I like your ring idea. It is some much more in tune with reality. The pyramid idea fits the traditional top-down, dominate-and-control mode of management. The circle acknowledges our interconnectedness, individuality, and respects/trusts everyone to do the right thing and be responsible for their own actions. The ring is perhaps the new model for doing business – where large corporations are replaced by tiny individual businesses…

I have similar reservations about the model you have outlined of becoming an expert etc. Not that there is anything wrong with the model, it is just not quite me.

Motivation in the conventional sense is something applied externally and often creates dependency on the motivator. Good for the motivator’s business!

Education builds internal motivation. But the recipient has to do all the work to internalise and integrate the learnings with their selves.

Thanks for the thoughts Emma.

I like reading your distinction between “motivate” and “educate” – I’ve never thought of those as two different but related concepts. I have a sense of unease around the idea of “motivating” somebody as in “motivational speaker”. Motivation feels like a sacred thing within a person, not something I want to try to change. It feels like “persuade” or “convince”, other things I don’t like doing. I’d rather just share my experience and ideas, and everyone gets to think their own thoughts about it! I love when I *inspire* people, but I don’t ever want to *convince* them – that is, I want to help people discover their own truth, if I can, not hand them mine and convince them it should fit.

I’m having some thoughts on leadership here. We are handed a follower vs. leader script. I don’t want to be a follower…but I don’t want to be a “leader” either, in the way it is often conceived, as in someone who other people follow. I don’t want followers – I want to be part of a community of thinking living people who are leading themselves. The standard model of “have good ideas, write a book, get followers, be an expert, give talks, be popular” – that’s not a model I want to fit myself into, I don’t think I’d be happy in it. I don’t want to be at the top of a pyramid, it’s no better than being at the bottom of a pyramid. I’d rather be in a circle, or network–something holistic, evolving, etc. A conversation, not a lecture. =)

Cheers,
Emma