Category Archives: inspiration

Someone Like You

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Don’t worry, I’m not going to break into a song by Adele. This morning, as I read Seth Godin’s post on extending the narrative, I latched onto one of his comments.

The socialite walks into the ski shop and buys a $3000 ski jacket she’ll wear once. Why? Not because she’ll stay warmer in it more than a different jacket, but because that’s what someone like her does. It’s part of her story. In fact, it’s easier for her to buy the jacket than it is to change her story.

Once I recovered from the idea of paying $3000 for basically renting a jacket for a day, the idea of doing something “because that’s what someone like [you] does.” stuck with me. The phrase elucidates how we allow our lives to become parodies of ourselves. This is how we sleepwalk through vast segments of our life, only to awaken one day and not recognize the person we have become. A person living a life based on the expectations, desires and decisions of ‘someone like you.’

When you think of living according to what you know deep inside yourself, how does that make you feel? Does it excite you or simply raise your blood pressure with anxiety? Does it fill you with ideas or simply leave you feeling like you’re staring at an insultingly blank slate? Ask yourself why you feel this way. See if it connects with a deeper truth inside of you. It may be a truth you are unwilling to uncover from the shovels of dirt the world has piled on through the years.

If the idea scares you, perhaps it is because you have no clue what awaits under the lid of this box. I don’t blame you for being nervous, but be aware that you may be leaving yourself buried alive in that box as you let “someone like you” walk away, continuing to live your life for you.

Creating is Serving

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If you are a creator, sometimes the typical motivation of money, deadlines and productivity are not enough. There are days when it is hard to write the thousand words you set as your goal or make those ten phone calls to land a gig.

For the creator, an additional motivator should be the act of creating. This can feel selfish because we expect the artist wants to make her art. It’s true, she does WANT to create. Another truth is less apparent. She also wants people to be moved, inspired . . . perhaps transformed. A creator isn’t always trying to find fame, fortune and glory. Knowingly or not, he also wants to serve.

A point of clarification: we are all creators.

A Vision of Possibility

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I have been reading Roz and Benjamin Zander’s FASCINATING book called The Art of Possibility. I have known of Benjamin Zander, conductor of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra, through friends who have heard him speak and more recently by his famous TED talk.  Even though his presentation at TED is highly inspirational, I was not prepared for how incredibly mind-opening the book, which he penned with his wife, would be.

Many of the ideas within the book would be hard to share in a short blog post, but one passage describing vision is a good indication of how the couple gives illuminating advice not only for business, but for life:

A vision becomes a framework for possibility when it meets certain criteria that distinguish it from the objectives of the downward spiral. Here are the criteria that enable a vision to stand in the universe of possibility:
  • A vision articulates a possibility
  • A vision fulfills a desire fundamental to humankind, a desire with which any human being can resonate. It is an idea to which no one could logically respond, “What about me?”
  • A vision makes no reference to morality or ethics, it is not about a right way of doing things. It cannot imply that anyone is wrong.
  • A vision is stated as a picture for all time, using no numbers, measures, or comparatives. It contains no specifics of time, place, audience, or product.
  • A vision is free-standing – it points neither to a rosier future, nor to a past in need of improvement. It gives over its bounty now. If the vision is “peace on earth,” peace comes with its utterance. When “the possibility of ideas making a difference” is spoken, at that moment ideas do make a difference.
  • A vision is a long line of possibility radiating outward. It invites infinite expression, development, and proliferation within its definitional framework.
  • Speaking a vision transforms the speaker. For that moment the “real world” becomes a universe of possibility and the barriers to the realization of the vision disappear.

Later, Zander gives an example of HP Labs realizing a tiny shift transformed their competitive mission statement from aspiring to “be the best industrial lab in the world” to “be the best lab for the world” to  ”HP For the World.” It had now become a real vision.

During this time of economic uncertainty and workplace malaise, what better use of your focus, time and energy exists outside of putting forth and joining others behind a vision of true possibility?

Never Outgrow Inspiration

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I’ve probably mentioned my grandparents owned a grocery store as I was growing up. Both my parents worked there, along with uncles, aunts, cousins and other members of my rural hometown in Kellyville, Oklahoma. At the front of this store sat a large, wooden display rack with magazines and comic books stacked together like fans in a sports arena. Before the display, on the flecked tile floor, usually sat a young boy leaning his back against the magazine rack as he worked his way through a hefty stack of comic books. This was me, and this was “my place” in the store. A fact many people affirmed.

It is still “my place” as it is one of my favorite childhood memories. Each weekday after the ring of the school bell, my older sister and I would walk four blocks to the grocery store. I would anxiously go over to the magazine rack and see if there were any new comics. Spiderman, X-Men, Superman, Batman, Cloak & Dagger, The Fantastic Four, The Incredible Hulk, The Green Lantern… these were the titles I peeled out of their file and placed into my cue. If none of the more exciting comics had new copies, I would either re-read my favorites or relegate myself to Richie Rich, Casper the Friendly Ghost or Archie comics. Minor consolation for my hungry imagination.

These stories of heroics performed by people gifted beyond their humanity were the fodder for backyard adventures and even a few hand-drawn comics of my own. That small patch of tiled floor in the middle of the small town grocery store fed my creativity for years. It was a source of inspiration.

Years later, well into my 30s, I don’t know that I have a specific source I can call “my place.” I enjoy a good movie, and many of my favorite comic heroes are now available on film. Still, they don’t feed me in the same way. It seems harder to find inspiration than it did as a child. I have to be more intentional to allow that wide-eyed wonder to stir within me again. It’s still there, but is like a cooled-off ember.  I feel it sometimes as I soak in an engaging TED talk or listen to Stephen Fry describe the decadence of our language. When I surround myself with entrepreneurs, aspiring filmmakers or artists, the ember can be poked by others’ stories and bristled back into a flame by the air of new ideas.

So, perhaps this is a good thing. Maybe I have lost the nostalgic notion of sitting and leaning back on a bookshelf, knowing it is there to prop me up. Instead, I carry “my place” inside me and know it can come alive at any time. It can be scary not to have a stack of new worlds sitting next to me with so much promise. But there is an exuberant sense of liberation in knowing new worlds can be birthed from within and shared with you. Hopefully this can be one of “your places” as well.

I hope it is.