Month: September 2016

There are no more completely original ideas. There are only partially original ideas.

It’s important to recognize what part you are taking and what part you are inventing.

A new book is not original. The book part. The cover and pages is a stolen idea. But inside the book, it could be a new author or new content. That part is original.

So put aside the fact your idea has to be completely original in order to work. Because the market doesn’t need completely original ideas. In fact, chances are if it’s never been done before you probably won’t find a market for it. What we need is your twist, your innovation, your invention on what has already been done.

There is no need to reinvent the wheel. Just make it better.

To understand creativity, you need to understand that you have more that one good idea. And it is scary to think that we have more potential. It puts us on the hook. Positioning your idea where it has to succeed is setting it up to fail. That when we guard our idea as the next big thing, we are actually hiding.

So to break through the so-called writer’s block all you have to do is release your ideas to the world. Bad ones and good ones. These ideas are not for you to judge. (That’s what critics are for.) There will mostly be bad ideas. Especially at first. But if you put enough bad ideas into the world eventually you will start to see the good ideas.

Now, all that is left for us to do is to produce. Here is the rule: produce like you talk. Write like you talk. Paint like you talk. Play music like you talk. Start by sharing your ideas with a friend and then another. Interact with the market.

The more you create your art like you talk, you will realize that you are never out of ideas. You just talk.

Unsure where to start? Start like how you would pick something to eat for lunch. You pick something: you tweet something, you write something, you snap something. Oh! This didn’t work. Better try again. But now you can get a little better.

The goal is not to produce one big idea to change the world but to be consistent. Consistently share your ideas with the world. Connect dots. Maybe one of your ideas inspires someone else to change the world. That’s okay. Because credit isn’t what we are after. We are after impact, and being meaningful, and being generous, and making a difference. That is the key to being an artist.

We spend an awful amount of time collecting dots.

We continue to trick ourselves into thinking by collecting dots we are actually getting ready to launch our one big idea. The one that is going to change the world. The one that we will be remembered by. And we are wrong. Because our one big idea doesn’t come from collecting dots. It comes from connecting them.

We think that with our one big idea, if it doesn’t work then we are finished. We are done. The well of creativity runs dry. So we wait and we wait and we wait. Waiting for market conditions to be just right. Waiting for the right funding. Waiting for the recession to be over. Collecting dots thinking we are doing work that is making a difference. Preparing for a day that is actually never going to happen. And when we are asked about how our project is going we can say we are still making preparations for it. It’s too big to launch. Waiting insulates ourselves from the blow if the idea fails. Because again, it’s our one big idea. And it has to work.

What does it say about us when our one big idea fails?

If it can’t fail, then it’s not remarkable.

That’s what makes friendship, and marriage, and parenting special. This might work. This might not work.

Perfection is not what we are seeking. We want…no…need to have a connection.

Connections help us make sense of the world around us. They are the third leg on our tripod.

(The tripod theory goes like this: there is you and me and a connection. A tripod.)

That’s why studies show that when a couple goes through a divorce they lose a shared pool of knowledge. Cutting a leg off the tripod: if one spouse was good at fixing something, she became the “expert” in the relationship at fixing that something.

When it can’t fail, everything becomes predictable. And when it becomes predictable it becomes faster and cheaper. If its defective, then it is processed. Watering down. Polluting the culture. Which drives us apart.

So what kind of culture are we going to build? One that is too big to fail? Or could we build a culture that we can be proud of. One that brings us closer together.

* In 1905 the United States had become the richest industrial nation on earth. With only five percent of the earth’s continental land mass and six percent of the world’s population, the American people were producing over half of almost everything (clothes, food, houses, transportation, communication).

The government had a minor role during this time of economic prosperity. The Founding Fathers believed that government should not mettle with economic affairs of businesses and buyers. However, the Founding Fathers did believe that government had four areas in economics that they were to police:

1. Illegal Force – compelling purchases
2. Fraud – misrepresenting
3. Monopoly – eliminating of competition
4. Debauchery of the cultural standards and moral fiber of society by commercial exploration of vice – pornography, obscenity, drugs, liquor, prostitution, or commercial gambling.

What’s fascinating is that when government (and more importantly the people) failed in police debauchery you can find a direct correlation with the explosion of the pornography industry and the sinking of economic prosperity of the United States in the same 15 year span.

From 1969 to 1984, the Golden Age of Porn began with Andy Warhol’s film the Blue Movie. This 15 years stretch is where pornography was seen in mainstream media in a surprisingly positive light.

The first explosion in the US national debt was from 1940 to 1945 during World War II (42 billion to 258 billion). The national debt continued to gradually increase in very small increments until we see the second explosion of debt from 1970 to 1985. During this same 15 years of the Golden Age of Porn, the national debt grew from 389 billion to just shy of 2 trillion dollars! 

Was pornography the tipping point for the explosion of the debt crisis we are in today? Probably too big of a question to answer in only a few hundred words. But looking at the two timelines together suggests that the moral values of the United States are tied to its economic prosperity. Interestingly, the Golden Age of Porn ended in 1984. The same year that Aids was discovered. Which might have been the wake-up call that a nation needed.

Pornography is an economic disease. Like any disease it will significantly infect all other aspects of our lives. It affects your work, your family, your friends, your spiritual well-being, and your home life. A person cannot actively participate in watching pornography without affecting the people around them. They infect and affect others.

The state of Utah has called pornography a public health crisis. And it is. The Founding Fathers would back this decision from a moral and economic standpoint.

If you are concerned with the US national debt then take a stand to rid this economic disease.

* Excerpts and US national debt numbers taken from W. Cleon Skousen in his book the 5000 year Leap.

Management would like us to believe that not everyone is qualified to understand what is actually going on with an organization without the view from 30,000 feet. Unless you have traveled that high you can’t possibly see the big picture.

This is really dangerous thinking because many managers believe they have been endowed with privilege to attend meetings about the direction of an organization. The truth is most meetings can be attended by anyone. Because nothing actually happens. Meetings are to define who is responsible and who is to blame. Anyone could have been sent to them. In fact, they could have been done by email.

But the danger continues when managers fool themselves into believing they can possibly see enough of the details at 30,000 feet. We like to think we can. But even with the right tools, you don’t experience the same things that others are experiencing on the ground. And so the disconnect with what is actually happening grows. It becomes a chasm.

The devil is in the details. Details are messy. Details take time. There is a fine line between being too caught up in the details (the view of your palm to your face). But I don’t think that is the problem from management. It is the hubris of being picked. The problem is that the higher you go up the chain the more entitled you feel to not worry about the details. You pass those responsibilities along further away. Because you don’t have time to worry about things like that. And the chasm continues to grow because no one will bother you with any details. The solution then is to build a false narrative. Everything is always okay. Everything is fine. Nothing to see here.

If an organization can find a way to travel together it provides an opportunity for real leaders to lead. Leaders take their people with them. That is the switch we are seeing in the market. Organizations have become too big to move with the changes of the market. Goldman Sachs and Walmart will not be able to keep up with what the “little guys” are doing.

When you reach the top of a mountain. Keep climbing. Together.

As a kindergartner, Steve Martin asked his teacher, “Where’s the Ping-Pong ball?” in his first gig playing Rudolph, the Red Nose Reindeer.

The teacher promised Martin a red Ping-Pong ball for the nose. To his disappointment, Martin did not receive the red Ping-Pong ball. Instead, he had to live with the substitute. Which was red lipstick pasted on his nose.

Steve Martin recounts, “What had been delivered as a casual aside, I had taken as a solemn promise: there had never been, I now realized, a serious intent to get a Ping-Pong ball, even though this was my main reason for taking the gig.” 

There is a valuable lesson to learn from this artist. The professional shows up and does her best work despite their circumstances. Despite the fact that promises were not kept. You go out and play the game. You might get beat up for being in the arena. But that’s the price you pay to play.

“I went on, did my best Rudolph, and because lipstick doesn’t wash off that easily, walked back home hiding my still-crimson nose under my mother’s knee-length top coat. One coat, four legs extending beneath.”

So when you are sitting across the table looking at the person who didn’t deliver what they promised: the products didn’t meet specs, quotas weren’t meant, or shipping will be delayed. Remember, “Where’s the Ping-Pong ball?” And despite what is on the board – make your next move the best move you can make.

You ever notice that many people walk around truly miserable? Too busy, too tired, too much debt, not enough resources. Why?

Everyone reading this blog is living in a world that has never been richer, or safer, or more abundant. We have never had this much access to more information, or communication, or connection, or technology, or capitol, or food, or clothing, or shelter. It may never be this good ever again. 50 years from now. Many of us will be able to see. See what our choices have cost or how they have blessed other people.

Right now, it’s not about the lack of choices but the amount of choices in front of us. We have created a culture of expectations that if you don’t have this one thing right now then we must be doing something wrong. (Oh, you have 300 followers, I only have 200. I must be doing something wrong.) And we trade our safety (our choices) for swag.

The trap of comparison. It comes down to pride. And not the type of pride from the top 1% looking down on the 99%. It’s the other way around: the bottom 99% are looking up. And yeah, the gap that is growing between the mega rich and everyone else is out of control. It’s not a perfect system.

But I think we need to spend some time changing the way we think about our place in the world. Instead of asking what can I expect from the world; it’s time to ask what does the world expect from me.

We have more power than we think. The choices we make are manifested by the stories we tell. And if you see the world rich with possibility and experience, you will find what you are looking for.

(Remember rule number 6.)

Do I want to be safer or better?

Safer is measured by magical digits and bits. Safer means can I do what I did yesterday a little faster and a little cheaper. Safer means following instructions, maps and SOP’s. By choosing to be safer we have somehow polluted this idea that more money equals more safety. This is a trap: that by flying into a cage we have somehow made ourselves more free? In a world of scarcity there is never enough. Never enough money. Never enough safety.

Now if the choice is to be better. Better has nothing to do with compliance. By choosing better you are saying, “I have enough. I want what I have.” So if we can separate this idea that money equals safety and money equals value and view it as the tool that it is; a lot of doors can open up for us. We can start by measuring how we help other people. Did I get out-of-the-way enough for someone to make a leap?

It’s in our nature for human beings to want to keep score. We say we can’t improve what we can’t measure. But what if we chose something else to keep score. Because it is all invented. It’s only a matter of the stories we have told ourselves along the way (the choices we have made) that have lead us to where we are today.

It’s not easy to take a new path.

But we love it. We love it when someone stands up and says follow me. We love it when someone initiates (instead of reacting or responding).

Cortez in 1519, in a dramatic fashion famously burned his ships to avoid path dependence. (Cortez actually ordered to have the ships scuttled.)

The ships are a false sense of security. We think by having them as a backup option we are being rational and prudent. But to do work that matters requires passion. And passion is not practical nor prudent. More of us need to burn (or scuttle) our ships. By not getting rid of this false sense of security, we anchor ourselves from moving forward.

If we want safety, then stay with the ship. And it is okay to want safety. But recognize that you will have to trade something in for safety.

If you want freedom then you have to destroy the ship. You have to forge a new path for yourself.

So what’s the worst that can happen?

If the worst that can happen is rejection than leave the ships behind.