thoughts, and feelings and becomes the fodder for your polished creations. How you journal is a personal choice. Is it a
Liber Connect By Tiffany Earl
Thriving in the Age of Networks
© 2017 Tiffany Earl. All Rights Reserved. This eBook may not be duplicated, excerpted, distributed or sold without written permission of the copyright owner. libercommunities.com
Step 1: Experience We live in the age of connection, or networks. It’s a daring and troublesome time. It’s also an exciting and great time. It doesn’t feel normal. That’s because it’s not. There are punctuated times in history when the old power structure begins to wither and a new one takes its place. That’s our time. It’s happening now.1
Connection - Speed - Networks We live in a time when the old power structure of isolation, time restraints, and separation by geography is quickly vanishing and the new power structure of connection, speed, and networks is rapidly growing.
“We are what we are connected to” Joshua Cooper Ramo
“Connection changes the nature of an object.2” “We are what we are connected to.3” In Joshua Cooper Ramo’s book, The Seventh Sense, he talks about how it is important to our survival, during this new power shift, to learn to understand how such connection, any connection, changes us.
The team
How does our connection to great ideas change us?
Answer the question, “Why are we the ones to solve the problem we identified?”
This makes me ask, How does being connected to the great ideas in the classics change us? How do Shakespeare, Tolstoy, Hugo, and Dickens change us? And if indeed they do change us, then how does being connected to bent paraphernalia change us-- pornography, graphic violence, and addictions?
Because connection changes our nature, what we are connected to matters. As we connect to the great ideas debated in the classics, we can expand those connections by connecting to each other.
Imagine a fifteen-year-old boy.
He is sitting in his bedroom. He is on his smart phone. He is about to connect.
What does he connect to? Does he go to YouTube and watch music videos, or tutorials on calculus? Does he go to Facebook and read his friends’ posts, whatever they may be? Does he go to Netflix and enter the world of entertainment? Where does he connect and how does it change his nature? Does he connect to Shakespeare and other Greats? And then does he connect to others who did the same?
How and in what ways are you connected?
How and in what ways are you connected? And how is it changing your nature? At Liber Communities we have a shared culture of connecting to the great ideas and being part of the great conversations by connecting to others who are doing the same thing. We believe this connection helps make us free. It gives us the power to choose who we become through deliberation rather than merely being acted upon.
Connection changes us
How you experience the transformational ideas and emotions in a piece of art, or music, or in literature, or in any learning medium will vary depending on your personality, your time commitment, and your willingness to be mentored.
Here are some ideas that can make your experience more meaningful:
Give the gift of Experience to yourself! The team Answer the question, “Why are we the ones to solve the problem we identified?”
Trust Yourself
Yes, this change is about you right now. So listen and tune into your thoughts and feelings as you study. Especially watch your emotions. Feel them. Listen to them. Understand them.
Go Deep
Ask yourself why you feel what you feel as you study. Do you agree? Disagree? Are you scared? Excited? Are you confused? Acknowledge why you feel and think the way you do.
Be Real
Focus
This is a big job. Any time we are exposed to a new idea, a truly magnificent piece of art, a classic book, don’t expect to master it all the first time through. If it is a book, find the pieces in the reading that interest you.
Focus on something that stands out to you. With that thing, take the time to sit with it. If it helps, find someone else to talk it over with. Do whatever it takes to get a handle on that topic, feeling or concept!
Experience
Draw, breathe, write, ponder, pray, act, cross-reference, do something that pulls it out of you in your stillness. Interact with the piece you are experiencing.
Step 2: Capture There are many ways to capture. Even the way we capture our experience has changed because of the power shift. It used to be that we captured our experiences by writing them on our hearts and sharing through storytelling orally and for some, in writing or through artwork. There were eventually plays, musical pieces, books, and more artwork. Then came movies and videos.
Capturing what you experience does three remarkable things! Capturing increases your selfawareness. It can’t help but change and expound your experience, taking it to a brighter, higher level.
Capturing means creating, and to create is a very human thing. It brings meaning and fulfillment.
Capturing gives you the opportunity to share, to have influence, and increases your impact.
Capture
Now, anyone that has a device that hooks them up to the networks can capture through blogs, vlogs, memes, e-books, with a variety of platforms from YouTube to Facebook. The very forms of capturing are developing new art and new ways to share experiences. To capture your experience is part of how we connect in this age.
Helpful Hints for Capturing: Keep Track
Keep track of your experience in a journal that you keep with you. This journal holds your ideas, thoughts, and feelings and becomes the fodder for your polished creations. How you journal is a personal choice. Is it a physical notebook? Or is it on your device? Or like me, both?
Helpful Hints for Capturing: Keep Track (continued)
I find it natural to use notebooks to physically write in as ideas randomly come to me. Then I do the next draft by synthesizing a few ideas and getting them on my laptop in folders. Again, How you journal is a personal choice. Play with it until you find your system.
Helpful Hints for Capturing: Believe in Yourself
Believe in yourself, what you think and feel matter. Even if what you are writing about simply helps you clarify something or assists you in becoming self aware, it’s worth it. You are worth it.
Helpful Hints for Capturing: How do you process?
As human beings we can be both internal and external processors. It’s important to have someone we trust to bounce ideas off. This helps us shape and refine our creations. Sometimes we can share with one person while we are capturing to help us refine our delivery or ideas. Other times it’s appropriate to share raw.
Step 3: Share When I was in my twenties, my Liberal Arts Mentor, who was also my Mission Mentor, gave me a present on my birthday and at Christmas each year. It was always a book. The books were already read and at the back of the books were my mentor’s notes. Not only did I get to experience the author’s take on the subject matter, but by reading my mentor’s notes at the back of the book
my own experience grew exponentially. It gave me the opportunity to expand my own understanding, see things I didn’t see before, and have one more way to experience the subject matter.
The treasure trove of sharing we are doing by connecting as Liber Communities has countless benefits. The quality of the liber members men and women who have dedicated their lives to promoting the good and the right, combined with the opportunity to read, listen to, or watch each other’s experiences with important subject matter - in my opinion, gives us a unique opportunity to shape and change our own experience on a level I can’t begin to fathom.
Again, we are what we are connected to.
Connecting with others who are obtaining a Leadership Education changes our very natures. Not to mention the possible applications we make by virtue of connecting with and trusting each other. To capture your experience and to share takes trust and vulnerability. I invite you to experience both, along with being aware of all things you connect to, as it changes your very nature.
Liber Connect
Step 1
Step 2
Experience
Capture
Step 3
Share
Footnotes: [1] “The Seventh Sense” by Joshua Cooper Ramo. These concepts are found throughout Ramos’ work. [2] Ibid, pg 31 [3] Ibid, pg 35
About Liber Communities Liber Communities brings sovereign families together for the purpose of educating in the Leadership Education model. Families that exercise their sovereignty through free and independent family government benefit tremendously by working interdependently with each other.
About the Author Tiffany Earl is an experienced mentor who has spent the last 17 years mentoring others through the Liber Cycle, Leadership Education, and in parent mentoring. She is the co-creator and co-founder of Leadership Education Mentoring Institute, Liber Communities, Commonwealth Schools and the LEMI Scholar Projects. She is the author and co-author of SayGoBeDo, Inteligro Math, The Student Whisperer, The New Commonwealth Schools, The Mentor’s Guide and Leadership Education Philosophy and Methodology. Tiffany has a M.A. in Education. She is married to Rick Earl, they reside in St. George, Utah and have home schooled their five children.
Connect with us! Website: Liber Communities Email:
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