🔬 Two Builders, Two Starting Points · Skoolology: Growth Lab

Donna Thornton

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2d • 🔬 Research Lab

🔬 Two Builders, Two Starting Points

We had our first Research Lab Live today, and we left that call buzzing.🐝

Here's what struck me.

The word "outcome" doesn't mean the same thing for everyone.

It depends on where you're standing when you hear it.

For someone who already has a community up and running, an outcome is something they can picture clearly, because they have real people in mind.

The conversation gets specific fast.

For someone earlier in the journey, still shaping what they're building, an outcome is a different kind of thing.

It's about their own next step, their own clarity.

Same word, different starting line, and here's the part I love: ❣️

Both are exactly where they're supposed to be.

There's no better or worse place to be standing.

There's just your place, and the next step from it.

We also admitted something we all share.

We overthink. 🤔

We wait for the plan to be perfect, the idea to be fully formed, the timing to be right, and while we wait, nothing moves.

So we started talking about experimentation instead.

Not "get it right."

Just "try one thing and see what happens."

That reframe changed the whole energy in the room, and before long, people were getting genuinely inventive, and a little cheeky, about the experiments they might run.

And there were a few real aha moments.

The kind where you can almost see someone's thinking shift in front of you.

Those are the moments I live for.

But honestly, the ideas weren't even the best part.

The best part was the room.

People showed up open.

They asked each other real questions.

They connected.

They reflected out loud, and each walked away with one small experiment they chose for themselves.

(Todd also kept us laughing, which I've come to expect.) 🤣

That kind of room is not something you find in most communities, and it's not something we take for granted.

This is what I hoped this would become.

Not me teaching from the front, but a group of builders who genuinely care whether their members succeed, figuring things out together, each of us a little further along than we were an hour ago.

If you were there today, thank you.

You made it what it was.

And if you weren't, there's a seat waiting for you next time, because we're just getting started, and it's already good.🤗

So here's my question for you tonight, and I want you to resist overthinking it:

What's one small experiment you could try this week?

Not the perfect plan.

Just one thing.

Let's stop waiting and start testing.

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🔬 Two Builders, Two Starting Points