A while back, I wrote a post about lessons I learned while I was a learning development teacher, and how some of these lesson are quite applicable in our current day to day and business lives. As I shared and got feedback, I found that there was more to the story, and many more people who could add to it. For this series, I am going to expound, in collaboration with several others, on those lessons we may or may not have learned in our early years, and how we can use them to help us play better in our current sandbox!
Who ever said that children were born innocent has never really watched a pre-school playground. I love kids, I really do, but they can be little terrors; they can also bring you some of life’s greatest joys. During my time teaching a gaggle of them, I found words of instructions coming out of my mouth that absolutely applied to everyday problems and issues that we as adults often face. Some are quite obvious and some you have to think about, but they all have relevance, from two years to 20 years, to 92 years. Let me tell you what I learned:
Share. Play goes smoother that way
I’m sure you can imagine it: kids used to playing by themselves when suddenly put in an environment with other kids often have a hard time with sharing and – dare I say it? – collaboration. So you have Megan playing sweetly by herself, and suddenly Colin has snatched her clay/crayons/car/etc. It escalates, and we have a screaming fest or tantrum on our hands, and teacher has to come in, mediate, and teach how we can play together and create something beautiful.I was going to explain how that applies, but I’m pretty sure that I just depicted a scene from someone’s office just now.
This week, Shareen is going to talk to us about Sharing and Collaboration.
Share. Share is defined by Webster’s dictionary as, “to partake of, use, experience, occupy, or enjoy with others,” and “to have in common,” and “a part or portion of a larger amount which is divided among a number of people, or to which a number of people contribute,”. The action of sharing is defined as, “have a portion of (something) with another or others”.
Share. Play goes smoother that way.
Yes. Yes it does.
When I was asked to write a guest post for Akpene Torku Sims,
Business Coach, Consultant, and Trainer, owner of Ezer Unfolding, for her series “Life Lessons from the Playground”, I was immediately flooded with creative fragmented ideas.
Akpene had several subjects to choose from but, she said, “I think that your Authentically Be, Community would be a great example for ‘Share. Play goes smoother that way’.” How did she read my mind like that? How did she know that was the exact topic that I envisioned writing about? Probably because she knows me and WE share very nicely together! If you ask anyone what I am all about they would say, “collaboration over competition,” for sure. Collaboration is definitely part of sharing.
Two quotes come to mind:
“People achieve more as a result of working with others than against them.” – Dr. Allan Fromme
“Real conversations lead to creative connections, collaboration, promotion, enlightenment, understanding, engagement and learning” – Shareen Berkowitz
Yes, the second one is my own and it really is all about sharing. Sharing stories, struggles, what we have learned, ideas, strengths, weaknesses…sharing is, in my opinion, the greatest lesson learned on the playground. It will carry us through life knowing that we are not alone.
I am all about collaboration over competition and I sincerely do enjoy sharing stories and having raw conversations with real people. I believe that authentic people are brave, courageous and vulnerable, and when they are open to sharing, it creates amazing opportunities for mutual enrichment. This can only lead to a world of endless possibilities.
For example, Akpene is a business coach. I am a business counselor. We do similar things and we may even have similar clients. However, she has strengths where I have weaknesses and vice versa. (Not many weaknesses for her, though, in my opinion!) Together we do, create, and teach people so much! We truly inspire and empower! Do we do that alone, sure we do, but do we do it better together? ABSOLUTELY. Sharing does not mean that we take anything away from each other, we share in the abundance. If we stop living with the scarcity mindset and share more, imagine the limitless potential we would have to make our world a better place.
So go…share. Help carry the load. Leverage other people’s strengths. Be part of a sounding board to solve more problems. The job is never too big because, “many hands make little work”. There is power in numbers. Just like this blog post series, everyone contributes a piece and there is no limit to our collective creativity!
Just let your mind wander for a moment…think of all the inspiring collaborations there could be. How many gaps could we bridge? How many more audiences could we grow? How many more relationships and connections could we foster?
Think strategically. Think of all the fresh, new perspectives! Think of the alliances, the promotion of one another, the communication and sharing of different techniques, the new and different tools we could learn and use!
We share and we build each other up. Because every time you share or collaborate, you expand. It is impossible for one person to know or have everything. Together, we have so much.
Still not convinced? Think crowdsourcing. Why is that so popular?
Use your resources wisely. Use them to support, strengthen and grow for the greater good of all.
Share. Play, work, life, (insert almost any word here) goes smoother that way.
-Shareen L. Berkowitz
AKA
Authentically, Shareen
So, what do you think? What are your sharing stories?
Shareen Berkowitz
Shareen is all about collaboration over competition and enjoys real conversations with real people. She believes that authentic people are brave, courageous and vulnerable, which creates opportunities for mutual enrichment. This leads to a world of endless possibilities.
Shareen is passionate about learning more about you, your culture, interests, hobbies, career and how to add value. She spends a lot of time thinking about how to grow and nurture an authentic community and create positive, beneficial conversations. In fact, her side gig is focused on just that; creating a community of people who are not afraid to share their stories, skills and resources to help others.
Shareen works for the state of NC and the community college system as a business counselor during the week. She has been married for 20 plus years and has two strong daughters. She knows about entrepreneurship, starting a business, target marketing and business planning. If she could give potential business owners only one piece of advice, it would be this, “set yourself apart from your competition by collaborating with them in some way. Your strength is your unique selling proposition (USP), which is all about connection, community and authenticity”.
Akpene is a whiz at organizing the chaotic and overwhelming clutter for start-ups and small business leaders by listening and identifying focus and strategies so we can define and implement forward direction for a sustaining and successful business.
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