Allow Your Inner Odd To Shine

Posted on April 24, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

776. 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 a day that awoke my inner sociologist. It was a Salvador Dali day filled with the surreal and the surprising. It began with a voice calling me from a deep sleep. The voice was saying, “Food! Food!” It was an imperative so I swam to the surface of my consciousness and I found Fuji the cat sitting on me, staring at me, meowing the word, “Food.” I’m not kidding. I blinked my eyes once or twice to make sure that I was awake. Fuji was saying “food” or at least a sound that was identical to the word “food.” I sat up and looked around the room for leprechauns or perhaps the Mad Hatter. When I knew I was safe I crawled out of bed and fed Fuji.

Later, as I walked to the ferry, I passed a group of elders. From a distance I thought they were teenagers because they were plugged into their iPods. They were chatting and poking each other on the shoulder and doing a mini boogie down the road. They were school kids in the bodies of grandparents. Again, I rubbed my eyes to make sure I was awake. I was but was by then I was suspicious of what might be waiting around the next corner.

What was around the next corner was a woman standing in an open plaza doing a monologue. She wasn’t preaching. She wasn’t standing on a box recruiting an audience. She was not on the phone. She did not appear to be crazy. Her bag was on the ground in front of her and she was having a fight with someone invisible to the rest of us. She paused in mid sentence, bowed, picked up her bag, and walked away as if she was on her way to the office and nothing unusual had happened.

After my meeting, now on the Seattle side of the Sound, I was walking back to my studio when I heard a lovely female voice singing a Beatles song. Across Pioneer Square stood a woman with a microphone. Next to her was a man playing an electric guitar. She sang with all her might. No one paid any attention. People walked by as if no one saw her and suddenly I wondered if I was the only person on the Square that saw her! Maybe I was like the monologue woman! Maybe people were passing me wondering what I was staring at! I held my ground for another moment and then faded into the crowd.

I have a sneaking suspicion that everyday is surreal, that these marvels are always present just around the next corner but we’ve grown numb to them or are afraid to engage with them because they might be dangerous or require some responsibility on our part. We imagine that it’s better to pretend that the oddity doesn’t exist and so we just keep walking. We fade into the crowd lest we stand out.

As I faded into the crowd I liked the idea that I was someone else’s oddity. What is odd for you is not for me and vice versa. The riches of my day were not in the norms, not in the moments that met my expectation. The riches were in the surprises and the surreal. Imagine how rich we would be if all of us agreed to allow our inner odd to shine! My inner sociologist is appalled by the idea but I think it has real merit.

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

Tap Into It

Posted on April 23, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

What is the original “why?” What is your reason for doing what you do? During a break in the Design for Demand class I eavesdropped on a conversation between Skip and one of his students. The student asked, “Isn’t making money the reason “why.” It can be a reason. It’s not the reason.

Before the break the students were doing business pitches followed by a discussion about their reasons for creating the business. Skip showed them Simon Sinek’s terrific TED talk explaining what distinguishes a great business from a mediocre business. In the talk Simon explains his golden target with the reason “why” occupying the center. A great business operates from why. How and what occupy the middle and outer rings of the target. Mediocre businesses confuse their what and how with why. This might seem obvious but it’s not.

In another class, I recognized that the MBA students think the single reason they are getting a degree is to get a better job. They’ve confused their why with the what. Getting a better job can be a reason. It’s not the reason. K-12 education believes that the purpose of education is to raise test scores. They’ve confused why with how – and it is debatable whether raising test scores is a viable how. In our lives we have an abundance of “how and “what” reinforcement. It is no wonder we sometimes misplace our why.

In the modern age, people without a clear understanding of their “why” will generally buy something to fill the void. It is a temporary hit but delays the recognition that there is nothing substantial driving their life. Or, they’ll numb themselves, distract themselves or sabotage themselves. Either way, the “why” gets lost in the “what.”

Everyone has a why. Sometimes you have to wipe off a layer of dust or muster enough courage to look beyond the purchases. It is there. It’s waiting to be sourced. If your current answer to the question, “What’s the point?” is to raise your test score or to get a better job, stop and ask yourself, “What else is true?” Look beneath the superficial and you will find a spring that will rejuvenate you and keep you nourished for the arc of your life. Tap into it.

Filed under: Education, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Hear The Harp

Posted on April 22, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

774. 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 man played the harp on the ferry crossing today. He sat with his small harp on one of the long benches that run along the windows. He started playing and a crowd joined him on the bench. Some gathered on the neighboring benches. The usually noisy ferry quieted. People stared out the window, transported. Occasionally he paused and answered a question or two. We learned that the type of harp he played was in existence a thousand years ago. On this rainy day I imagined someone long ago playing a harp, ancestor to this man’s harp, the music weaving a spell while Avalon disappeared into the mists.

A boys’ baseball team stormed into the area and fell silent almost immediately. It was as if the music infused the air with a potion. Some of the boys sat. Others retreated to the other end of the ferry. I rested my head against the window and stared into the rainy Sound, grays and greens rushing by, the motion of the boat rocking us. The Sound has been here much longer than this type of harp but it took the harp for me to take notice. In the United States of America it is easy to forget that we tread on ancient ground. Our constructions are too new. We build things not to last. When everything is a resource time only runs into the future. For a moment I glimpsed the eternity in the ancient waters we crossed.

It is April. It is unseasonably cold and wet and gray. The harpist played a tune he had composed but it sounded medieval, something from the fairy folk. It was trance music. It was deep forest music. I was suddenly no longer in the 21st century but some other place, some other time, and this harpist was either calling me from the mists or wooing me into them. Or both. The metaphors were stacking, the passage of life a short ferry ride, living and dying and traditions and magic and music that binds us in the hearing.

Later, in my studio, I was listening to the radio and the interviewer asked this question: “Why should the government give money to something that can’t be measured?” It is a sure sign that we are lost when we come to believe that the most valuable things in this life are those things that can be measured. Metric madness is everywhere I look. There is no metric that can measure the true value of art just as there is no metric that can measure learning. Relationship cannot be measured. It can only be experienced. True value cannot be codified. How much does your life cost? What is the value of your limited time here? The insurance companies have an actuary table that reduce you to dollars and sense if it is a measurement that you need. We are lost. In that moment I wished that my harpist could play and call us forward from of the mist.

Filed under: Metaphor, Truly Powerful People | 3 Comments »

Occupy Your Center

Posted on April 21, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

Robert is a gifted actor, director and teacher. We had a long conversation yesterday about actors and acting. He said that the art of acting is unusual because young actors in training don’t always recognize the necessity of technique. So, for instance, an opera singer would never expect to advance in his or her career unless they had rooted their voice in solid technique. A pianist would not expect to become a concert level musician without a solid technique. As Robert said, “Many young actors believe that if they feel it, if they connect the dots from feeling to feeling then they are acting. “Anyone can emote and call him or her self an actor,” he said, “but acting requires just as solid a technique as any other art form. It’s just not as expected or understood.” Robert recently told a young actor, “It does the audience no good if you feel it but they aren’t invited to participate.” Technique facilitates participation because it frees the artist to be present. The point of any art form is to share, to include, to transport. Artistry is never about the artist. It is always about the relationship.

Today in tai chi Saul-The-Chi-Lantern paired the beginners (me) with the more advanced students. We were doing a simple push hands exercise that I recognized as the technique beneath the practice. I had a revelation that shocked me to the core and inspired me to teach it to every artist that I know. In push hands, the idea is to empty of all resistance, to drop deeply into your center and use your partners force to knock them off center. As the advanced students told me, “The point of the exercise is to fail. Failing is the only way to find your center and empty yourself of opposition.” My revelation was this: opposition (resistance) is the act of giving another person responsibility for your balance. Literally, you invest your balance in their center. It is visceral. My partners easily tossed me off balance because I easily gave away my center every time I resisted them. When I (occasionally) found my center and emptied myself of resistance, I entered a balanced fluid center that shocked me in its potency.

I left tai chi today and went to see a student production of a Shakespeare play. The rivers of my conversation with Robert and my tai chi revelation met as I watched the young actors push and force and resist and reach for feelings. They did not know to include me. Their play was about them, not the story or the opportunity for relationship with me, the audience. Yet, the paradox, the moment of truth came after the play when I listened to their investment in what the audience thought of their work. They gave me their center because they shut me out of their play. Had I cared I could have easily tossed them off balance. As I left the theatre I thought, “Someone needs to teach them how to fail.” In that direction technique is found. In that direction is learning.

I wished the young actors had access to Robert or the advanced students in my tai chi class. If I keep at it in fifteen years or so I might have the capacity to keep my center. The young actors need to pretend that they can do it all now. They are oriented to the test (performing the words with feeling) and not the mastery.

Even though I know the 37 moves that constitute the tai chi form, I am only now capable of beginning. At this age, I am finally capable of understanding the relevance and necessity for solid technique.

Filed under: Art, Body, Education, Power, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: , , , | Leave a comment »

Walk Through The Studio

Posted on April 20, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

While working on the comic strip and getting the book ready for publication, I’m spending many days alone in my studio. I like the solitude. If I don’t meet someone for coffee or dinner, it is common to be twelve to fourteen hours by myself. I recognize this gift. Most people I know would give anything to have twelve hours of quiet, focused creative time a month. Not long ago I was lucky if I had two hours a week to devote to the right side of my brain. Now, I have to be very intentional to maintain my relationships beyond my project team.

The time by myself has fostered a unique perspective. When I leave the studio, I feel often as if I am watching a movie. It’s as if I can see people enact their dramas. They are not relating, they are performing. They are not listening they are trying to be heard. It seems as if people are performing their idea of who they are. They might as well be scripted! If you consider a pattern of behavior a script then they are, indeed, scripted. So am I.

I usually walk to the studio in the morning and walk home again very at night. Each way takes me roughly an hour because I like to walk slowly and my studio is across town from where I am staying. I like to pay attention to what’s happening around me so I try not to rush to get “there.” The practice is to keep my focus in the process – which is another way of saying to keep my focus in the moment or on the relationship. The practice is to be where I am. I get to see the early morning dramas and the late night dramas. I’ve come to think of my walks as episodes.

Ana-The-Wise once told me that my task in life was to make all the world my studio. I used to think of my studio as the place of my creative action. If I wasn’t in the studio I couldn’t create. She challenged me to flip my assumption. It occurred to me today that I’ve finally flipped my perspective – the world is now my studio. It is ironic that flipping my perspective has opened my eyes to the amazing acts of creation that surround me each day. My relationships are a creation. The way I walk through my life is my creation. What I see is literally my creation (an interpretation is a creative act). There is never a moment that I am not in my studio. Now, the distinction is whether I’m in the populated or secluded variant. Either way, it amazes me.

Filed under: Art, Awakening, Truly Powerful People | 1 Comment »

Listen To Fuji

Posted on April 19, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

Over the next few days I’ll be hanging out with Judy’s cat, Fuji. Fuji is a wise old soul and her needs are simple. She wants attention when she wants it and not a moment before. She is unequivocal when she wants space. She requires food and water and has specific preferences for her food. Fuji is not a goat. Fuji is very clear about what she wants and expects. Fuji has very clear boundaries.

This morning was my first morning alone with Fuji. I’ve never had a cat. I am a dog person. I assumed that I would have trouble understanding Fuji’s needs without a cultural informant but in a relatively short amount of time Fuji taught me the essentials of cat communication. Fuji is a love and appreciates being greeted in the morning. We had a nice pet and then she walked to her bowl and stared at me. Her message was clear so I put food in her bowl. Next she drank a prodigious amount of water and I refreshed her supply. While I filled the water dish Fuji settled into her favorite spot on the back of the couch and yowled at me. I responded immediately and rubbed her ears and beneath her chin until she was sated with attention. Then, she slept.

As a coach I often have conversations with clients about proper boundaries. As I watched Fuji drop into sleep I marveled at how easy our communication had been. There was no hinting, no guessing, no apologizing, no timid offers, no power games, no diminishment, and no justification of need. She told me what she wanted and when she wanted it. I complied when I could. There was no confusion and no miscommunication.

Don Miguel Ruiz writes that the most potent act of self-love is being impeccable to your word: say what you mean and mean what you say. It is self-love because it is not predicated on the needs of others. It is not dissipated by worth issues or control games. Impeccability is predicated on the understanding that your needs are valid and yours to communicate without justification or defense. In this sense, clarity and transparency are expressions of self-love.

Fuji is a great teacher. Note: as I came back this evening Fuji opened an eye and said, “Pet me, please.” I gave her a pet and she fell back into a deep, restful sleep.

Filed under: Perspective, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: , , , | 4 Comments »

Wake Up

Posted on April 18, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

Last night I had dinner with a dear friend. We had not seen each other for months and had lots of ground to cover, lots of stories to tell, and lots of changes to report. We talked of our losses and our discoveries. We waded into our fears and confusions. We challenged each other to reframe certain parts of the story. We laughed.

I can’t remember another six month period in my life that has been this dramatic in terms of change and growth. Certainly there have been other periods of change – relationships ending or beginning, career pivots, moving to other parts of the country – but nothing that compares to the most recent period. And it continues. It is as if I am standing in a still center and watching the universe weave a new web around me. The old fibers are falling. Space is cleared. The new web fills the emptiness almost immediately.

A few days ago I began class by leading a meditation. It was a seed meditation. It began with a focus on the breath, the breath cleansing and clearing space for a seed, the space cradling the seed (each person was the seed), there was warmth and rest and protection. Finally there was impulse, a new form, a tender shoot cracked from the seed, pressed through the soil, broke through the crust and found air and the sun. And as the tender shoot drank the rays of the sun and grew toward the warmth, the seed sent roots in the opposite direction. There was growth in two directions, root fingers reaching deeper into the earth, plant tendrils reaching higher toward the sun, both drinking from life to come alive.

In talking with my friend I realized that the meditation perfectly described this period of change. The seed, asleep for so long, has cracked open and there is growth in all directions, deep roots reaching for warmth and stability while new vibrant stems lift and reveal leaves capable of absorbing more and more light, producing more and more growth. Life feeding life. Our discussion at dinner was not really about rapid change. It was about waking up. It was about refusing to sleep through another day of this lifetime. It was about drinking from life in order to return nutrients to life. It was about following the deep natural impulse to crack open and grow.

Filed under: Awakening, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: , , , , | Leave a comment »

Make It Up

Posted on April 17, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

This is a random report on a random day.

The fun began when the Rejuvenation Fairly tried to insert herself into my new comic strip for entrepreneurs entitled Flip. As you may or may not know, the Rejuvenation Fairy smokes unfiltered cigarettes and cusses like a sailor. I’m trying to keep Flip relatively clean so I feared the rudeness the Rejuvenation Fairy could introduce into the world of Flip. I managed to hold her off for today but I know it’s only a matter of time before she wiggles her way in. She is nothing if not persistent. And she is very funny. And Flip is a cartoon strip so funny is a good thing. I will lose this battle.

The moment after I placated the Rejuvenation Fairy I discovered that Freddie Mercury had cast himself as an entity in Flip. I use the term “entity” specifically. He will now play the role of the “soul of business.” At first I protested but the more I thought about it the more I laughed and thought Freddie would appreciate his casting as an entity identified as the soul of business. So I’m going with it.

Of course, casting Freddie unleashed all manner of havoc when the Rejuvenation Fairy learned that Freddie was in but she was out. The characters in my mind are as jealous as actors in the real world. They vie for rolls. They get snarky when someone else gets the role and they do not. I amuse myself with their dramatics so I allowed the Rejuvenation Fairy to pitch a fit. I sat behind my casting agent desk and replied to her protests, “It’s not fair,” I agreed. “You are right.” I commiserated. Life is not fair. Especially in a world that is entirely a figment of my imagination.

What I most appreciate, what my characters have taught me is that it is all a figment of my imagination. We are creating this world together as surely as I am creating the Rejuvenation Fairy or Flip or casting the lead singer of Queen as my soul of business. All of our wrangling, our dramas, our power games, and our cultural misconceptions are concoctions. We make them up. We hurt or love each other in our imaginations long before we act it out on the world stage. This is the key to propaganda and it is at the heart of every abuse: I first must diminish you in my mind before it is okay for me to inflict my story upon you. Or, I must first recognize the power of love and feel it within myself before I am capable of weaving a story of love. Tell the story and that is what you create. Or, to say it another way, it is all made up. And it is all true. Both, and.

The Rejuvenation Fairy is telling me. “Enough already.” Freddie has a lyric that he’d like to sing but I’ll save that for another day.

Filed under: Random, Truly Powerful People | 2 Comments »

Bring It

Posted on April 16, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

This afternoon I taught a Business of Theatre class at Cornish College for the Arts. The students were seniors in the final weeks of their degree programs. Their assignment was to make project pitches as if we, the class, were granters or investors. My job was to support them to get better at doing project pitches. Through the several pitches, two themes emerged that became the focus of our conversation.

The first theme: rather than pitch their ideas as great, almost all the students justified or somehow diminished their idea. They defended it prior to an attack.They were unconsciously seeking reinforcement or approval of their idea. Or, to be clear, they sought approval as if I was the keeper of worth for their idea. Had I said, “What a stupid idea,” they might have agreed with me. The need for my approval trumped their personal point of view. My approval was more important than their idea.

Theme number two is related to theme number one: they entered the relationship assuming that the granter (me) had all of the power. As pitch makers they cast themselves in an unbalanced, powerless position. They came as supplicants. They assumed that the grant maker held the golden key to open the door to their project/dream. In this play (a pitch is a play) they cast themselves as impotent.

Both themes were unconscious. Both were based on assumptions of lack.

Every artist, if they are to thrive, must reorient at some point in the arc of their career. They must leave behind orientating according to what they might get from the world and reorient according to what they bring to the world.

Grant makers, foundations, investors and auditors have no power over an artist – unless, of course, the artist is oriented in the relationship according to what they might get from the relationship. At best, a granter can support a route. They might open a pathway to fulfilling an idea. There are hundreds of routes. There is one dreamer. The responsibility for manifesting the dream is the dreamers not the granters.

No one need apologize for his or her dream. No one need justify why it is important. It is a dream. It is an idea. It is a desire. No one else need approve; the approval belongs to the dreamer.

The students and I discussed the power of bringing the dream to the world. We played with the perspective shift that happens when artists own the responsibility for their dreams and refuse to define their role as impotent. Bring the dream. Stop seeking your worth in the responses of others. Bring it. The granter will fund it or not and that should have no impact on whether the dream is pursued or not. Bring your best game. Bring it everyday. If you have a dream, create it. There are many routes. Explore them all and in each case pitch your best game.

Filed under: Art, Business, Education, Power, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: , , , | 3 Comments »

Choose Your Experience

Posted on April 15, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

It’s after 7:00pm and I just realized that it was Sunday. One of the privileges of wandering is that days of the week blend and become one. There are relatively few patterns so markers like workday and non-workday do not exist. This has been somewhat true most of my life. The line between work and play is indistinct. My play and my work have mostly been the same thing.

This afternoon Skip and I did a test run of experiences for our new start-up business. The audience is entrepreneurs. Some members of our team are young entrepreneurs so we gathered and talked through the content with them and then threw them into some experiences. Having been a data-basher most of my life it’s an interesting flip to do things to gather data and adjust my work based on audience responses. I learned a lot today!

What came clear to me was something that I’ve known for a while but did not fully grasp the magnitude until today. Human beings come into the world oriented to the unknown and strive to pretend that we are oriented to the known. We make meaning of chaos. And, what is chaos really? It’s a made up concept. It means, “I don’t know!” It has no use outside of the human need to make story and project order onto the world. It’s like the word, “wild.” Wild is only useful when there is an expectation of tame. Chaos is only meaningful relative to an expectation of order. Both are categories. One is generally comfortable because it provides the illusion of control and the other is uncomfortable because the illusion is of no control. Tame and wild follow the same general principle. I was in the Northridge earthquake in Los Angeles and as the earth threw my house off of it’s foundation and hurtled me through the air, I learned that control was not mine to assign. I learned that wild is tame and tame is wild and chaos drives order and order collapses into chaos. It’s a dance.

It’s not the nouns that matter. It’s the verbs. It is the movement. Nothing is static. Nothing is fixed. The answers are not important. The questions matter, it is the conversation and the relationship that hold the real stuff of life. Questions and relationships are fluid. They move. Orient to the unknown and you orient to the questions. The questions will open you to discovery. Orient to the known and you orient to the answers. The answers will close you to rules and righteousness. This would seem obvious but it is not. The most potent revelation of all: how you orient is a choice. Choose to open or choose to close. Orient to the unknown or orient to the known. Orient to the infinite game or to the finite. Choose your experience.

Filed under: Business, Creativity, Education, Perspective, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

« Previous Page — Next Page »
  • buy us a coffee :-) Thank you!

  • visit the studio melange at kerrianddavid.com

  • The Seer available on Amazon.com

  • Lucy & The Waterfox is also available on Amazon.com