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| Prof. Chris Green |
You have a
world-changing idea, business, initiative or philosophy, but where do you begin? How
do you move from inspiration to manifestation? How do you launch a big dream?
I offer the *Searcherdemic Mobility Paradigm™
1. Invest in your own community. Your community has to know and believe that you really do care for them. Think globally and work locally. Begin by investing on your home front. Make a genuine effort to help strengthen what others are building. This is also where you discover the validity of your God-idea. Your ideas should boost their mission. You won’t actualize success through presentations, seminars and workshops that promote your vision, alone. You must test your dream in the real world. Buy-in to your idea should be built on tested and proven evidence.
2. Engage key community leaders. Get to know who the leaders in the community are, and know as many of them personally as possible. We attended monthly community meetings, as well as government-sponsored luncheons and non-profit fundraisers, and made great connections.
3. Listen to your community’s concerns. This is a statement that we posted on our business website: "Build a successful business, not only by selling a dynamic product and providing great customer service, but by connecting with your local community to help solve problems." Listen to learn what is most important to them. For instance, if youth suicide is your community's biggest concern, but you don't feel called to work with youth, then find a way to connect what you do with the solutions. You may not work directly with youth, but you might work with those who do.
4. Lift what's already working – Instead of making your initial focus all about the solutions you have to offer, find out about the positives in your community and celebrate those successes even as you address the problems. Become a voice of encouragement for those who are already doing good work.
5. Learn your community. Do you know your community’s demographics? Do you know its historical significance? Do you know its recent history? Do you know the under-served populations within your community. Study what has already been attempted to bring about change. Learn about what was successful and why. Learn about what failed and why.
6. Less is more. Instead of trying to set up large events, conferences and campaigns, scale back and focus on 1:1 encounters, smaller groups and high-impact invitational gatherings. It's far better to meet with 4 highly influential people in your community in a private meeting, than to host a 500-people event in a hotel that produces no momentum for you. The best way to reach the masses is not by mass media or massive events. The best way will always be by connecting with one key person at a time. Let your good reputation create a word-of-mouth buzz.
7. Serve somewhere in your community. Build Goodwill through volunteerism. For example, we volunteer in the local high school’s annual poetry writing contest. At that time, we’re not representing our company. We’re just citizens, helping out. We don’t talk about our business or solicit for clients. Through this, we have built goodwill within the education community.
We also volunteered our services in an employment agency for 9 months and in a women's shelter for about 10 months. If your community has to pay for your time and (untested) services, you run the risk of being viewed as just another predator. By the time they learn about your business, ideas, solutions or outreach, they should already feel and know that you care about them.
8. Prioritize. One of the mistakes we made was to spread ourselves thin by saying yes to too many people, organizations, initiatives and activities. Eventually we had to prioritize our time and efforts, and focus on the development of our team and their growth. We had to cut off the fat of good ideas and run with a clear, clean and lean vision.
Remember that as ambassadors of searcherdemics, we bring God ideas to the table. However, we must embrace the Godly wisdom and steps that will get us to that table.
You are Success in Process,
Prof. Chris Green
Modified, and adapted from a 2017 article by Rod Edmonson