I love it when something that I write about that is intended to enhance my readers’ lives also comes back around and enhances my own. Such is the case with last week’s article, “2007: A Year of Unprecedented Breakthroughs for This Business On Purpose.” in which I outlined a few strategies and principles for causing breakthroughs including this one:

4. Allow and give space for breakdowns, realizing that breakdowns are often the “portal’ to breakthroughs.

While I’ve ‘known’ this principle for years, first learning it from my work with Landmark Education, by sharing it last week, I’ve had the opportunity to move it from conceptually knowing it to applying it experientially.

Let me give you an example. One of our participants in our current LIVING THE FULFILLED LIFE FOUNDATIONAL PROGRAM has been having quite a bit of difficulty with the technology we use to deliver the program. By her own admission, she’s not particularly computer or web savvy, on top of which she doesn’t have a home computer and the one she uses at work is old and with a “dial-up on what must be a phone from Mayberry — It takes FOREVER, and when someone calls it knocks me off line.”

I must confess that my initial reaction coming from the Inherited Purpose of fear/lack/struggle was not good or positive. Then I remember that I could declare this a breakdown and view it as a portal to a breakthrough. Looking at one of the biggest issues, that my client couldn’t listen to the audio portion of the ONLINE Program, Ann suggested we could make a copy of the audio CDs we have as backup for the ONLINE Program and send it to her.

My first, immediate, IP shaped reaction was, “That’s a lot of bother.” But looking from the idea that this is a portal to a breakthrough, I pondered about it a bit more. Then I realized that with the launching of the book, LIFE ON PURPOSE: 6 Passages to an Inspired Life, we’d be reaching a lot more people who are not that savvy with computers or the internet. What would we be able to provide for them? Would we simply exclude them from our vision of a World On Purpose? I don’t think so!

So, this weekend, we’ll be making not one copy of the ONLINE audio program, but at least 6, as beta tests for providing the Life On Purpose Process as a CD set complete with workbook. They won’t be super fancy, and the packaging won’t be designed by a Madison Avenue marketing team, but I’m pretty sure the content is powerful and effective enough to significantly enhance people’s lives.

If you’d be interested in being one of our ‘beta testers’ for this new product, drop me an email to admin@wbradfordswift.com/lop. I don’t know what we’ll be selling these for, so make an offer of what you feel a 6 CD set complete with printed workbook in a nice 3 ring binder would be worth to you. We’ll take it from there.

And thanks to my non-techy client for your purposeful patience and persistence, and for being an integral part of this emerging breakthrough.