Allow The Laughter

Posted on September 17, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

I found a mouse in the washing machine. It startled me and I jumped back, tossing my clothes into the air. When I recovered, I approached the washing machine like it held a Bengal tiger and cautiously peaked into the tub. The mouse had long ago gone to mouse heaven though I poked it with a hanger just to be sure. One cannot be too careful. After shrouding the mouse in a plastic bag and relocating it the trash bin, I laughed heartily at myself. I wondered what I would have done had the mouse been alive. I wondered how I would have liberated it.

Many years ago my dryer broke down and my pal Albert came to take a look at it. Albert is mechanical and has many times fixed things for me. He popped off the back of the dryer and a rat leapt out. Albert screamed and when the fleeing rat rounded the corner and bumped into me, I screamed and did an oh-my-god-a-rat-just-bumped-into-me dance. Luckily, the back screen door was ajar and the rat escaped without my needing to herd it, track it, or capture it. Albert screamed at me, “You could have told me that there was a rat in your dryer!” I screamed, “I didn’t know!” And then we laughed and shivered.

Rodents are not supposed to be in appliances. These two things do not go together and it’s the disjoint from expectation that makes the clothes fly and sparks the silly rat-touched-me dances. A few days ago I sat in the airport and had tons of time to watch people. Airports can be a riot of disjointed expectations. People shout silly things. They do silly this-is-not-what-I-wanted dances. The only thing missing is the laughter.

I imagine children come into this world with an expectation of love. We were all children once and have a bag full of stories of disjointed expectations. I’m learning that, if you can find the laughter, you can see that the mouse was not supposed to be in the washing machine, the parent was not supposed to turn their anger on you, the school was not supposed to stamp your curiosity, the community was supposed to support you and not shame you. And, somehow the mouse got into the machine. So we scream and throw clothes. We get scared and do silly things. It all falls into perspective when we allow the natural laughter that follows the recognition of a broken expectation.

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

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: Surprises, Truly Powerful People | 2 Comments »

Step In Front Of The Canvas

Posted on September 16, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

I used to stand in front of a blank canvas, clear my mind, and look for the painting that was waiting for me to draw it out. Mostly, but not always, there was an image waiting for me. It was like a very shy animal staring back at me. I would coax it forward and it would slowly reveal itself to me. The act of painting was the act of following the signals. If I moved too fast the image would retreat. It drew me out as I drew the image forward. As it advanced, coming into the light, the image would shapeshift. It would try to frighten me. It would test my agility and capacity to pursue it. Finally, after it had tested my respect for it and gained respect for me, the image would rest, give up the chase and open. In that moment we merged. I was the art and the art was me. Many hours would pass in a single moment. Time was no longer fixed. None of the usual rules of life applied.

This sounds like a strange and reactive process until you consider that I spent days stretching and preparing the canvas. I prepared myself, too. I opened the portal and chose the moment to step in front of the canvas, brush in hand, and issue the call. Sometimes the animal that came forward was aggressive, sometimes magical, and sometimes swift. Always it was dedicated to opening a portal in me. Art is like that. Art opens portals in people.

Today I know without doubt that the world has at last become my studio. Each day is a blank canvas that holds a unique gift and demands one from me in return. It is a portal that I open that, in turn, opens me. It calls me to the center. I’ve spent a lifetime preparing this canvas. Each morning I step forward into the day and so begins a unique relationship with this vast field of possibilities shimmering in front of me – as it teases forward the vast field of possibilities within me. Life is like that. Life opens possibilities in people.

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

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, Creativity, Metaphor, Possibility, Truly Powerful People | Leave a comment »

Let Your Imagination Run

Posted on September 15, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

I’m sitting on the floor at the mouth of concourse 2, right next to a security check station at O’Hare International Airport. I’m on the floor because I found an electrical outlet and my phone was gasping its last electronic gasps. It was seriously red lining, sending me an assortment of warnings of imminent death – and I was expecting an important call. Were I a medical drama, my phone and I would have made a spectacular episode. I saved it at the last moment, leaping for the outlet, connecting the power just before its little phone-soul plunged into that sweet no-charge darkness. I suppose it might have been higher drama had I let it die and then brought it back but I have to have some place to go in future episodes.

It was not an easy task to find an outlet in an airport. You’d think with all of the power that it takes to illuminate the concourses and juice up the ubiquitous Hudson News stands that there’d be more visible outlets. Because of my proximity to a security check station I am now being eyed by the folks in blue shirts. It’s true that my outlet is oddly placed and I am clearly on the boarder of their comfort zone. There is a metal strip on the floor marking the boundary and I am one cheek on either side. Six more inches to the left and I’d be in a walkway AND in the red zone. Now, of course, my inner drama shifts to a political thriller. It doesn’t help that I have my computer out and am tap-tapping away. I might be hacking into the security database, changing all sorts of codes, looping security cameras with pre-recorded nothingness so my colleagues in black spandex might drop into the vault and swipe state secrets. The folks in blue will be disappointed when they discover that I am merely letting my imagination run wild instead of necessitating their presence.

Commercial break: These are the t-shirt messages that just rode bodies passed me: “Originality is dead.” “Woo-Woo.” “I Am The Man” and “Batman” My t-shirt report does not include the myriad of product labels I saw riding on bodies while I was scouting messages. Once, while bored in an airport, I imagined that angels communicate with people through t-shirt messages and I spent a solid hour trying to decipher the angelic messages. Their meaning was confusing at best and I tipped back and forth between terror (there are lots of apocalyptic t-shirts riding around!) and hysterical laughter. Oh. Those whacky angels! Now I think they communicate through Paulo Coehlo but that’s a post for another day.

Here’s the real question that has been plaguing me, today. Just what is the difference between a storyteller and a story maker? Actually, I lied. I’m making it up because it is excellent torture to ponder these things publically. Makers and tellers both require some serious imagination – either on the front end or the back end of the action. My subversive intention is to inspire some nice comments regarding the question. Imagine that!

I am not lying to say that the folks in blue shirts just closed their post and dropped a metal gate. I had to quick like a bunny scootch forward or be crushed. Okay, the part about being crushed was made up. I might have been cut in half and I can only imagine how difficult it would be to arrest me were I in two pieces. I’m glad I moved! It shifted my inner drama….

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

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: Play, Random, Truly Powerful People | 2 Comments »

Take One More Step

Posted on September 14, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

Horatio once told me that if I could write 10 posts I could write 1000. One day at a time, one step at a time, nothing is overwhelming when taken one step at a time. It turns out that he knew what he was talking about – even though I was highly skeptical on day number 1. The theory follows: if I can write 1000 posts, I can write 10,000. And, by then, I will be very old, indeed and perhaps further out of my mind so hopefully I’ll be more entertaining. I intend to wear bright mismatching colors and cuss a lot.

Seaton Gras from Surf Incubator told the story today of a start up company that had been “flat-lined” for more than three years. They’d been trying to get funding or some form of significant traction for a long, long time. Through a series of events that I can only assume were random, a boatload of funding came and the company is now on a rocket trajectory to viability. This is not a story of success as much as a story of perseverance. They kept walking. Three years is a long time when measured in single steps. The funding organization asked, “Where have you been? We’ve been looking for you!” The three-year old hearty start-up responded, “Where have you been? We’ve been looking for you!” You never know what slow walker might be looking for what you bring.

I imagined that if you asked the hearty start-up a year ago if all the seeking was worthwhile, they might have shrugged. Ask them today and I know they’d enthusiastically say, “Yes!” The difference is a single step.

Recently, Rand Fishkin of Moz gave a great speech at the 9 Mile Labs Accelerator. He talked about how too many people give up their dreams a moment too soon. He said that most folks get 80% of the way to their fulfillment and then give up. They can’t see that they are one blind corner away from success. And that’s the point. We can’t see what’s coming. Ever. We never know. Regardless of what we pretend, each step is a step into the unknown, so why pretend otherwise. Why not just keep on walking toward your ideal?

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

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: Perspective, Truly Powerful People | 1 Comment »

Take Off Your Shoes

Posted on September 13, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

Today I participated on a call with an extraordinary community. They are trying to identify next steps and set some new growth intentions. They are in the business of transformation and isn’t it lovely that they themselves are in the process of transforming? There’s nothing like first hand experience going through a passage to inform how you will help others move through their passage.

Each member of this community is dedicated to transforming their lives and, in that way, also transforming the world in which they work and live and love. During the call my imagination was flooded with images of bare feet in the grass, feet digging into the sand. I saw patterns and routines. I saw shovels with dirt and lives passing one after the other. I wanted to shout, “Get dirty!” Transformation is not meant to be clean. It is not abstract. It is happening every day in a million small ways. A man got off the bus and took a deep breath of air and was glad that he was alive. A mother packed lunch for her child for the umpteenth time. I saw a homeless man use the curb as his pillow. It was a place in the sun and he sighed and smiled when his body settled. Transformation is happening every moment of every day in every life. When we ignored the homeless man, we too were transformed. The door swings both ways. Think on this: when is transformation not happening?

The better questions are, “Are you conscious of your transforming self? Are you present with it and grateful for it?” Last night as I walked home I passed beneath a tree alive with bird chatter. There must have been hundreds of them. I could not see them in the dark but their gossip stopped me in my tracks and snapped me into my moment. In that moment I was transformed. I was part of the conversation.

I wanted to whisper to my fellow callers, we have it backwards. The divine is ordinary. It is everyday stuff. Take your shoes off and feel it through the soles of your feet.

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

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: Awakening, Love, Truly Powerful People | 2 Comments »

Serve Your Gift

Posted on September 12, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

Each night for the past 6 nights, k.dot has read to me a chapter from Deepak Chopra’s Seven Spiritual Laws of Success. I was moved last night when she read in the final chapter, the law of Dharma, guidance and advice that he’d given to his children. He taught them to meditate at four years old. He asked them not to concern themselves with making money but instead to identify what was their unique gift and how could they might best give it in service to the world.

I keep telling myself to give up educational rants. I’ve banged the drum of hope and change for years. I watched the hopeful, the dreamers, and the revolutionaries get creamed by a machine that cared more for dollars than for children. I watched Lisa slowly get pulled into the machinery and get crushed; she was brilliant. She cared for children over politics so, of course, she had to go. I might as well have led her to slaughter. We talked about it years ago, this possibility of systemic rejection. Never-the-less, I am culpable and no longer capable of looking at an educator and saying, “believe.”

Last night I found myself wanting this man, Deepak, to lead the education reform movement in these United States of America. What is the use of testing the pants off our children if the adults meant to guide them are clueless to the things that matter? Don’t you just want to scream, “Your soul is worth infinitely more than the job your will trade it for.” A score on a test means nothing if you can’t put your feet in the river and know that you are unique and divine. Owning a BMW is just as empty if you don’t know your unique gift and understand how to give it with gusto. Don’t just get through life. Live it!

If you can’t answer this question, “What is mine to do?” then the education system has failed you. If you are oriented to taking instead of giving your community is crumbling. Period.

Technology has wrought a whole new ball game and the only people who don’t know it are the policy makers pulling the levers of education. The kids know. They tolerate the system and then go pursue something meaningful.

Isn’t it a great educational north star to ask these two questions: 1) What is your unique gift? 2) How can you use it to serve the world? If these simple questions were the drivers of your education you’d spend almost no time in your life asking yourself if you mattered or if your work had meaning. You’d know. The people guiding you would value your self-direction and support you in the giving of your gift. They’d be invested in guiding you to personal power instead of controlling you.

Giving completely your gift is the path to fulfilling yourself and what is the point of education if not that? And, wouldn’t it be helpful to learn how to cultivate inner quiet while you are young? Navigating this noise world, operating from a solid center, is easy if you’ve developed the skill of deep listening. Self-direction and self-regulation are qualities of powerful people and come from listening. They are qualities that we are born with. They are ordinary. Power is ordinary. Divinity is ordinary. Losing it to the little stuff is…tragic.

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

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: Education, Rants, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: | 6 Comments »

Change Your World

Posted on September 11, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

Today I helped film the final event of an accelerator. Nine business start-ups pitched to potential investors, family, friends and other entrepreneurs. It was a staged experience with music and visuals, awards and introductions, hopes and dreams. It was the graduation of an inaugural cohort for a new accelerator. Everyone put on their best face and brought their best game.

During the event I was interested how many times I heard the phrase, “Change the world.”

“Go out and change the world!”

“We believe our new technology will change the world.”

“Our innovation will change the way business is done. It will change the world.”

What is it in us that needs the world to change? What is it in us that assumes the role of world changer? I hear this phrase daily. I’ve used it myself most of my life. When I was younger I wanted my art to change the world. I’m an idealist so I had (and have) a laundry list of what would make life better. I’m also aware that my list is not universal. In fact, much on my list would seem heretical to many of the people on the planet. What is “better” for me is worse for others. What is the world I wish to change?

On the most superficial level when the entrepreneurs said, “the world” they actually meant “people.” So, they want a change for people. And, by the word “change,” they actually meant “to improve.” Rather than change the world, they want to improve the human condition. Joe once told me that the universe tends toward wholeness and I thought of him today as I listened to the pitches. In order for our work to matter we need to know that it is serving to make things better for someone. We tend toward wholeness though grow blind to it in the routines of our day. The road crew is making my life better. So is the barista, the grocery store clerk, and the woman who tends the amazing flowers in Pioneer Square.

In most cases the entrepreneurs had a unique story driving their innovation. We didn’t hear their stories today but I’ve been paying attention. Each saw a human need or experienced a frustration and wanted to improve on what currently is possible. They want to make things easier for shoppers. They want to make doctors more efficient. They want to help people acknowledge the contributions of others. They want their children to be safe. They want their families to prosper. They want a better world and they want to help create it. They tend toward wholeness though it might not have been apparent in the selling of their idea and the cocktails that followed.

As I watched the pitches I recognized how each person had grown personally through their time in the accelerator. They worked endless days and sacrificed more than sleep in their march to creating a better world. Although this is cliché it occurred to me that the world that they changed was their own. Just like you and me, when we identify our gift, when we see what is ours to do – and actually do it – our world changes. We experience our tendency toward wholeness and are changed because of it. It’s never “the world” we want to change, it’s our world, it’s ourselves.

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

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, Truly Powerful People | 1 Comment »

Learn To Laugh

Posted on September 10, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

Comedy is about other people’s pain. Wiley Coyote going off the cliff one more time is funny. The guy slipping on the banana peel is hysterical as long as you are not that guy. Humor is mostly a status drop for someone.

I’ve been writing and drawing a cartoon called FL!P for almost half a year now so I’m inadvertently making a study of what’s funny and what is not. Recently some acquaintances that know me from my coaching life took me to task because my comic strip seemed out of character. “It’s mean,” they said. “Yes.” I said. That is precisely why it is funny.

The strip is aimed at entrepreneurs and there is a need for a bit of levity in a world so steeped in self-interest and confusing agendas. In many traditions around the world the trickster is an integral part of worship. We are not meant to take our gods so seriously. The reverence is always found in the relationship and the realization that the godhead is in all of us. It is our flaws that take us closer to the creative. Worship is a relationship and a full relationship includes laughter, joy, play, as well as inner quiet and awe. Tricksters break rules and pull the blanket off of societies inequities. Tricksters help us see what we pretend not to see. The Emperor would still be strutting around naked if the trickster boy hadn’t spoken a truth that the rest of the village denied. Truth comes easier with laughter. I can tell you that there is much public prancing in the world of accelerators and incubators but very little real apparel. Humor is necessary in a landscape so rife with pretending.

Artists are often of necessity the tricksters of their culture. It is the artists’ job to open eyes to what is there (versus what we think is there). It is the artists’ job to bring the communal attention into the present, to slap-stop the puffed up importance of things that do not matter so that the things of real importance can be seen. With a 24 hour news cycle and a congress ruled by corporate dollars it is hard for us to sort out what is valuable and what is not. The narrative in the commons rarely reaches the level of significance. It is no wonder that many people confess to getting their news from John Stewart and Stephen Colbert (both heroes of mine).

The greatest lessons of my life did not come gently and I am all the more grateful for the force behind the learning. My lessons came with status drops and like Wiley Coyote I have gone more than once over the cliff with an anvil close behind. Comedy is mean. Learning requires falling down. Stepping into the unknown is potent because of the myriad of things to trip over. If you can’t laugh at the bungle you’ll miss the lesson.

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

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, Creativity, Education, entrepreneur, Perspective, Seeing, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: , , , | 2 Comments »

Accept The Gift

Posted on September 9, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

This morning in Tai Chi Saul spoke of his teacher and his teacher’s teacher and soon we students were aware that we are the burning point of a tradition that reaches back thousands of years. We were suddenly alive in a moment that rippled into an unknown future and a distant past. Our study was revealed as a link in a chain. Our weekly meeting dropped into a greater context and mattered in a grander scheme of things. Our practice was no longer about the perfection of a sequence of moves; it became an orientation to life. We realized that we are participants in a tradition in service to the vitality of life as it flows through us and expresses in the world.

I’ve written often about my lessons during this remarkable year, primarily about the release of control. I can control my thoughts. I can control where I place my focus. That’s about it. I can intend (a process of thought). I can control my action (also a process that begins with thought). My work (and I hope my growth) has been about getting out of my way. My lesson over and over has been about listening and letting go. I’ve been amazed how letting go always brings riches unimaginable. Holding on, forcing, resisting, pushing, trying to make things happen always diminishes me – and everyone around me. It has brought great heartache and even greater harm to people I love.

My tai chi practice now extends beyond the studio. Saul tells me to empty. He teaches me to listen. I have become a monk in my studio cell and I spend my days listening and drawing. This morning he led me into a deeper practice when he asked me, “What is your concern?” He showed me how I was orienting myself according to my opponents need. “Address your concern,” he said looking beyond me before adding, “Look into the vast space before you and place your focus on the horizon. Put your energy on a point on the horizon and move to it. Your opponent is incidental. Your opponent gives you their energy, their resistance. Accept the gift and do not give away your energy. Address your concern. You are your concern.”

His lesson: do not engage with the resistance. Do not invest in the obstacle. Place your focus on a point beyond all of the mind games and move your chi in the direction of your chosen point. Move your chi, and yours alone. Others will move their chi as they will. Stop giving your chi away. In this way, you will drop into your present moment. You will drop into your eternal moment and the masters of the tradition will join you there.

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

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 | Tagged: , , | 3 Comments »

Meet At “We.”

Posted on September 8, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

Many years ago I was watching Johnny direct a play. It was one of Shakespeare’s though I can’t remember which play. Suddenly, in the middle of the rehearsal, he was overcome with the recognition that he and his actors where carrying forward a tradition. They were engaged in an artistic tradition that stretches back centuries. They were carrying the torch in this lifetime so that they might pass the flame to the next generation. Johnny’s passion and recognition was infectious and his cast dawned to the reality that they were in service to something greater than their small parts in a singular production of the play. They became priests and priestesses enacting the ritual story for all ages.

They found deeper meaning to their work. It mattered. They found connection to both the past (the tradition) and the future (the legacy). Their work rippled in time and came alive in the present moment because they suddenly understood who they were relative to the past and the future. They located themselves. This play was theirs to do. Their service to the play and the tradition defined their purpose. Their art was their gift to the community and the community the served transcended time: it reached into the past and stretched into the future.

This is the purpose of the arts: to locate us in time relative to our traditions and our legacy. The arts orient us to the question, “Who are we?” The arts do not answer the question, there is no single answer, but they facilitate an ongoing conversation and exploration of what it is to be alive as a member of a community.

Artists are the keepers of the communal narrative. When the artists no longer occupy the center, the narrative dissipates and so does the society. Rules and laws can hold the pieces together for a while but disparity and self-interest are inevitable. They are harbingers of communal collapse. A common narrative is the beating heart of a healthy community.

No plant can live without it root and neither can a community. No person can prosper alone. The purpose is never the “I.” Purpose requires a target so it is by definition the “We.” Greater purpose extends to the past and the future, just as the roots of a plant reach deep into the earth while the branches and leaves reach to meet the sun. This reaching, this connection to past and future that meets and grows in the present moment defines us. It is the two directions of mattering that meets in the moment of “We.”

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

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, Identity, Story, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: , | Leave a comment »

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