Capturing Our Aha Moments

I'm not a stupid person. Far from being the dullest pencil in the box, I am fortunate to have had two parents (Love you Mom. Miss you Dad.) who may not have been able to agree on much of anything else, but they certainly agreed on one thing...They would have bright, sharp and intelligent children, even if it killed us.

Strategic planning, creative thinking and problem solving are all things I've become very familiar with in my professional lifetime. But there are times when it seems that I simply can't get an idea or concept “into” my head. Take calculus for example. Any of you familiar with the rigors of calculus? In college, I flunked my calculus course a full three, yes that's THREE times before I ever passed it (with the help of a VERY bright fellow student, who I think had calculus oozing out of her pores. To this day, I'm indebted to her kindness, generosity and most assuredly her patience in helping me to finally pass that course. At the time, calculus was a “required” course for passing my major field of study, and I couldn't have graduated from college in my chosen field without it). I just couldn't seem to absorb and embrace the concepts that calculus involves.

I'm not quite sure if continuing to take the class over and over (rather than changing to an easier program) ranks as another question of my level of intelligence, or is further demonstration of another trait I received from both parents... utter stubbornness and refusal to accept defeat (otherwise known as being “pigheaded”). Anyway, back to my topic.

I study information related to Internet marketing intensely, or as intensely as I can with only 24 hours in each day, and a gazillion things to accomplish in that time. I study Internet marketing because I want to be very good at it. I want to understand the concepts so that I can be more successful in my strategic planning. I want to understand what works, so that I can be better at problem solving, and sharpen my creative thinking in the development of products and services. I want to be a successful Internet marketer, so I study.

At times though, it just seems too overwhelming... and banging my head against the wall really gets quite painful! Sometimes, I become completely frustrated with the whole Internet marketing/make money online thing. Why? First, because like anything else, to be truly successful at this, no matter how “easy” people may tell you it is, you really do have to work hard for it. And second, I know that the “big dogs” in this arena, the people who are pulling down "mega bucks" in this niche aren't any smarter than I am (sorry guys, no offense intended). So it's frustrating that it can at times be extremely difficult to work through and understand the information needed to achieve success.

What I mean is for the most part, not one of them (the big dogs) seem to possess any extraordinary abilities. Of course comparisons can be made; some are much better salespeople than others, some have brought considerable skills from offline business experience into the online arena, but these people are not geniuses; not Einsteins. For all intents and purposes, they're very “regular” people. So why is it that they can grasp a concept and see in it things that I don't, which helps them to be obscenely successful, while I often-times feel like I'm just barely feeding on the crumbs around the edges of a whole bread loaf?

But just when I've had about enough (when my head should be completely bruised from all the head-banging), something magically opens up, just as simply as a light switch being flipped into the “on” position. It often happens that information I've seen and read numerous times will all of a sudden finally “click”, and I see a problem or a strategy in a whole new way, a way that leads me to some new paradigm, if not a complete solution.

At the risk of sounding too Oprah-ee, these are the “Aha” moments. The moments when you can see something with absolute and total clarity, where the pieces of the puzzle finally fit neatly and perfectly together and all is right in the universe.

These “Aha” moments are few and far between, but when you've had one, you know it. Because nothing after it is again the same...if you hold onto the moment.

By “hold onto the moment” I mean write it down, record it, document it , do whatever you have to do to capture that moment of clarity. If you don't, it may not last.

By capturing each aha moment, you create for yourself a road map, a way finder, a navigable course. And from the tool that you create for yourself, you can work your way to the success you seek.

Capture your “Aha” moments.