work itself is very varied across every year. And I’ve been lucky enough to have 12 years of that. Before that I worked in post secondary institutions and in community organizations. Basically my whole career I’ve been working in and around learning in some way, shape, or form first, first on the coordinating side – coordinating learning – and then eventually facilitating learning myself within an organization, for external clients. I used to work in a volunteer centre so of course, we had member agencies where I was running training for them.
And eventually went out on my own, started my own business. And now I work with different clients across different sectors and get a a wide variety of work in the types of things that we do as a team every year. My hope is that no matter whether you’re a new facilitator, or you’re someone considering facilitation, or you’ve been doing this for a long time, I guess I probably say this every time but I hope that you’ll find something in this episode, no matter at what stage of your journey you’re at in terms of being a learning designer or facilitator, because these mindsets are things that are common, I think, across a career. And we might feel more of them at some times or less of them and other times, but I don’t know if they’re things that ever go away, maybe some of the ones that can be a little bit on the harder side. But certainly the ones that are perhaps on the more positive side, they persist for us throughout our careers.
And so you might be listening to this going, oh, yeah, I’ve only been doing this for one year but I think the same way as she does, or I’ve been doing this for 30 years and yes, that is still happening to me. So this is just another way for me to reach out to my community of people, including you, to say this is something you might not see me putting forward and social media about what our company does, but it absolutely is part of our work. And the more we talk about the full global picture [smiles] of what our work looks like, then I think it just makes it easier for all of us to collaborate with each other, to learn from each other, and to keep helping each other be better in this field.
So mindsets, all of us have them. I’m not saying that the ones that I have are the ones that you should have. Because I’m only choosing a few to talk about here, of course. But there might be other things that are important to you that I don’t mention today. And that’s just fine. So I’m just picking a few to explore, in my own mind, really, during the recording of this. And maybe it’s a conversation that you and I can continue to have if you want to reach out to me after the episode to let me know how it resonated with you and if you feel any of these things, too.
So let’s get started. One of the things that I think about in terms of mindsets and this is not really starting at the most important one or anything, it’s just the first one I’m going to talk about, is having an abundance mindset. And this is perhaps in contrast to having a competitive mindset. So I like to run my business and think about my work in terms of abundance, that there is enough of this work for all of us in the world who do this work. The need for facilitators particularly, I guess I’m going to maybe just go back and forth between learning designers and facilitators, because I do both in my work, and maybe you do too. So we’ll just talk generally of all of us in the learning related field. There’s a need for all of us, all the time in so many different ways, whether it’s in a consulting capacity or, you know, doing the work for an organization or for clients, or whatever, there’s so much work and there’s so much need for people who have the skills that we do, to inspire thinking, to inspire learning, to inspire conversations and dialogue to happen. So there’s just a ton of work out there. And I like to sit with that feeling, that mindset, that there is an abundance for all of us. And I try not to worry about the fact that I have “competitors” in my field.
And I was noticing the other day that sometimes we can be given negative messages around…like that we might need to have competitors. And we, we should really figure out who they are in order to pit ourselves against them and have these competitive advantages. And, you know, I can’t remember the term for that. But it’s, it’s basically about business strategy, I guess, and how we should really be looking at what other people are doing and, and measuring ourselves against them and all that kind of stuff. And I suppose that’s useful in some respect. But I also think that I want to talk about the unusefulness of that. Am I making up a word here? [laughs]
That looking at people who do what I do in the field who are not working with me, but working in other their own organization, their own company, looking at them as competitors and having a mindset of we are against them, that does not serve me at all. It does not serve my team at all. And I noticed the other day, I was on LinkedIn, and a bunch of months ago, I was going through my LinkedIn settings for the business page. And it asked me to identify who I thought some of my competitors were, so that it could benchmark me against them. And so I did I put some of those people in, those companies that I know. And I know they do the same type of work that I do. And so I put some of them in my LinkedIn profile. And then I realized over time that what LinkedIn was doing to me, was making me feel really bad about these people, [laughs] these organizations. That it would say, oh, you know, you’re, you’re doing 6.2% less engagement than this other company. Or even you’re doing 10% more than this other company, or whatever it was telling me. And I didn’t check it a lot but it would put itself in front of me when I looked at LinkedIn. And all of a sudden, I realized, I don’t want this in my life. I don’t want a social media tool to be pitting me against people that are in my field that I know. [chuckles] And like as people, you know, they were all people that I had met and collaborated with, or worked with, in some way, shape, or form, or had coffee with, and I don’t want a technology to put those thoughts in my mind that I’m competitive with these people, because I would prefer to look at them all as amazing, wonderful, colleagues in the field. And then like think about it all that we’re in this together, why wouldn’t we support each other and say, Wow, I’m so happy that they have this wonderful social media post that they’ve put out that looks like it’s really going to help us all learn in our field rather than go oh, well, they’re clearly posting more than me, and maybe I should keep up. [laughs]
So I don’t appreciate…I guess I didn’t realize this was happening but I don’t appreciate that these tools are pitting us against each other. Because that’s not what is going to serve any of us. So yeah, just coming back to the mindset. There’s a lot of work out there all the time. We are all unique people and companies in this business, and there absolutely is room for all of us to be collaborative with each other, even if that is just thinking good thoughts for each other as we work and look at each other in social media. So just a cautionary tale about abundance versus competitive mindset.
Following on that is a mindset of collaboration. You know, sometimes my company isn’t the best fit for an opportunity that might come our way, we don’t have time to do it. There’s many reasons why we might want to refer some business to some other person in the field that we know are out there doing good work. And this is a great reason for us all to keep up with communities of practice. I started and lead a couple of communities of practice in my own community. And part of that is because I really like these people. Part of is because I learn from these people and another big part is that I can refer business to these people that are in my communities of practice, when I don’t have the time to do the work, or I’m not the best fit for the work. And so that kind of collaborative mindset is there’s a reason that there are so many of us doing this work. And yeah, why wouldn’t we refer back and forth to each other when we think somebody else might serve the client better than we can?
And I really try to take a realistic and mmm, honest approach, I guess, with clients. I did it just the other day when someone was referred to me and I spent a little bit of time on the phone talking to the potential client. And once I heard what their issue was, I said, You know what? I actually think a colleague of mine who does X, Y, and Z is probably a slightly better fit for you for this work than my team would be. And here’s why. And they were so appreciative that I listened to their issue, this potential client, and I wasn’t just going to grab all the work for myself, even though I wasn’t sure we were the best person to do the job. I mean, of course we are…[chuckles]…we’re great for lots of reasons! But in this case, their issue and the kind of intricacies of it made me think no, this other person that I know, I actually think that they would be just right in line with what this person needs. And so that’s another mindset thing…that I see it as collaboration, I see it as the propensity to refer when there are other people who are better suited to do work. I just have to sit with, I can’t be everything to everyone, my team can’t be everything to everyone, and nor should we be. So let’s just all keep up with our network of people in the field, figure out who’s going to do a good job for the client and refer accordingly, or take on work where we do feel we are the ones that can do a bang up job of whatever the project happens to be.
So it’s really helpful for me to have close connections in this field as well. I trust that, especially with certain close friends of mine who do facilitation work just like I do, I think we have a high level of trust in each other. We share a lot of what’s going on behind the scenes for us, we trust each other not to share that with other people. And they are people I can turn to to get support in this field. And I certainly refer to them when I think that they would do a better job than I would do. Or, you know, I don’t have time and I’m certainly going to give the business to my friend if I can do it, my colleagues in the field. So long story to say collaboration and referrals absolutely are things that I think about a lot and have benefited from, in many ways.
I will say another thing that’s sort of related to that is, I don’t know what the mindset’s called, but sometimes the mindset of just sitting with whether or not we can do the work that is being put forward to us. You know, I have these pre-contracting sort of calls for for my business, and when I hear the client’s issue I have that time in my mind to think through to I’m thinking through, is this something that we can do? Have we’ve done things like this before? And what I need to do is sit with the problem at hand basically, and not discount our abilities too soon in those pre-contracting conversations. Sometimes I found myself thinking, Oh, I haven’t done that before. And I don’t, I’m not sure we can do that. But then I have to check that because – and I’ve already talked about this actually at length on the other solo episode that I did about dealing with self doubt – that I think there’s a mindset of just recognizing whether we think we’re a fit for something, because sometimes we really are, and we discount ourselves too soon. So the tendency is to refer too soon. And I don’t want any of us to do that when the reason is we’re discounting our skills or our abilities a little bit too fast. So don’t say no too soon to projects. Give yourself time to think about it. Think through that feeling and that certainty piece. And don’t do a disservice to yourself. And I try not to do that to us either. So there’s all sorts of messiness, [smiles] I guess around in whether or not to refer but just sit with the expertise that you have if you find yourself doing that, because sometimes it’s really easy to think, Oh, I can’t do that work, maybe somebody else should do it. But you might be able to do it very, very well. And just feel that confidence in yourself. And I try to remind myself of that all the time.
Now I mentioned the word uncertainty and that actually brings us to another mindset that I think is really really useful as an entrepreneur. It’s a hard one, but it is a reality, big time, of our work. And that is the uncertainty, and sitting with the uncertainty, of work coming in. At any given time, I’m pretty sure of what the work is that we’re doing as a company over the next three to four months, usually. Sometimes a little bit longer if we’ve got a workshop or something booked far ahead, but I’m pretty sure usually what we’re doing for the next three or four months, there is, you know, some flexibility within that. It kind of depends on how many big projects we have versus small or that kind of thing. But I really, as an entrepreneur have to, and have gotten used to that, that sitting with uncertainty of I don’t know what we’re going to be doing five months from now or six months from now.
And maybe this is one of the hardest things if you jump from a corporate job, say, or a full time permanent employee job with someone else, and you make the shift to being an entrepreneur in facilitation or in learning design, or [laughs] any other consultant type field where you’re working for yourself, that skill and that mindset of sitting with uncertainty is really, really important. Because there is a risk level there that you just have to be okay with. For me I just think it’s been working for 12 years [laughs] it’s somehow we’ve been doing this, okay, for this period of time. There always is work that comes and I don’t know what the next piece of work is that’s coming my way. I just have to really sit with that and be okay with that uncertainty. But trust our track record, trust ourselves, trust that people do still need our expertise. And we just keep putting that out into the world that we’re doing great work over here. And maybe other people hear about that, and they contact us. But also our networks are working for us. There’s there’s all sorts of things I tell myself about why work is coming towards me. But it’s twofold isn’t it? Like there’s the certainty that we do good work, and people will find us and then there’s the uncertainty that they haven’t found us yet. [laughs]
So just sitting with that, and just, you know, keep having the conversation with myself that it will come and it’s all going to be fine, it will work out is a big thing that I always have to think about. Again, I think just keeping connected to community is a really great thing to do in this case. That the more I talk to people about what we’re doing, and this, I’m not just talking about social media, although we try to do that. But just having coffee with people that do what I do, and keeping track of clients that we used to do work with, and just being a nice person and having coffee with people I like to have coffee with, and my communities of practice that I lead off, there’s all sorts of things that we all can do to keep connected to people. And that does translate into work. You know, do I have metrics on it? Do I really track that absolutely and have any numbers around that? No, not really. But every now and then I do map out where our work is coming from. And I do that in sort of a network map slash concept map sort of style, like visually. So I know the hubs and spokes of who’s referring us to which clients and which clients are coming back and all that kind of stuff. And so I have a sense and map it out physically or, you know, on virtual paper, basically, what that looks like. And I just did it, you know, a month or so ago, and it just made me remember that, yes, this kind of work can be uncertain but the more I just keep connecting with people I like in and around this field, it actually will work out for us. And people will remember us and keep referring clients to us or coming back to us because they’ve enjoyed working with us in the past. So sitting with uncertainty, big time mindset in this field. [smiles] And maybe that’s just entrepreneurship in general. There’s a certain level of risk tolerance that we just have to have to be able to succeed, working for ourselves.
While I’m thinking about clients, I think there’s a mindset about being client centric, that I’d like to talk about next. Of course, it’s really important for us as a company to be excellent communicators, provide excellent client service…I think we’re really good at listening to clients and what they want. Some of the referral pieces is really, as I’ve already talked about, listening to what they want and discovering if we are going to be a good fit for them right at the very beginning and recognizing that and being very overt about that because if for example, a client comes to us and wants us to do something that we really don’t do or we don’t do it in that way, that’s not the way we express our expertise, or it actually goes against something that we believe is excellent, then I do like to refer people to somebody else right at the very beginning. To be really honest about who we are, and the values that we hold and who we aren’t.
And as people used to say, in the volunteer world that I used to be in, if it’s a no for me to a client, it’s a yes for someone else. And so that kind of early conversation with client to make sure that we’re all going to be happy working together is really crucial to our future success on any project. So I guess if you’re new to this field, you might think, Oh, I’ve got to say a yes to everything that comes my way. And maybe that’s kind of the hunger that we have to have in the very beginning after we start our companies. But there definitely is a spot at which we have to start turning some of those yeses into nos because of just fit, and being able to serve people in the way that we want to serve and the way that we want to put our work out into the world.
So I guess, as we grow as a company, too, I think about this more and more, because sometimes, there’s that old expression about the client’s always right. And I don’t think that anymore. [laughs] I mean, the client is sometimes right. And sometimes like we are right, as a company. And it kind of depends what it is that whichever of us is right about. Sometimes, me providing excellent customer service to the client is really listening to what they want. And that sometimes means that I don’t get my way. And sometimes that’s just fine, because it’s not a hill I would need to die on so to speak. [laughs] That’s kind of how I term it, if it’s something that they really want, and I don’t necessarily care about, or I’ve cautioned them against it, but they still do it anyway. I’m somewhat okay with that. Because, okay, they’re happy. That’s what I am telling myself, they’re happy with that decision. But yet, at the same time, I’m trying to find the boundary or the barometer, I don’t know what it is, but there’s something about clients come to us because we have an expertise in learning design and facilitation. We are the ones that spend a lot of time educating ourselves in what this field is, the way the field is changing, all the nuances around the foundational pieces of the field, the changes that are happening, the new research, like we’re the ones that are living and breathing education, learning whatever you want to, you know, the whatever you want to call it, that’s our field. So the best type of client is the client that recognizes that that’s our expertise. And in some ways, that means they should listen to us. [laughs] Because we we know better than they do about the thing! That’s not always the case. I mean, we have absolutely learned from our clients as well.
But I’m trying to learn about the times when I need to stay stronger with clients to say, you know, what Universal Design for Learning is something that we will do in this project, like you don’t get to overrule us as a company around inclusion, or accessibility, or whatever. I mean, of course, we can’t do it all all the time, there’s sort of a spectrum there, I guess, of maybe budget and how much it allows us to do or whatever. But not, for example, like a deal breaker would be not considering inclusion and accessibility in any way, shape, or form in a project. Like that is not a client that we want to work with. And so in some ways, I’m trying to always find where the client is right and we’re going to do that for them, because that makes them happy. But where we are “right” [chuckles] and where we may have to step away from our project, even if the client does not want to go down that path with us. But we think it’s an absolutely crucial aspect of the course design or whatever it happens to be, the facilitated session. And we do not want to do our work without whatever that thing is. So yes, client centric is a mindset. But then the caution is just staying true to our expertise and figuring out the conversational lines that we have to go down with clients around what that looks like. I guess I’m really happy that we’re great communicators, because most people come to these kinds of partnerships with us with really great skills in talking about these things. And, you know, we’re realists, too. Yeah, budgets are not unlimited, time is not unlimited. Sometimes there is only so much time to do the thing. But when we work with clients who really want to listen to us and our expertise and they’ve hired us for that, that’s the best case scenario and of course, we’re looking at them going, you know, tell us about your field, tell us what we need to know, to be able to serve you the best way possible. So there’s this two way street thing that is a really big draw for us as a company to be client centric. And definitely just something to navigate those interactions and those collaborations and those conversations.
This leads me to the mindset of being ethical. I’ve definitely exited jobs because the client did not follow through on promises. For example, one time I, I left a job because I found myself designing a course for people with mental health and addictions, but the subject matter expert that the client was going to provide me, they weren’t giving me any time, you know, in the collaboration. So I found myself designing alone and all of a sudden, I’m asking myself, why am I designing this alone? I’ve never had a mental health issue or an addiction issue. That’s not something I have firsthand, lived experience with. I need a subject matter expert. I need to partner on this project with someone and if the client doesn’t follow through on the promise to provide that for for me, then I have to step away. Of course I have the conversation. But I have to step away.
For my own ethics, I do not want to design for groups that I have no knowledge about without the help of a subject matter expert. I mean, as instructional designers, we do work on any type of course, any type of content. But the reason why we can is because we are usually given dedicated subject matter experts who know about their fields, their content, their learners. Maybe they have the lived experience, as I just spoke of, in certain ways. And so that partnership is crucial to us being able to do excellent work. And when we don’t have that, there’s usually a decision that I need to make around staying in the project, having conversations about that, and maybe even exiting the project when I don’t believe that the end learner is going to be served by, for example, us working alone about something we really don’t have the expertise in.
So ethical decision making has definitely come into our work in various ways. It usually is because I will not create something that I don’t believe is serving that ultimate learner, that ultimate purpose in the best way possible. And that me working alone [laughs] on a course is often one of the deal breakers that that I’ve run into. So keeping that ethical guideline of the way we want to do our work. There’s some things that sure we’ll capitulate in a little bit to be able to get the project done, but there’s some absolute things we will not budge on and and working with specific subject matter experts that are directly relevant to the target audience has absolutely been one of them.
Another time, I was working with an Indigenous subject matter expert and they unfortunately had to leave the project. And I was asked by the client to just finish the project alone. [Chuckles sadly.] And the topic was in Indigenous related knowledge and another content area that I had no direct experience with at all. So to be asked by a client, oh, you know, can you finish this project alone? My answer is a hard no. [Chuckles incredulously.] Because that is an ethical line that I will not cross, to create a course about Indigenous knowledge without an Indigenous partner and subject matter expert to do it with. So hard no, drawing an ethical line absolutely in cases like that.
These are tough conversations, I must say. You can imagine, you’ve maybe had some of these kinds of things yourself as well. Just because work is there does not mean that we can and will and want to do it. Because there are deal breakers like that, that we will just refuse to participate in. Because at the end of the day, we’re going to hold our head high about the kind of work that we’re doing. And designing something alone in an Indigenous related subject is absolutely not something I would ever do not being Indigenous myself.
Why do we feel so strongly about this kind of stuff? I guess the ultimate mindset is because I have a passion for learning. And not just any kind of learning. Excellent quality, participatory, active, wonderful, wonderful learning experiences. Creative. I don’t know I’m tried to find all sorts of other [laughs] adjectives to put in there but I have a passion for learning, passion for lifelong learning. Passion for always creating excellent learning, no matter what mode we’re creating the learning in, whether it’s in person, or virtual or elearning, or whatnot. That passion drives the kinds of decisions that I have to make in terms of being client centric, in terms of being ethical in the decisions and choices that we make.
If my ultimate goal as person leading a company in this field, is true learning for people at the heart of the learning experience, I have to be strong and set up boundaries around the kinds of things that we will and won’t do and create, because why would I just create crappy courses? To get money? No, that’s not my ultimate purpose. My ultimate purpose is a better world, I suppose, through education. And so that means that I have to have the tough conversations about what it looks like sometimes to create really excellent education, because it doesn’t just happen quickly. And it doesn’t just happen with one person making it. And it doesn’t just happen overnight.
When we want to make learning better, that’s when our work is better. That’s when our work with clients is better. That’s when we’re all excited about our work. And so if we just keep that goal of the ultimate purpose of our work in mind, great learning for great people, whoever they are, and wherever they are, then we have to back it up and go, Okay, how do we get there? What are the mindsets that we have to bring to our work with each other, with ourselves, with our clients, to be able to serve that ultimate purpose.
And sometimes it’s hard, it’s busy, it’s full, it’s too much. There’s a lot that [smiles] goes on behind the scenes in work like this. Sometimes I’ve wanted to step away, to be honest, because entrepreneurship can be really hard. And sometimes it can feel very alone, and busy and too much and whatever. But when I think about doing something else, I know I will not be as happy in some other non-entrepreneurship type of job, because we do get to do amazing things [smiles] in the work that we do. And I just have to keep telling myself that there’s a new level of passion around the corner. So when life gets tough, or when work gets tough, I guess it’s that sitting with uncertainty piece, I have to just tell myself that, yes, right now, it’s tough. But next week, or the week after, I will be revved up and ready to go again for this work. Because I do love it, there’s a reason why I started the business in this field, and navigating the waves of that energy is something that I just have to deal with.
So I’m in this little boat, and I’m not alone in the boat. I mean, I have employees, I have subcontractors who work with me and around me. So there’s this little team of us in the boat, and there’s…sometimes the water is quite calm, and we’re just going along and we’re doing great work. And other times some choppy waves start to happen. And other times they maybe start to roll a bit. And for me, maybe I’ve got my hand on the oar, the rudder, I don’t know, I’m not even a boating person. So I can’t take this metaphor too far. [laughs] But I just have to know that that storm is going to calm and I can keep my hand on the rudder, I can help lead us where we want to go towards that great learning that we see in the distance for the people I was just talking about.
So I guess it’s that internal piece of the difficulties of entrepreneurship. There’s challenges there that we have to navigate all the time. To circle back to what I said in the beginning, reaching out to the community of people that also do the kinds of things that I do is so, so important. That collaboration mindset, I think I’ll keep coming back to it again and again. I was just having another walk with a friend this morning where we were sharing some of the positives and the challenges of our work. And we need people to reach out to, don’t we, to share and to grow in this field and to keep helping each other get better. But just to listen sometimes when the work is a little tough as well, is a great thing.
So I’ve talked a little bit about working with others who do what we do in our field and talked about how we work with clients. I haven’t talked about our team as much but I hope that you’re starting to see that again, you know, I’m not in this alone. I do have people around me. I’ve been very purposeful in growing that team around me and you know, so there’s all sorts of things I’m always learning about leadership and management of a company like this. And there’s also a striving towards excellence piece in the management and leadership of a team as well, that I, I hope I always keep paying attention to. I mean, maybe the folks who are working with me can listen to this and keep pushing me to create a better team. But I feel and I hope that I’m doing a good job of that so far. But being a lifelong learner, that’s another aspect where I’m learning is, it’s not just the learning design work that we’re doing here, it’s not just the facilitation work that we’re doing here.
We are working together in a company where we need to learn from each other where we need to respect each other, and to listen to each other, and to keep getting better together. So that team piece has been something, particularly this year 2023, I’ve been trying to up my skills a lot in so that we can serve clients better. And the way we do that is by serving each other, and being able to come to work – even though it’s a virtual space we’re all kind of meeting in – come to work in our best selves, and keep having these conversations about how we keep getting better. So appreciating not being alone in this field in so many ways, not just the colleagues external to the company that I have, but of course, my colleagues inside. Because it’s not easy. When we create great things it takes a team of people to do that. When clients realize that and they provide effort and resources towards that, aah, man, we have a beautiful thing that can happen in our work. [Smiles] And that also keeps us coming back to do it again and again, for other people and other projects.
So let me just remind us all about the mindsets I’ve talked about today. I talked about abundance and I talked about collaboration. I talked about sitting with uncertainty, not discounting ourselves in our abilities. Talked about being client centric, and some of the questions we need to ask ourselves around that and the decisions we need to make. I’ve talked about ethical decision making and, lastly, having the passion for lifelong learning. The ultimate reason why I chose to have a job and create a company in this field. There were probably so many more things I could have talked about today. Hopefully these particular mindsets have been useful for you to hear me navigate around and discuss some of my behind the scenes thinking about them. Feel free to drop me a line if there’s something that is resonating with you and you want to continue the conversation with me. I’d love to hear from you. There’s probably lots more that we could continue to talk about. So feel free to reach out and share your perspective. Thank you so much for listening to this episode today.
[Episode outro]
Beth
On the next episode of the podcast I interview Meg Bolger. Meg is an expert facilitator, social justice educator, and participatory educator. She and I have a conversation about how to navigate conflict in facilitated situations. I know this is something that has come up for me in the past. It comes up for everyone. I get asked about it fairly frequently and so I’m really excited to have this conversation with Meg, and have her bring her expertise to all of us through this podcast. So catch us next time on the show. We’ll see you then.
[Show outro]
Beth
Thank you for listening to Facilitating on Purpose. If you were inspired by something in this episode, please share it with a friend or a colleague to help them expand their facilitation practice too. To find the show notes, give me feedback, or submit ideas for future episodes visit facilitatingonpurpose.com. Special thanks to Mary Chan at Organized Sound Productions for producing this episode. Happy facilitating!