Breakthroughs Are a Social Act

This was one of those "right messages at the right time" meetings. If I had heard Lisa Haneberg a month or so earlier, I would not have truly understood what she was saying. Since I was already having fun with networking, what she said went right to my heart in one of those "Aha!" moments.



Lisa was in Philadelphia on a tour to promote her new book, Two Weeks to a Breakthrough. Since Valeria Maltoni did such a fabulous job of summarizing Lisa's talk, I won't go into it here, but there are a few key points that really hit home for me:

Breakthroughs are a social act – They happen between people, not in the mind. You can have a fabulous idea, but if you don't tell anybody about it, it won't happen.

Little things make a big difference – Lisa makes reference to the butterfly effect, where a butterfly flapping its wings in China sets up a chain of events that causes a thunderstorm in Texas. You don't know which of your "butterfly flaps" is going to lead to bigger things, but if you keep taking small actions towards the achievement of your goal, you will be amazed at what happens.

Do something every day – Lisa has what she calls the Daily Practice: every day, tell two people about your goal, take two actions towards your goal, and make two requests that will help make your goal happen.

How has this helped me? For one, it is a real motivator. No matter what my mood, I force myself to tell two people a day about my goal, take two actions, and make two requests. Some of those "I don't feel like doing it but I have to" daily practices have led to my biggest breakthroughs so far. Second, it's given me the courage to ask people for some really outrageous and unreasonable things, and some of my requests have been granted.