Truly Powerful People | The Direction of Intention

Create Flow

Posted on October 22, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

[Continued from Begin With Yourself]

Continuing with Skip’s reflections from last week’s post about bringing your unedited best to the world, Step Onto The Field, his next question came from this section of my post:

Showing up is not passive and has nothing to do with information delivery. Showing up means to share the quest, to bring others along on the pursuit of a dream. Showing up is being present with others.

Skip reminded me that over the past year we’ve talked much about “presence” and reflected that my statement was similar to ideas found in Paulo Coehlo’s, The Pilgrimage, and other stories from the Camino. In other words, “Showing up is being present,” is the same as inviting others on the journey with you. In reference to entrepreneurs he wrote, “…this is not about presenting (one way), but more about inviting….” What a fantastic reflection!

He is exploring presence as a matter of the direction or flow of energy. Presence is circular and ripples out. It is inclusive. In other words, “to be present” is two-way communication. It is relationship. When one is present, one joins. One connects. Separations disappear. I used to do an exercise in workshops with young actors to show them that the honest pursuit of an intention was the very thing that facilitated an audience’s capacity to join the story journey. The exercise is basically a game and the more honest the game is played the more magnetic the action is to the “observers” of the game. In fact, the “observers” are like sports fans, cheering and contorting and embodying the action on the field. In contrast, pretending to pursue the action of the game blocked the audience/observers from entering the story. Pretending dams the flow. It is an equation: honest pursuit = energy exchange. Honest pursuit creates flow.

Pretending is one-way communication. It is broadcasting. The energy is directed outward, broadcasting to the audience. There is no expectation of dialogue and no capacity for participation. Broadcasting is protected. Experts are broadcasters in that they present what they know and are not necessarily interested in other points of view.

For actors and entrepreneurs, the idea is to create flow. It is to include, not to broadcast. It is to create an energy exchange and provide entry into the story. It is to open to possibility so that possibility can open for them.

[to be continued]

For a humorous look at the wonderful world of innovation and new ventures, check out my new comic strip Fl!p and the gang at Fl!p Comics.

Filed under: entrepreneur, Story, Truly Powerful People | 2 Comments »

Begin With Yourself

Posted on October 20, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

[continued from Don’t Give It Away]

I was going to move on to Skip’s next question but found myself meditating on yesterday’s question: What does it mean to give your power away? I wrote about HOW people give away their power but didn’t really address the question: What does it mean to give away your power? I thought about the question all night and this morning I went back to the beginning. I revisited the first 5 posts I wrote in this “truly powerful people” series. This the beginning of the very first post written 3 years ago:

Truly powerful people are dedicated to inspiring true power in others.

It goes like this: empowered people empower others.

When I wrote those words I understood – as I still understand – personal power as an aspect of relationship, something created between people. The phrase, “…give away your power” implies that power is something possessed. You have it or you don’t. If it can be given away then it can be acquired. It cannot. Power is like artistry. It is generated from a way of being. Were I to write those words today I would add this:

Empowered people empower others and thereby empower themselves.

It is a circle, a feedback loop.

So, I need to clarify my statement: giving away power is actually not possible because power is not a possession. Power is an energy that can be magnified or weakened. It is possible to drain power from a relationship, to reduce it, to shrink it, to deny it, to fear it, or to diminish it. And since power is magnified or diminished in the space between people, when “giving away power,” all are diminished.

Each of us has a relationship with our self. If you doubt me simply listen to the conversations inside your head. Who are you talking to? Who is talking? Who is listening? For the sake of simplicity, let’s just say that no one….is one. No one is unified. Singular. We are split into different roles (this split is what it means to be driven out of the Garden of Eden – it’s a metaphor of becoming separated from your self), and one of those roles really likes to judge. Listen to the phrases you say to yourself: “I’m good enough/not good enough.” We like ourselves. We dislike ourselves. Who does the liking? Who does the disliking? The point is that you are in a relationship with yourself.

The process of empowering the self is the same process as empowering others. Empowerment begins when we cease attempting to get power from others and create it within ourselves. Sometimes seeking power from others looks like seeking approval, sometimes that looks like seeking attention, often it looks like trying to control. It sounds odd, doesn’t it? Why would you need to seek attention from your self? How often have you said the phrase, “I didn’t listen to myself?” How often have you invested in your self-doubts? When you withhold your voice, you are controlling your self. When you attach to the notion that you should be more like others, you are negating your self. All of these are examples of “giving away your power.” And, to be more accurate, it is impossible to give away your power but it is infinitely possible to give away OUR power. We are all in this together.

[…to be continued]

For a humorous look at the wonderful world of innovation and new ventures, check out my new comic strip Fl!p and the gang at Fl!p Comics.

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

Don’t Give It Away

Posted on October 19, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

[Continued from Paddle Two Rivers]

Following his questions about 1) variability in actor performances/entrepreneur pitches and 2) the fragmenting nature of poor leadership on a team, Skip’s next question referred to this phrase from my post, Step Onto The Field:

Entrepreneurs, like actors, are more likely to meet success when they cease giving away their power and show up as they are.

He asked a question that lives at the center of much of the work I do with artists and clients: What does it mean to give away your power? He wrote, “… it’s like each sentence in this piece [this post] needs a story.”

I laughed because the flipside of this particular question is the reason I started writing in the first place. Three years ago I was working with a corporate team and they asked, “What does it mean to be powerful?” The notion that we explored that day is that power is something that you create with others. No one is powerful by them self. Great teams empower each member. Great leaders empower their community. Individuals become powerful when they offer their gift in service to their world. They empower. Power is created between people.Power is an aspect of relationship. Power is something you bring to a relationship, not something you get from it.

The word power is tricky because we most often associate it with power-over. The idea of having “power over others” is a misnomer because power over others is not really power. It is control. It diminishes. It takes from. These two concepts, 1) power is created with others (and therefore, expansive) and, 2) control diminishes, is what is necessary to explore Skip’s question. How do people give away their power?

If you are telling yourself a story of “I can’t…,” you are controlling/diminishing your potential. You’ve given away your power.

When you think someone else is responsible for your happiness, you’ve given away your power. You are seeking something from another person that you can only find in yourself. You are looking for what you can get. What would life look like if you believed the responsibility for creating your happiness what yours? Happiness follows. It is something you bring.

If you are invested in comparisons with others, you’ve given away your power. In a comparison the other person will always be the standard – and you can’t be them. Power returns when you bring yourself to the game without squeezing yourself into someone else’s identity. Power returns when you are the standard for your self.

If you bite the apple of perfection, you’ve given away your power. Perfection is subjective. Whose standard of perfection are you trying to meet? Most perfectionists will claim that they are the keepers of their own standard but betray themselves when someone criticizes their work. They are invested in the accolades of others. Generally, notions of perfection are really strategies of control. The rule of power-over works the same within an individual as it does within a country or an organization. Wielding the sword of perfection over yourself can only happen if you are already divided.

Another control strategy is to tell your self a false story, like: “I’m not an artist until my paintings sell.” False. Artists make art. The selling of art does not legitimize the artist. Selling is something else entirely. According to this silly scenario, poor Vincent Van Gogh was never an artist in his lifetime. False stories are great tools for justifying the relinquishing of power.

There are many variations on the theme – all apply equally to entrepreneurs, artists, plumbers, CEO’s, and tooth fairies. The general rule is this: you give away your power when you diminish yourself (I can’t), assign responsibility for your feeling to others (I have to, I should do), float through life looking for what life owes you (I’m entitled), or otherwise try and control your potential (how will I look if…). If you’ve eaten from any of the above orchards – and we all have – tell me the story and I will forward it to Skip. He’s correct: each sentence in this blog thread deserves a story.

[to be continued]

For a humorous look at the wonderful world of innovation and new ventures, check out my new comic strip Fl!p and the gang at Fl!p Comics.

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

Paddle Two Rivers

Posted on October 18, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

[continued from yesterday’s post – October 16, 2013 – of no title]

After reading my post about the similarity in actor auditions and entrepreneur pitches, Step Onto The Field, Skip sent me several questions and reflections. One of my favorite questions from his batch concerned this section of the post:

An exciting viable idea in the hands of a pretender is a useless thing – just as brilliant plays are routinely slaughtered in the hands of fakers.

Skip asked me to clarify this statement relative to two rivers of thought we’d previously paddled. The first river was the notion that a brilliant play is different in every production despite the sameness of the script. How can a single script be interpreted in such vastly different ways? Is it the actor-as-pretender that makes the play useless? Or, is it the second river of leadership, the direction that can dull the brilliant? Skip reminded me of a phrase I like to use: save-your-ass-theatre. It’s a phenomenon that happens when the leadership is weak so all the actors (members of a team) resort to saving their own ass instead of bringing their best game for the team.

Plays are a literary form performed in an arena called a “stage.” A play is like the playbook of a football team. It maps the ideal action but must be executed by the players in an ever-changing context. Actors that pretend to execute the action will kill a play just as fast an NFL player that pretends to play. The pretending eliminates the need to watch. The absence of anything real is as boring and lethal as what is now happening in the public schools. Separating content and method (the equivalent of pretending to learn instead of engaging the unknown) is mind numbing.

Entrepreneurs are great a numbing investors minds because they have confused reading the playbook with executing the play.

The written play is poetry, often a piece of art by itself. It transforms when activated and the variables of activation are endless. Different actors, different cultures, different audiences, different budgets, different stages, different eras, different points of view,…; no play is ever performed the exact same way night to night because the audience is different night to night. Plays are different decade to decade and society to society. It is like the Buddhist concept that you can never step into the same river twice.

Entrepreneurs often confuse their big idea with the presentation of their big idea. The two are as different as a play as literary poetry and as a produced piece of theatre.

As I wrote above, save-your-ass-theatre happens when leadership is weak. The hallmark of weak leadership is the investment in being expert. Great leaders don’t orient according to what they “know.” They orient toward what they don’t know. They can never be expert because they are not trumpeting their past experiences but are engaging with the mysteries of the moment. Great directors of plays, like great leaders in organizations, facilitate the gifts of their team toward a common intention. Great leaders serve the story, the intention, the ideal, the creation, the business – something bigger than themselves. That’s why experts make lousy leaders: experts by definition serve only themselves. Experts, by definition, need others to be beneath them.

Skip and I have watched accelerator cohorts sadly devolve into isolated islands lost in pitch mania. The partners in the accelerators (experts all) look high and low for an explanation for the lack of clarity but rarely have the capacity to look at their leadership. Cohort members know, like actors know, that there will be an opening night, a moment when they will step in front of an audience and need to be seen. If they have had strong guidance, they will show up as members of a powerful team in service to a big idea, ready to step into the great unknown (also known as potential). If they have had experts all along, they will have become pretenders just like their leaders, invested in looking good and eager to tell you what they already know.

[..to be continued]

For a humorous look at the wonderful world of innovation and new ventures, check out my new comic strip Fl!p and the gang at Fl!p Comics.

Filed under: Art, entrepreneur, Truly Powerful People | Leave a comment »

Posted on October 17, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

[Continued from Know Your Net]

In addition to using the phrases “honest moment” and “honest action,” I used the term “honest pursuit” and Skip asked, “Pursuit? Same or different from honest action and honest moment.”

One of my favorite terms from the theatre is “split intention.” It has come in handy most of my life and is useful in all settings from corporate to non-profit to education. Viv gave me the perfect shorthand definition for a split intention. It’s from a Chinese proverb: chase two rabbits and both will get away. Chasing two rabbits splits your focus and confuses your action. For actors, a split intention happens when the actor believes they can determine what they audience will think of their performance. They focus on audience response rather than pursue their intention on the stage. The split focus also splits the audience from entering the story. The actor engages in a power game by trying to please or be seen as…. The performance experience for all concerned becomes a lie rather than an opening to a deeper relationship, a shared moment of truth. The pursuit is a false.

In my past life facilitating change processes in education and organizations, I often used two related phrases that are aspects of a split intention: circumstance driven and intention driven. Organizations spend oodles of time defining their values with the notion that they are driven by a clean set of aligned values. It’s nice on paper but falls apart when the money dries up. Nothing goes out the window faster when the economy tanks than the phrase, “We value our employees.” If you want to know what an organization or nation really values, watch what they do when the cash flow disappears. An honest pursuit doesn’t waver when the circumstance changes. This is one reason why I love artists and the artistry in myself: we do the work whether there is money or not. The artistry trumps the circumstance. The imperative runs deep.

Entrepreneurs and artists are a similar breed of cat. Both are marginally feral. They desire artistic/creative freedom. They want their ideas to be manifest in the world and desire to prosper from their efforts. They want to create their own constraints. Usually (but not always), entrepreneurs are trying to fill a need. They are in a service profession (whether they recognize it our not). They have fun creating cool things that make life easier for the user. Entrepreneurs split themselves when they succumb to the illusion that an investor controls their destiny. They split themselves when they give away their intention for investor dollars. They essentially become circumstance driven and, like the actor attempting to be liked by the audience, their pursuit becomes false. They give away the essential for the immediate.

The split becomes visible in their pitches. Are they pursuing the creation of their idea or hunting for dollars? This distinction is a swords edge but the difference is dramatic. After all, a pitch is made to investors. However, in the first case, the pursuit is intention driven and the second case it is circumstance driven. How much of the idea/dream will be sacrificed for the funding? It takes dollars to make an entrepreneur’s idea manifest. It also takes boundaries. Actors succeed when their pursuit is in service to the play and not themselves. Entrepreneurs succeed when their pursuit is in service to their users and not to their funders.

[to be continued]

For a humorous look at the wonderful world of innovation and new ventures, check out my new comic strip Fl!p and the gang at Fl!p Comics.

Filed under: Art, Business, entrepreneur, Truly Powerful People | 3 Comments »

Know Your Net

Posted on October 16, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

[Continued from the post Step Onto The Field]
One of the reasons I adore working with Skip in our company, Flipped Start-Up, is that he requires me to look deeper into my assertions. He routinely asks me to explain, expand, question, re-consider, and dive deeper into my thoughts and perceptions. For instance, yesterday he read my post, Step Onto The Field, about actor auditions and entrepreneur pitches. Today he sent a response with 10 questions that made my brow knit and will give me blog fodder for weeks.

For instance, in the post I wrote this:

Auditors want actors to succeed. They want to be engaged, surprised, and swept into an honest moment. They want to meet the actor on the field of possibility. They want access into the story and the door is always honest action.

His questions: What is an honest moment? Is there a difference between an honest moment and an honest action?

I had a few great mentors in the theatre and they taught me that the art of acting was the art of presence. For instance, it is a common misperception that acting is about pretending. It is not. Acting as defined by my masters is the honest pursuit of an intention in imaginary circumstances. An actor that pretends to pursue their intention actually prohibits the audience from participating in the story. It is the actor’s honest pursuit of their intention that opens the story door for the audience. Athletes do not pretend to play the game. They play. They play to win and that is what keeps the fans invested. The game is real. The same is true for actors. The game is real. They know their goal, how to score points, and what they need to do to win. The action is honest.

So my first stab at Skip’s question is this: an honest moment is to be fully present – as an athlete is fully present – within imagined circumstances. It may come as a shock but the world series or the world cup or the super bowl are made-up circumstances, just as is Hamlet’s Denmark. We believe that the made-up circumstance is real when the pursuit on the field is real. Next year there will be another world series winner just as 200 years from now there will be another production of Hamlet.

David Miller takes his student actors to hockey games so they can see honest action in the pursuit of a real goal. Get the puck into the net. The play called “hockey” is about getting the puck into the net more times than the other team (Note: the rules of the game are made up. In the theatre, the rules of the game are called “circumstance.”). David is a brilliant teacher who knows that young actors have been steeped in the language of pretending. Their actions are often dishonest because they are invested in being liked by the audience instead of knowing the power and simplicity of playing to get the puck into the net. The net is not as apparent for actors but no less essential to their action.

Entrepreneurs have the same problem as young actors. They rarely recognize the game and moment-to-moment have no clue where to find their net. Many times they don’t even know how to locate the ice rink. They don’t see that their circumstance is as made-up as any other game. Consequently, they pretend. They play the role of CEO or CTO (made up roles for a start up) and want their audience to like them. Being liked is not the net. They want their audience to think they know what they are doing. Knowing what they are doing is not the net. They pretend to participate in accelerator programming only because that may lead to funding. Their actions are consequently dishonest.

Shifting the circumstance might illuminate the point: I just had dinner with a college student who told me his classes were worthless. He was bored. I asked him why he continued to go to school and he told me that he had to play the game if he wanted a degree because a degree would get him a better job. He thinks the net is a better job and so is dishonest in his action. He thinks the game is “get a degree.” So, he pretends. He thinks his boredom is the fault of the university. It is not. He thinks he is being forced to participate. He is not. College students have been anesthetized to think that a better job is the net. It is not. They think someone else has what they seek and over look the mindset necessary to live a vital life (which is the same mindset required to really learn as opposed to pretend to learn). The net is their mindset. This same concept applies to entrepreneurs. The net is their mindset.

[to be continued….]

For a humorous look at the wonderful world of innovation and new ventures, check out my new comic strip Fl!p and the gang at Fl!p Comics.

Filed under: entrepreneur, Gratitude, Play, Truly Powerful People | 2 Comments »

Step Onto The Field

Posted on October 15, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

The first few decades of my career were rooted in the theatre. In casting plays and assembling companies I’ve held and seen hundreds of auditions. Generally, it was my experience as an auditor (and also in managing auditions for others) that in the first round of auditions an auditor can see everything they need to know about an actor in seven seconds or less. Whether the audition is a prepared piece, a cold reading or some form of improvisation, this “seven second” rule seems to hold. For the auditor, the rest of the audition is usually an act of courtesy or spent hoping that they are wrong about what they already know. Auditors want actors to succeed. They want to be engaged, surprised, and swept into an honest moment. They want to meet the actor on the field of possibility. They want access into the story and the door is always honest action.

What can an auditor see in seven seconds or less that inspires them to call the actor back or put their file in the “no” pile? Probably a more accurate question is, “What can the auditor feel that inspires them to call back the actor?” The honest pursuit of an intention is something that can be felt before it can be seen. This is true on or off the stage, isn’t it? Do you feel it when someone is not authentic? Do you “know it” when you are being told a half-truth? How many times have you said, “I knew it but didn’t listen to myself.” Auditioning others is as an act of listening to what you sense in the first few seconds and the scanner is seeking honesty.

In the past few years I’ve been watching entrepreneurs do pitches for investors. Auditions and pitches are surprisingly similar activities! In both cases, the “seven second” rule applies. Investors know, like auditors know, when they are seeing something honest or something manufactured. An exciting viable idea in the hands of a pretender is a useless thing – just as brilliant plays are routinely slaughtered in the hands of fakers. Entrepreneurs, like actors, are more likely to meet success when they cease giving away their power and show up as they are. Showing up is not passive and has nothing to do with information delivery. Showing up means to share the quest, to bring others along on the pursuit of a dream. Showing up is being present with others. It is inclusive (as opposed to protected).

Rule #1 for entrepreneurs is the same as it is for actors: You can’t determine what others (investors/auditors) see or think or feel or value. You can only bring your best game to the field of possibility and love playing it.

For a humorous look at the wonderful world of innovation and new ventures, check out my new comic strip Fl!p and the gang at Fl!p Comics.

Filed under: Art, entrepreneur, Intuition, Possibility, Power, Truly Powerful People | 2 Comments »

Feel It

Posted on October 11, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

I’m not making this up. It rained the entire time I was in Seattle packing up my studio. The morning we left the sun broke through and was with us as we crossed Washington, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. We crossed five states during the days that the weather channel chirped about the quadruple threat of storms. Each day we were on the road we heard dire weather predictions and reports of record snowfall. Each day we experienced blue skies, crisp air and warm sun. It was so gorgeous that we dallied. We stopped in Idaho and spent the majority of a day walking through the leaves and snoozing on a warm rock. It was as if we were in a bubble of amazing autumn weather.

We talked with strangers along the way who told us of the miserable rains the day before we arrived. We heard more than once that the storms would come the day after we passed through – and they did. Since I am given to metaphor I want to believe that the weather was an affirmation of this move. I want to believe that the weather was a blessing by the universe saying, “Yes. You are on the right path.” Whether I believe it or not, that is how I felt.

I hear often (and say) phrases like, “It wasn’t meant to be.” Or, “The universe didn’t want me to do it.” Or, “I was blocked, it wasn’t the right time.” Or, “The door was closed to me.” Or the opposite side of the coin, “I knew it was my time!” Or, “All the forces were with me today!” Or, “It must have been my time.” Or, “It is my lucky day!” Affirmations and sense-making come in many forms and are expressed through a variety of phrases.

It’s worth the time to ask, “If it was meant to be, who meant it to be; who intended it?” If the universe wants something or doesn’t want something, then are we merely pieces in a chess game, a rook or a bishop. What is it that “wants?”

I like to think that the universe works the other way around: it responds. When we intend, when we act from clarity of vision and a deeper truth, the universe responds. We want. The universe responds when we have clarity of intention. When we are muddy, we get mud. For much of the past year I have been heart-split. I have been muddy in my intentions, conflicted in my thoughts and actions. When my internal warfare was over, when the smoke cleared and peace was declared, when I could see clearly and act with clarity, I was met with clarity, simplicity and light. And just like my move from Seattle, the rains stopped at last, the skies cleared, and the path has been gorgeous with sun, an open road, brilliant autumn leaves, plenty of supplies and places to rest just when I need them. A blessing from the universe? It certainly feels that way.

For a humorous look at the wonderful world of innovation and new ventures, check out my new comic strip Fl!p and the gang at Fl!p Comics.

Filed under: Gratitude, Metaphor, Truly Powerful People | 2 Comments »

Feel The Vastness

Posted on October 4, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

The day we packed the studio there was a break in the rain and I was grateful for the moment of sun. The previous night on Skip’s deck we were treated to a double rainbow. It was vibrant for a few precious moments and then faded. Skip took some photographs before it dissipated and then we drank wine and laughed.

The first night back in Seattle, walking from the light rail to the ferry, we were drenched. The skies opened and buckets of rain soaked us to the core. Judy gave us wooly dry socks and hot soup to warm us. She transformed my story of reentry from one of harsh weather to one of deep and enduring friendship. Later, she played a song on the harp so that I might remember Seattle.

This morning as we crested the pass and began our decent into the eastern part of the state, I felt released. I was drawn to the Puget Sound almost 15 years ago. It was a magnet, the place I was supposed to be. I was seeking that indefinable something, the parts of myself I thought were missing; it turns out I had them all along. I had to stop looking to find them. Today, it seems that the poles of my earth reversed themselves and sent me on my way. It happened in a moment and I sighed at the recognition.

Kerri and I stopped at the Wild Horses monument. We climbed the hill and stood still with the running metal horses. The sun was warm so we sat on a rock and took in the expanse of the gorge. I closed my eyes and felt the vastness of space and the autumn and of life.

Tonight, I do not believe that chapters open or close and I have no faith that time is linear or progresses in any single direction. Past and future are stories, merely. Once, I saw Stephen Hawking talk about the universe as bubbles and where they brush together, for a moment, entire worlds come into being.

For a humorous look at the wonderful world of innovation and new ventures, check out my new comic strip Fl!p and the gang at Fl!p Comics.

Filed under: Possibility, Truly Powerful People | 1 Comment »

Peel The Onion

Posted on September 29, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

It is the eve of the big move. Tomorrow we fly to Seattle to pack up my possessions – mostly paintings, a rocking chair, and art supplies – and drive east. After months of wandering, paring down and letting go of all things familiar, I am creating a new home.

Many months ago, on December 31, the eve of 2013 with my life freshly exploded, a tarot reader told me that being by the water was essential for me and that I should at all cost stay by the water. I wouldn’t normally invest too much in the specifics of a card reading except that this particular reader has been frighteningly accurate. She told me with startling precision the details of what would happen to me (and for me) throughout the spring and summer. It’s as if I am living through the notes that I took from the session. I laughed when I knew in my guts that it was time to move and I realized that my move would take me from the Puget Sound to another powerful body of water.

I have felt for many months that the universe sent its border collie to herd me to a new pasture. I’ve been making choices but my choices seem guided or predetermined. It’s as if I am seeing a GPS map with a bright green line that shows me the path. The voice in my head is clear “In 300 feet, turn right…. Turn right.” And I do. A few instances early on I turned off the highlighted path, saying to myself, “This can’t be right! It can’t be this way!” And each time my metaphoric car broke down. I heard, “Recalculating,” and, when I listened, I was guided back on course.

In the past several years I have often used the word, “surrender” and keep thinking that I know what that word means – and I learn again and again that it has more layers than an onion and I am only beginning to grasp the depth of its meaning. To give over does not mean to live without intention. To let go does not mean to relinquish responsibility for choices. To surrender requires a destination in mind; it’s a paradox. It means to be a wayfinder, to listen to the ocean of life, read the fingerprint of the waves, hold the destination in mind, and call the island to you. It means that obstacles and deviations are necessary and never what they seem to be. Sometimes what looks like an obstacle is really a palette of choices or a regulator of time: you might get to the crossroads too soon and the universe needs to slow you down. It means to understand that life is a long-body of phases and not about fixes or arrivals or outcomes. In this sense, surrender, listening and presence are really the same thing.

For a humorous look at the wonderful world of innovation and new ventures, check out my new comic strip Fl!p and the gang at Fl!p Comics.

Filed under: Emergence, Truly Powerful People | 4 Comments »

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