Sylvia's Journal

There are three mindsets that seem particularly important to cultivate these days: curiosity, imagination and doubt. 

I use this in my coaching and for myself. All three came into play as I was reading, or rather listening to, Lisa Feldman Barret’s book about how our emotions are constructed. I had to appeal to all three mindsets in order to finish the book, more than 11 hours of audio. Now I am going to read the book all over again. She has shaken many of my beliefs; doubting things I took for granted, curiously asking questions (what about this, and that?) and imagining what my new insights can make possible.

I have this fantasy of calling her up (she lives nearby) and proposing we meet over coffee, somewhere in Cambridge, so I can ask her all those questions that popped into my head while listening. 

And while I was still digesting that I prepared for my challenging assignment, my first ever Zoom workshop, across 7 time zones and in French. 

I explored platforms that could be integrated into my workshop to co-develop strategies and analyses. I tried Mural and Mirro but they were too complicated, at least for me, now. I’d have to feel more confident before I dare introducing them in workshops. Besides, there is a bandwidth issue. Google’s Jamboard was more promising, because of its simplicity but even that was finally discarded – too many moving pieces and too many possibilities for confusion. I have to remember that online workshops are still new to most people, and I was already introducing one platform (Zoom) and one working document (Google Presentations).

I was blessed with a very knowledgeable counterpart who basically ran the first day while I was holding the Chat space and admitting people who got kicked out of the meeting because of bandwidth. Not all were able to put their videos on, but what a difference that made. Apparently people aren’t used to show their faced on such video calls – but it turns out to be as much about bandwidth as it is about habit (and hesitance to give people a glimpse in their home life?).

Tomorrow we’ll do another three-day workshop, now with three times as many people. I imagine how that will go, am curious about what is and what is not possible, in French, across timezones, and with feeble internet connections for some. So it’s a new adventure, though not as anxiety-provoking as last week’s. Now it’s a fun adventure, with everyone, including myself, in deep learning mode (open mind, patience, humor) while accomplishing some important tasks, and continuing to cultivate our collective curiosity, imagination sprinkled with a small dose of doubt.