Take Your Eyes From The Sky

Posted on May 27, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

From the department of very odd moments, twice in the past 24 hours I have walked by elderly men standing on street corners, arms raised to the sky, eyes open, blessing passers-by. They did not offer their blessing in full voice or with great intention. The blessing came in a whisper. It came as a ghost might whisper from behind you.

The first man I passed while I was walking home from tai-chi. I saw him from several blocks away and the closer I got the more he piqued my curiosity. It was clearly painful for him to keep his arms stretched toward the sky. As I passed he whispered his blessing and only then did I wonder if his outstretched arms were a form of penance: suffering for sins or reaching the godhood through intentional infliction of pain. I will never understand that. I’m not a believer in sin nor do I think one need suffer to experience the divine. From my perspective there is nothing corrupt about nature or anything (including humans) in nature. To me, the divine is in all things. One need not reach for it as much as realize it. Be it.

This morning, far across town from my first encounter, I saw another elderly man standing on a street corner, arms raised to the sky. I changed my route so that I might pass him. I wanted to know if he, too, would whisper a blessing as I went by. He did and I stopped and turned to look at him. He kept his gaze firmly fixed on the sky, his arms shaking with the strain of their reach. It was odd. He offered a blessing to me but he refused to engage with me.

There are many paths up this mountain. There are many roads that lead back to the tree of life. Separation seeks unity in many forms. As I turned and walked away I wondered what worth was a blessing that comes from one who would look to the sky as a way of avoiding engagement with me. I turned back. I wanted to ask him if he wanted a cup of coffee. I wanted to know what path in life made him choose pain as his route to the godhood. I stopped myself. I wanted to respect his choices, not criticize them. I walked away glad that I see the divine in all of the eyes that look back at me. I felt relief that on my path I need not peer into the sky and disengage from this glorious world to seek for my reassurance.

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

Ask The Next Question

Posted on May 25, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

I met John in his workshop. He was cutting pieces for a chair. He’s decided that his summer task is to learn to build chairs. I’ve known John for many years and he was a master woodworker when I met him. That he’s set himself the task of making chairs seemed at first already within his reach. I’ve sat in many many chairs that John’s designed and built. And then, like a little kid excited to open presents, he showed me his prototype and all the things he didn’t know how to do. He showed me all the things that he couldn’t wait to explore. There are new joinery, curves, and design elements. He’s incorporating metals into some of his designs. Brushing the sawdust from his shirt, he said, “I figure if I’m not learning then I’m probably wasting my time.”

John chooses his projects based on what he doesn’t know. For years I’ve admired how he orients himself to his tasks. He is a true master. Mastery is not about what you know. Mastery is about how you address yourself to what you don’t know. Mastery and curiosity are bedfellows. Most of us choose our projects based on what we know. We do stuff because we know how to do it – and sometimes we mistakenly call that expertise. We use our knowledge to distinguish ourselves from the pack. Masters have no time for such nonsense. They are too busy learning. They are too in awe of life to separate from life. They are joiners and not concerned with status games.

As we jumped into John’s truck to get some dinner and a beer I noticed that he was limping. I asked him about the limp and he was told me about the magic his naturopath was working. He has arthritis in his back. He said, “I have a lot to learn. There is so much for me to do, so many things I want to do. I figure I’ll never get to it all but I need my health. I’m too excited to stop asking the next question.”

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

Make The Offer

Posted on May 24, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

If you’ve not yet heard Neil Gaiman’s commencement address to the University for the Arts in Philadelphia, take a moment and treat yourself. His message in a nutshell: make good art regardless of what life throws your way. And, by good art, he means your art. Give full expression to your voice. Make your art regardless of what life throws your way.

This morning Kerri sent me a text. She’d just played the music for a funeral. Her message: this ride is short. There’s no time to be afraid. Make your art. Step into life. Love big. Love now. And, back to Neil Gaiman, enjoy your moment. Really enjoy it. That’s how you make good art. The tortured artist image is highly overrated and mostly a lie. Art comes through pain but is never sourced in it.

As Skip and I waited for the ferry last night he recounted a conversation from his day. It was with a young entrepreneur who thought the whole world was waiting impatiently for his idea. Idea thieves lurked around every corner. He was keeping his idea close to his vest. He was suffocating his idea and himself so steeped was he in his assumed importance. I told Skip to share with the young entrepreneur what Quinn once told me: there are several billion people on this planet and you are the only one who gives a damn about what you think.

Life is too short to suffocate your ideas and limit your artistry with assumed importance. The other several billion people are thinking about their voices, not yours. They might compare theirs to yours and perhaps, like you, even copy some of what you chunk out. That’s called inspiration. Make good art. Share it. Enjoy it, regardless of its reception. Its worth has nothing to do with how it is received. Your worth has nothing to do with how you are received.

Make the offer. Make good art.

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

Own It And Offer

Posted on May 23, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

All winter in the many arenas of my work, I’ve been hearing a question: Who are you in service to? Sometimes the question comes in the form of “customer.” Sometimes it wears the mask of “client.” Entrepreneurs and actors try to identify their “audience.” Most often the question of service comes hidden in the guise of “purpose.”

This last variation, purpose, is deceptive because when a person asks, “What is my purpose?” they automatically focus inside themselves. The question implies unique volition, an inner imperative. It implies ownership. All of that is true. Purpose is uniquely felt. Purpose is an inner drive. It is personal. It is also empty if not offered. Arrows need targets. Businesses need buyers. Pastors need congregants. Artists need audiences. Purpose needs receivers. Purpose is all about relationship.

It comes as a great curiosity to me that the block entrepreneurs experience most is rooted in the fear of reaching out and talking to potential audiences. They fear that their idea might be stupid. It is better to not know than to put it out, ask and adjust. Their fear is akin to the data that tells us that most people fear public speaking more than death. Think about it. Rather than be seen, most of us would rather die. We want to speak but only if we know what we have to say has merit before we speak. Young actors have to learn not to shield themselves from their audience. They want on the stage only to hide. It cancels the purpose. The challenge is the same – it is playing out in many arenas.

In other words, purpose is all about relationship yet we are deeply invested in controlling or restricting our relationships. We blunt our purpose in the restraints we put on sharing. Ownership of purpose is related to freely sharing our offers. Share. Ask. Engage.

This work, my purpose, is at the center of Flipped Startup (my new collaboration). Yesterday I realized it is only incidentally aimed at entrepreneurs. This work is for everyone. In this world we are of necessity all entrepreneurs and wrestling with the same question: who am I in service to? Own it. And offer it.

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

Let Hope Catch You

Posted on May 22, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

796. 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 few days ago I was on my way to get a morning cup of coffee and passed through the plaza that borders the international district in Seattle. It is a threshold place. Beneath the plaza is the light rail station. Bolt buses from Portland and Vancouver board passengers from the plaza. The train station is just across the road so travelers make connections to and from the train through the plaza. It is a crossroads.

A young woman loaded with a heavy backpack and bedroll slipped off her burden and sat on one of the large stone benches. An older man sitting on a facing stone bench, thin and striking with a long gray ponytail, called out to her. He said, “I hope you’re going toward something instead of running away.” She smiled and replied, “Mister, I’m not chasing hope. Hope is chasing me.” Her response stopped me in my tracks. The older man laughed and she sat facing him. They started a conversation.

Many weeks ago when I was in a low mood Megan suggested that I act as if the entire universe was conspiring for my good. Essentially she was suggesting that I walk my talk and her reminder was timely and helped lift my spirits. Why would I assume otherwise?

Sometimes I play the game of tracking back in time the choices that I made to bring me to this moment. Last week I met an amazing woman, a musician living in Wisconsin that I’ve been corresponding with for the past several months. One day last December she sent me an email. I responded. She replied and a conversation blossomed. Last week a job took me through Chicago I jumped off the plane and we met. She told me that she almost didn’t send the initial email for fear of what I’d think. I replied to her outreach and today I have a new friend.

Many hours after my morning cup of coffee I walked through the plaza on my way home and the older man and young woman were still talking only now they shared a bench and a cigarette. They’d been talking for hours and by the intensity of their conversation they’d be talking for many hours to come. She chose a bench. He chose to ask. I smiled as I walked by and thought, “This is what hope looks like when it catches you.”

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

Keep Walking

Posted on May 21, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

795. 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 week, the night before the launch of my new business, 6 hours before I was to get on a plane and travel for a week, my computer died. There was not time between stops to get a fix. There was no way to put up a post. My string of consecutive posts ended at 794. After I stopped trying to figure it out and recognized that the gods of technology both grant and revoke access, I settled into a week with minimal technology. It was lovely. And a new era presented itself. Here are two short lessons that came during the week that my computer died (and have nothing to do with technology):

1) As it turns out, no challenge is insurmountable. Challenges only appear insurmountable when given too little time. They seem insurmountable when the choice is to stop. Stopping is a valid choice. In fact, stopping is to make the choice for a new challenge. Resting is a valid choice, too. I learned that I’ve been on a thirteen-year pilgrimage back to Bali. What I thought was a lost cause was really a long walk with a few rest breaks. A great teacher has been waiting for me. He asked me to return and break bread with him.

2) These past several months of wandering have been extraordinary in the invisible helping hands that have opened doors, lighted my path, and provided support, guidance and dear friendship. All of my life I thought that when the helping hands appeared, they illuminated a single path. It turns out that is not true at all. They help. They support. They guide. Within their guidance there are many choices to make. There are many possible paths. In this way, destiny or fate has many faces. It is both random and predetermined. Energy can take many forms. Choice is always available. As a wise person once wrote: there are many paths up the same mountain. What is important is to keep walking.

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

Take Them With You

Posted on May 12, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Take A Big Step

Posted on May 11, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ask Why

Posted on May 10, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Come Home

Posted on May 9, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

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

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

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

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

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

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