I have written this essay throughout the first week at TA and completely forgot, that it exists. I wondered if i should rewrite it now (after 5 months of studying) but i consider the insight i have had on it very valuable for the incoming penguins. So this essay is for you – maybe someone will relate to it and feel a little more relieved.
Day before my 1st day
My first day was close and I was starting to get a bit nervous. I was about to enter a program I don’t know much about. I needed at least some information to calm myself down. And there it was. A book full of information. It has been lying in my email folder for some time now. I felt ashamed I haven’t reached out to the book earlier.
I dived into reading and I choked on every other word. It was a completely new system of learning for me, that is very hard to grasp. Soon I realized it will take me a while to be able to name all the rules, the strategies or how to be a teampreneur, but I still felt that this book is giving me so much.
I don’t feel as lost as I did before. I feel understood. I have realized, every single penguin has gone through the same process. There are already drawn maps of the ways other people went through. It helps to look at them. I also realized I am not alone in this.
I read until the last chapter. The effect of this book on me was very strange. I was nervous that I don’t know anything about the program, so I started reading it. But soon after I realized how much I don’t know and how man new things there are to discover. So, in some way it made me feel better, but also opened a whole new world, where I was standing on the edge.
Certainly, the book holds bigger affect than just a compassion to the reader. It presents you the core of Tiimiakatemia and answers the most basic questions. But under all of that you can find way more. I believe, that when I reread it, once I wrap my head around the basic functioning, I will discover more complex information that are the ropes and strings that hold everything together.
There are some quotes I would like to write down, so I can repeat them in my head during the first period at school, when I feel like, I don’t know what I am doing or why I am here.
Page 31.
“Coaches don’t lead the training sessions. The purpose of this session is to learn from each other, team member to team member, the coach from team member, and vice versa. They are about dialogue. If only people would realize that knowledge is generated from the group’s shared experienced and that it can’t be created by force. In dialogue, the most important element is the ability to fully listen to everyone’s hearth and soul in the present moment. If we dwell on the past or worry about the future, this ability is weakened.”
Page 53. “First I need to know how to build a functioning project team, and than I need to get the team working to reach the mutual goal.”
• This note hit me, because I have been so stressed about starting a project, straight after. Starting some company not knowing what we are doing. But the first project is on us. We need to be a good team, put our energy into creating a safe and functioning space for future success.
After a couple days/weeks
It is also very interesting to see the rules and ideas quoted in the book being applied at our community. It made it more real for me. Like it is not just some experiment, but something that has a long history and has been developing for long. Something that is proved to have a good outcome and good effect on people.
Right after reading a couple of pages, I came across a word rocket. I immediately remembered about the big rocket drawing on the wall that I have seen during application process. One of the judges has used the world rocket as her “Check out” word. Something small that I didn’t think much of, just gained a huge value.
From that point I started realizing I have already been exposed to many Timmi philosophies. I experienced my first dialog even before I got accepted. I was thrown in the water the first day and had to learn how to swim.
