The Secret Gems of Collaboration Work for yourself….but together    Whether it is creative collaboration, hiring help, or doing a trade for services…  Working with another person has serious perks and here are 7.   But first let me tell you about my farm box, I promise, it’s related.    My farm box gives me a whole variety of hidden gems, the things I never signed up for, but that endlessly provide value.    It is already paid for & if I do not use it, it will rot & be a waste, so this motivates me more to interact with them/eat them It is very convenient! It gets delivered to my door & is just waiting for me in my fridge & I see it everyday so I am more motivated to get creative with what I have. I usually have surplus, so I get to share with others around me which creates a sense of community. I get some items I don’t think I would have picked out myself, so I get to discover something new.   Collaboration can look many different ways: paid help, partnership on a specific project, or doing a trade with someone.   So the 7 Secret Gems of Collaboration are as follows:   When you work with someone else, you tend to make deadlines to get elements completed. You schedule calls together to keep the process moving forward.  Because you are in consistent contact with this other person, you have to be prepared for what you both are working on. This makes for a level of accountability. When you are interacting with another person on a project, you can bring words to your thought and ideas that you may not have had without the other person there. New & fresh ideas will flow more easily just for you because of the interaction of another human being. The other person most likely will then ask clarifying questions are get inspiration from what you said. This will add new perspectives, more ideas or possibilities, or even a completely different way to look at a certain situation or problem. Someone else is going to have a different way of doing things that could improve the entire operation. It could be basic organization elements that make everything go smoother, or just the way things are communicated is a different way that helps the collective. Collaboration allows each member to play to their strengths & “stay in their zone”. That way one person does not feel responsible for the whole & therefore can free up a lot of energy, time, or resources. The energy & joy that comes from just interacting with another person. We as humans do well with connection & especially in businesses nowadays, we don’t have that as much. So collaborations, in whatever form, make us more human.