Take Them With You

Posted on May 12, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

794. Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

I told Rafael that I was considering no longer talking or writing about education. It is topic that fast becoming off limits. He was returning from a trip to study school systems in Minnesota and had a lay over in Seattle so he called to check in. Rafael can make me go on an education rant faster than anyone I know. He and I are aligned in our hopes for learners everywhere. We are both idealists in that we believe change is possible even in the midst of the insanity that has gripped our public school system. We’ve both spent significant portions of our lives engaging in the system.

My decision comes from finally admitting to myself that this system has not lost its mind. It is a system doing what it was designed to do. It perpetuates inequity by design. It is driven my money and not by data or feedback or common sense. It is hurting children. And everyone in the chain knows it. Speaking out, challenging it means losing your job so good people up and down the line tolerate it. They try to make the best of a disaster.

Rafael’s daughter will start first grade in the fall. Short of starting a charter school or homeschooling his daughter, neither of which are viable options, he is left with a raft of bad choices. He knows that to put his daughter into this vile system will snuff the light from her. He was careful to talk about the wonderful people teaching in the school. Their life-light is being snuffed, too. My conversation with Rafael is verbatim the same conversation I’ve had with two other dear friends in the past month. They do not want to send their young kids to school because they fear what it will do to them. Think about that for a moment.

Carol is substitute teaching at the tony private Lakeside school. She’s filling in, teaching full time, through the end of the school year. She’s also done plenty of work in the public schools. Her comment: it is like night and day. “There’s no shortage of money,” she said. When I asked her what the money buys she replied, “The teachers can teach. They’re not slaves to some ridiculous test.”

I told Rafael that in 1960 John F. Kennedy challenged the nation to put a man on the moon within a decade. It seemed an impossible task. We did it because we had the will to do it. I believe we need to stop trying to fix a system that isn’t broken – a system that was designed to perpetuate inequity – and re-imagine what we mean when we say, “education.” He said it was a great idea but somewhat more complex than putting a man on the moon. Perhaps. It is not the complexity, the size of the task that makes me tired of the conversation. It is the absence of will in the people who operate the levers. We’ve constructed a system that does the opposite of what it pretends. It is enormously profitable for curriculum publishers and test makers (dinosaurs in the age of the internet…thus the insistence on testing). In the face of such dishonesty, in the absence of meaningful creative action, all that remains is some form of revolution. Or surrender. Or walking away but walking away with our children and not leaving them every day to be blunted.

Filed under: Education, Truly Powerful People | 5 Comments »

Take A Big Step

Posted on May 11, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

793. Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

A dear one from my past recently wrote to me to tell me that something big clicked for her involving language, metaphor and how we tell our story. I read her email and clapped my flippers!

Her insight was so clear and simple. It is something that I’ve taken for granted in writing about story and I could not articulate it as well as she already has. So I’m sharing her thoughts with you.

She wrote that she assumed “telling my story” meant to tell it to someone else. And the assumption that there must be an other gave too much power to the other. It gave too much power to others to interpret her story and misconstrue her words. She wrote, “others were required for there to even BE a ‘my story.’” It made her mad. It made her not want to have a story because it would always be defined by others.

And then she began challenging her assumption. Instead of needing an other to have a story she realized that her story is for her. “My story for me….” And here’s the real beauty in her revelation:”…part of my story,” she wrote, “can be a ‘no story.’” No story is necessary. And when she runs a story through her head, the language she uses, the words she chooses, creates her world. And she has great choice to consciously create her world. She can choose not to assign meaning. She can choose to give meaning where it makes sense to her.

This part took my breath away. She wrote, “…the language I use creates my world, whether it’s words or even the languages of music, film, art, pictures in my head. Silently or aloud, they are the tools I play with to create my world for myself. I guess that’s what it has always been, but this realization and active decision to consciously live this way is a big step for me.”

It’s a big step for all of us. Yes. Here’s to living this way every day.

Filed under: Awakening, Story, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: | 3 Comments »

Ask Why

Posted on May 10, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

792. Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

I’ve heard this phrase several times in the past few months: What you put your mind on grows. If I think there is a monster under my bed I will listen for the monster’s movements. The monster will get bigger every night. This morning Elizabeth and I had a great conversation about what happens when we micro-focus on the one thing that’s not working. You know the story: the micro-focus overwhelms everything else. The gold is invisible when the speck dominates the focus. A single mosquito buzzing in your ear can make all of nature invisible.

Recently I’ve been sitting in on Skip’s Design for Demand course. It’s an MBA course in the Human Centered Design track. The students are examining online learning platforms to improve the design of each platform. They are having a difficult time breaking through the superficial to see the essential. The speck on their gold is the assumption that the purpose of education is to get a job. “What are you going to do with this?” is confused with “Why do this?”

Simon Sinek reminds us that at the center of every successful venture (adventure) is the question, “Why?” Why are we doing this? Why must precede What and How. It is simple: What and How carry no meaning. To focus on the result with no consideration of the reason is an empty pursuit. “To get a job” is a result. “To make money” is a result. “To raise test scores” is a result. Assuming that the purpose of education is to get a better job or to micro-focus on raising test scores is to design an empty pursuit. It is a fool’s errand.

If you don’t get a job is your education meaningless? If you get a job but have nothing to bring to it are you worth hiring?

For a brief moment the MBA students shifted their focus and rightly identified that a major obstacle in online learning platforms is that they are designed for consumption and not for engagement. Learning is not consumption. Information exchange is not learning. Learning IS engagement! Some fresh air blew through the room. They sat up! They glimpsed a bit of information that might lead them to meaningful design! And then someone asked, “How will employers know…?” They slumped and began looking for data to consume. They discussed how they might get people to care. Their conversation was once again trapped in the What and the How.

They were so close and then the monster under the bed retook their focus.

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Come Home

Posted on May 9, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

790. Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

I generally tell stories about others and lately my pals have been asking me to turn the story mirror around and have a crack at myself. I am aloof. Tom once told me in frustration that I was the only person on the planet more aloof that he was. I wanted to deny it but couldn’t so my only recourse was to laugh and accept that I am often a balloon floating just out of reach. If you knew Tom this would be a profound statement because no one in the history of humanity was as aloof as Tom. That is, until me. I chose my mentor wisely. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about his accusation. I am not naturally aloof. No one is naturally aloof. We are pack animals. One of our strongest impulses is to belong. Perhaps “aloof” my way of belonging.

I sit comfortably at the edge of the village. I watch. I translate between worlds. I bridge without knowing it. I have deep diving conversations at the most casual dinner party. People I do not know betray their deepest secrets to me and wonder why. Balloons that hover just out of reach are safe. We balloons are conduits to the spirit world. We are transformers. Someone recently told me that I am a magnet to the island of misfit toys. And aren’t we – all of us – misfit toys?

During these past several months two words have repeatedly thundered down upon my head: 1) receive and 2) availability. These are big words especially when, like me, all established patterns come together in the word “aloof.” With so much thunder the message for me is clear: to grow, to fulfill this big voice, I must walk to the center of the village. I must sit and receive. I must open and become available to the community. This one-way communication is nice but two way communication is relationship and to thrive I must open the two way channel. I will always know how to do aloof. I will always be a transformer. Now I must learn to be accessible, too.

In Holland Chris guided us through a constellations exercise. The entire community gathered in a circle and I remained aloof. When I was beckoned and joined the circle, I quivered and quaked with conflicting desires: to belong and to run. To step in and step out. I have wandered my whole life. I am on a pilgrimage that, until recently, had no destination. And today, like a light turning on in my heart, I understand that “receive” and “availability” will be obtainable only after I finally arrive home. Home is the end of my pilgrimage. Home is a person. It is a place. It is a place inside me and outside me. I can see it from here. So, to my pals, I am soon to sit in the center of the village. Come join me there. I’m ready to come home. I have lots of stories to tell.

Filed under: Awakening, Edges, Metaphor, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: , , , , | 4 Comments »

No Story Necessary

Posted on May 8, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

790. Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

Today Alan and I led the final Transformational Presence Coaching class of the year. I always feel a deep sense of gratitude for the group and for Alan in particular when we complete a cycle. I’ve become a steward of his work and have slowly over time embodied the principles. I am especially grateful for this group of graduates because over the past seven months they provided the only real consistency in my life. We’ve met every Tuesday (on the phone) to talk about the learning and experiences of the past week. The class was the single pattern, the touchstone that gave shape to my wandering.

In Bali Jakorda Rai told me I needed to learn about energy and auras. And then I met Alan – and I’ve only just today realized that bit of providence. He taught me about energy – to first pay attention to the energy, the feeling in my body, and not the story that I tell. The story comes second. It is the flip of how most of us engage with life. It is the opposite of the American cultural norm. All life is energy in motion.

Something powerful shifts when thought takes second place to energy. Something powerful changes when we recognize that thought is energy. I know that might sound esoteric but consider for a moment how your life might open if you paid less attention to what you think and more attention to the experience of the moment (Quinn once said, “There are 6 billion people on the planet and you are the only one who really cares what you think.”). What is right in front of you? What is your relationship to this moment?

It is a useful practice to pay attention and work with how you feel before you attach to what you think. Attaching to what you think almost always leads to some form of internal debate – and inner debate is a sure sign that you’ve split yourself and have kinked the energy hose. What could be less interesting than spending your time attending an inner debate?

On the other hand, if you pay attention to the energy – which is neither good nor bad – you can change the direction or work with something more expansive and easy. You can ground it, you can slow it down, stir it up or add color; you can even it out. Energy is about motion and flow. You can trace it back to the trigger and more clearly see the story you tell. If an old story is worn out, you can release it and make room for a new story. You can nurture the flow of energy.

Energy first, story second. It is how our brains work: we have experiences (we feel) and then we story the experiences. As the class discussed today, sometimes there is no need for a story.

Filed under: Awakening, Emergence, Gratitude, Story, Truly Powerful People | Leave a comment »

What Do You Expect To See?

Posted on May 7, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

789. Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

My weekly theme of assumptions continued in a surprising way, today. Twice in the last hour someone mistook me for someone else. My reality is generally altered (so I’m told) but when experiences begin to cluster this way I slow down and pay attention. Why today am I looking like other people?

I stopped at a table outside the local Starbucks to adjust my backpack and an elderly man in suit and tie approached, offered his hand and said, “Richard, it’s good to see you again.” Shaking his hand, I replied, “It’s good to see you, too and I’m not Richard.” A look of horror overtook his face so I added, “I promise not to tell Richard.” The man laughed.

Fifteen minutes later as I was sitting in the lobby of the Surf Incubator (for entrepreneurs, not chickens), another man offered me his hand and said, “Christopher!” This time I didn’t take his hand. I looked at him and then at his hand and said, “No.” A look of confusion descended on his face. He thought I was teasing him so he waved his hand at me and said, “Come on!” I thought about pretending that I was Christopher pretending to be David denying that I was Christopher but thought better of it. I’m confused enough as it is. Besides, Christopher was bound to be just around the corner and I didn’t want to be expelled from the incubator before my time.

I look a little like Christopher and Richard. What might account for that? Last week I cut my hair. I changed from shaggy dog to urban generic. I’m assuming that the men who approached me are far sighted so their picture of me was fuzzy. As a blur I look like a significant portion of men in the city. As a blur I could get away with all kinds of mischief!

My back up theory involves sunshine. The sun finally came out in Seattle and people are in a state of euphoria. Hope is running high. Through euphoric eyes everyone looks friendly and known. I might not have any significant physical resemblance to Christopher or Richard but sun euphoria made it so.

Many years ago, just after I moved to Seattle, I was constantly being mistaken for The Flower Guy. A friendly flower deliveryman was my identical twin. I never met my twin but people swore that we were interchangeable. Once someone thought I was ashamed to admit that I was the flower delivery guy. His name was David, too, so the confusion was double-the-fun. At the time I was working at a theatre company and a patron, after I denied being The Flower Guy, pulled me aside and apologized for exposing my other job. No amount of protesting would convince the patron that I wasn’t The Flower Guy moonlighting as the theatre guy.

We see what we expect to see. We see what we believe. One man expected to see Richard and I fit his assumption set. Another man expected to meet Christopher and I sat in the right seat. I ask myself when I step into my day, “What do I expect to see?”

Filed under: Seeing, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: , | 2 Comments »

Listen Beyond The Wall

Posted on May 6, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

788. Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

Megan told me that there are cultures that never talk about disease. They believe that the spoken word has power so rather than talk about the disease they speak about the road to health. Or, they assume health and speak about it in the present tense, thus creating health.

We walk a path defined by our assumptions. We see what we expect to see. We see what we believe. When we talk about not being creative or not being good enough, that is what we reinforce. That is what we assume so that is what we create. Or that is what we create so that is the role we assume.

I learned again today (apparently a lesson with no stickiness) assumptions are tricky because they are hard to see. Assumptions are the rules for the game we play, they are the guidelines for the roles we believe we must fulfill. At the base of every miscommunication is a dueling set of assumptions.

People withhold their voices because they assume they know how others will perceive what they say. “I don’t want you to take this the wrong way,” is a statement steeped in assumption. Can you ever know how others will hear what you say? People diminish their truth because they believe they know how others will react. Can we ever know?

Assumptions are scary to challenge because they orient us. We locate ourselves in the world through the assumptions we make. It takes some fortitude to suspend our assumptions. It takes a desire to reach beyond what we think we know. The skill of listening is really about hearing beyond the noise-wall of our assumptions.

I can say, “I love you” and you will hear that I am cold. You can say, “I want to be near you” and I will hear that you are pushing me away. This is the power of assumption. We crush what is dear when wrangling with our assumptions and not what was actually intended. And so the story goes.

The spoken word has power. The internal monologue has power. When Richard Bach wrote, “Argue for your limitations and sure enough they are yours,” he was writing about assumptions. He was writing about the power of the word. Implied in his caution is the flipside of the coin: argue for your liberation and sure enough it is yours. The message is the same: flow happens when we can see and step beyond our assumptions.

Filed under: Edges, Language, Story, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: , , , | Leave a comment »

What Happened?

Posted on May 5, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

787. Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

Today was too beautiful to stay inside. My pals kidnapped me and took me to the beach. We ate chicken salad, looked at the waves roll in and talked of things past. We talked of changes in our lives, particularly the changes in the narrative we tell ourselves. The story of my life in 2013 is drastically different than the story I told in 2003 or in 1993. I have changed and the story I tell about myself has changed with me.

Personal change happens when we change our story, when we change our relationship to the story we claim as our past. Growth is not possible when we hold onto the story as we’ve always named it. Growth happens when we can open our hand and let go of the story that says, “can’t…” or “will never be….” Growth happens when we suspend the judgment and see the choices and opportunities.

Once I metaphorically lit a backfire so I might survive the forest fire that was roaring toward me. At the time I thought my actions were cowardice. Now I see them as wise. I survived.

Once I stood alone and without friends in a new city called Seattle. I had no job and no reason to move there. It was a pretty day in September so I decided to stay. “This is where I am so why not here?” I thought. At the time it seemed so arbitrary and without consideration. Now I see it as destined. It was the right choice at the time. Now I tell myself, “I was supposed to live in this city.”

Memory is a construct. It is a story that changes in the re-membering. It is not fixed in time. It is not truth. It can be contradictory. What once seemed so difficult, so painful, is now a story of potent learning. What once seemed so important is now insignificant. The smallest gesture can leave the greatest mark. The sequence of events is malleable. Memory is untrustworthy. It is unreliable. Memory is fickle. We create our past again and again and again.

We create ourselves again and again and again.

What if the story you tell yourself is neither true nor false? What if it is simply a story with multiple interpretations and you get to choose which version you claim? What would it take for you to open your hand and let go of the old story? What would it take to tell the story of thriving and fulfillment? As Megan recently reminded me, “What would your story be if you assumed the entire universe was conspiring for your good?

Filed under: Story, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: , , , | 1 Comment »

Open The Spigot

Posted on May 4, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

786. Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

I hear this a lot: “I’m not very creative.” I learned a long time ago not to contradict that statement. It is provocative to contradict someone’s defenses.

Turning off the spigot of creative energy takes some serious control mechanisms. It is not easy to do. In fact, it is impossible so the control mechanisms are really justifications of “Why I’m not creative.” The justifications generally taste bad so to make them palatable we spin stories. Usually the stories that we spin are intended to make others responsible for how we feel. It is easier to assign blame for the bad taste in our mouth than it is to ask, “Why am I afraid of my creativity?” All of life is essentially creative, so the real question is, “Why am I afraid of living?”

As a reminder of many previous posts, no one can determine what we think or see or feel. That’s our job. We abandoned our center when we assign the responsibility for our feelings to someone else. We abandoned our center when we claim responsibility for how others think or see or feel. Taking responsibility for how others feel or think is essentially an attempt to inhabit a center that is not ours. If you are strangling your creative impulse because of what others might think you are essentially assigning the responsibility for your creative health to another person. That’s how the control mechanism works. “I can’t say it because they might think that I’m…(fill in the blank).” You can’t possibly know what others think. You can’t control what they think. So it is a losing proposition all the way around to snuff your light based on an illusion of control – an illusion that you create to prevent your full expression.

A deep sense of ownership and responsibility live at the center of every person who knows and experiences him or herself as a creative being. Your center is already yours – there is no need to go looking for it. Simply stop giving it away. What you seek is already within your grasp and it is waiting for you in your center. It’s your pure curiosity. It is your wild creativity. If you doubt me, think about this: the illusion/idea that you can control another person’s thoughts and feelings is a creative act. The idea that someone else is controlling your thoughts and feelings is an amazing story creation. Who else but you would whip up such an amazing superpower story and then live according to it?

Filed under: Creativity, Power, Story, Truly Powerful People | Leave a comment »

Invite Creativity

Posted on May 3, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

785. Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

To invite creativity it is necessary to first coax curiosity to open the door. I know that is an odd statement. Why would curiosity close and lock the door?

It is impossible for a human being to not be creative. We are in our nature creative. Every moment of our lives we are creating.

However, it is possible a human being to experience him or her self as not creative. Many people above the age of 5 years old define themselves as not creative.

If you have defined yourself as “not creative” it is a good bet that at some point in your life you got slammed for being curious. Your endless stream of questions was not welcome, your scribbling outside of the lines was not appreciated, and opening doors to see what might happen was not convenient. You might have stuck your finger in a light socket and it hurt. Your great capacity to ask “what if…” was curbed. You got into trouble. You put a lock on it.

It is possible to shackle your curiosity. It is possible to bottle your imagination. It is possible to restrict your voice. It is possible to define yourself too small. We are free to reduce ourselves to the lowest common denominator and we do that from the fear of what might happen. “What if…” can cut both ways (note: either way is a process of imagination).

The story goes something like this: curiosity called us out to play and we answered the call! Answering the call exposed us, made us vulnerable, and when we were completely immersed in play and unprotected, singing loud or dancing without bounds, someone laughed at us or criticized us or shook us or told us in front of the whole class that we were no good. BAM! The curiosity door slammed closed. We installed locks and began looking at the world through a peephole.

We develop an overzealous control mechanism to reign in our curiosity and strangle our creative range. We begin this process by dulling our curiosity. We sit still. We color between the lines. We learn to raise our hands if we want to speak. We play a game called “search for the correct answer” and do not ask too many questions. We develop and profound commitment to finding a right way. We make profound control commitments called trying to be perfect. We show up but not too much. We decide we need to know BEFORE we step.

To have the full human experience of wild creativity, curiosity needs an open door. Curiosity needs to run free. Creativity follows. Creativity ensues.

Learning is creativity and creativity is learning. Mastery in any discipline requires unbridled experimentation and play. This is curiosity.

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