I was blissfully overwhelmed with the amazing influx of responses to my 1st email back after 707 days of silence. I knew it would open a floodgate to comments, criticisms and questions, but I hadn’t given myself credit to imagine the compliments, so thank you all.
Just as doctors are infamously known to be bad patients, so is the same with consultants. We are good at giving advice, but bad at taking it.
The biggest piece of advice I got last week was to shine a light on our GAP filling services through the lens of my GAP of silence.
Today I begin with Stage 1 of 3 | Information & Coherence.
One of the first dynamics we apply in a session is how to Pinpoint struggles associated with GAPS. Often clients stockpile their struggles without associating a pinhole for each, creating an incoherent analysis of what is really going on.
Coherence is the quality of being logical and consistent, ensuring that elements are connected and make sense together, leading to clarity. Struggles provide insights that, when analyzed and reorganized, reveal where, why, and how GAPS exist.
This being said, my struggles over the last 2 years felt incoherent to me, causing a GAP in communication with the global network I have spent nearly 4 decades building.
I thought it would be easy to repatriate to the United States and continue doing what I have always done. I was wrong. Very wrong!
JUST IN PHASE 1 – Coherent Information – I found myself looking into an abyss with 3 major GAPS.
GAP#1
I lacked the knowledge, skills and resources to seamlessly open a new business, onboard the team and get all of the simple (BUT NOT EASY!) paperwork required. Imagine 2 decades of digital banking and being offered to be paid by check…….. And that was before having to get the Brazilian team their ITIN’s for tax withholdings!
GAP#2
A GAP can be caused by a period of absence. 37 years is a big GAP in time and I stepped into a bustling market that didn’t know me.
GAP#3
Energy x Exhaustion. To get our operations up and running required the energy of a 25 year old with the wisdom of my 55 years. How was I to muster double the required energy as exhaustion depleted me to half of it? TIME was required to re-energize myself.
By pinholing the root cause of each GAP, I was able to seek guidance and support, initially to bridge and later to fill each of the GAPS.
Now I have the time, energy, wisdom, resources, skills and knowledge to run and operate a complex consulting business with our foreign team working for an American Rural Public School District and private sector clients while we continue to expand services for and at multiple & diverse global locations.
Overcoming GAPS is SIMPLE.
BUT SIMPLE DOES NOT EQUATE TO EASY.
If this resonates with you, trust me “I KNOW – I’ve been there!”
