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The Beginning In The End

The year's end affords rebirth.
Many people pooh-pooh New Year's Resolutions, but that's because so many resolutions are hopes and dreams — not true decisions.

(This morning, I wrote the subscribers to my irregular newsletter, Three Ideas To Spark Your Creativity. If you want that, sign up here. The following is one of the topics I mentioned to them.)

So Let's Make A Decision.
During the past 60 days, I've asked 100+ people who run businesses: "What's is the biggest decision you need to make before the end of the year? Write it down. Now, write down the next step toward making that decision. And note by when you will take that step."

Writing this is essential. Writing doesn't make the decision. But it's funny what happens when we write it down. On paper, a big decision looks real — and more digestible.

What is the most important decision facing you?
Write it down. (Feel free to send it to me.)

Do this now. It won't take more than 10 minutes. And if not now, when?  

Here's my biggest year end decision.
How will I spend my time? If that sounds vague, click the chart on the right.

I'm sorting and assessing my activities. I'm a juggler, so I think of my activities as balls I'm juggling.

As the year proceeds, some of the balls get heavier. Some feel smoother in my hand and look more graceful in the air. Some are turning a golden hue.

Which ones might I put down in the coming year?

(And what balls might I want to pick up for the first time?)

Pardon me, what about your balls?

Let us (re)start with "Why?"

A month on the road has forced some introspection. (The travel experiences were excellent. More to come. Soon.)

Now it's your turn.
Perhaps you have already seen this video from Simon Sinek? It is a great place to start. 

After viewing the video, ask yourself, "Why am I doing what I am doing?"

If you truly want to lead, you need to know the answer to this question. You need to know why.

During the past several months, I've had deep conversations with more than 100 entrepreneurs. I'm hearing why, but I'm not sure all of them have articulated — specifically, on paper — why they are doing what they are doing.

This is clear: it's not the money.
As Sinek warns, it's not the money; that's a result. (A happy result, to be sure.)

Why is a deeper, more meaningful belief. The Why is found here: "What do I believe that drives what I am doing?"

Give it a go. Right now.
Please take ten minutes to write it down.

Then look at it tomorrow. If it doesn't quite capture what your belief — your underlying belief that drives you — revise it.  

And look at it every day. 
And revise it when you can better articulate your belief — or when you find your belief evolving.

Here's To The Graduates

It's been one of the most emotional weeks of my life, as I described here.

An anchoring moment, the chance to catch my breath in service to others, came at Village Academy, a lovely gem of a independent school. They were nice enough to invite me to deliver this year's commencement address and being there was a chance for me to relax and recenter myself.

This might sound odd to you.
Many people would be made more anxious to have to write and deliver a speech. 

For me, especially during an emotional week, is was a welcome moment of flow. Surfers surf — and that looks scary to me, but they are focused and reinvigorated. Speaking is my surfing.

Here's what I said to the graduates.
A disclaimer, first: it borrows heavily from and expands on a commencement address I gave two years ago to Laurel School.  I did what I could to improve the presentation. I customized it for this wonderful school. But I couldn't imagine a better topic for the day. 

Perhaps it is the right topic for you, too, today?

Here it is...

In Praise of Speed Bumps
(or "A Summer Breath") 

Presented to Village Academy
At the Fifteenth Commencement Exercises
Thursday, June 9, 2011
Powell, Ohio 

Thank you, Board President Dymerski, Head of School Lasley (Miss Susie), Mr. Fitchko, Miss Hohe, members of the board of trustees, esteemed faculty, proud parents, loving siblings, grandparents, aunts and uncles. 

And to the class of 2011, thank you.

You have been mutually supportive in a real community of genuine people, indulging each other with encouragement, using your power for good. You are a model for other classes to follow. And they will. 

I don't know how your tradition describes heaven.
Perhaps it is white robes, halos and carpeting made of clouds.  

My tradition is vague on the notion. I kind of think that it is a place of learning, where fabulous people encourage each other. Village Academy might be heaven. I hope you're happy.  

Carry Forth! (New and Improved)

Here is one of many enjoyably motivating comments from this spring's Personal Creativity and Innovation class at The Ohio State University's Fisher College of Business:

"Creativity doesn't seem so creative."

The student said it politely and humbly, but it shook me. He was pointing out that there is so much rigor and discipline — morning pages! artist's dates! deadlines! — that the class was more like a hard-wired recipe than, well, some experience in grooviness.

I know that students enroll in the class expecting grooviness. Oh, they get grooved, as they re-groove their lives. And, in the end, it might be groovy. But it doesn't feel groovy.

Attention! Tension
You see, your creativity is groovy, but it doesn't just happen when you need it.

If you want to rely on your creativity, you're going to need to plan for creativity.

So while creativity is groovy, creative planning is downright military. 

A Stinnett Incursion
Motivated by the student's comment, I invited A.J. Stinnett, long-time corporate consultant, to visit our class. 

About eight years ago, A.J. marched into my life and taught me how planning — real planning — happens. It's straightforward: the What-How-Who-When orientation.

But straightforward isn't always natural. A.J. trained it into me. 

And I am at my most effective when I put A.J.'s mentality to work.

So A.J. came to class and directed the students — staring at them, in that military way that dares you to question authority.

And I went home and completely re-worked Carry Forth, the do-it-yourself personal creativity planning tool. And I added a two-page set of instructions on The Creative Planning Process by A.J. and me.

You Want To See It?
The new big version — and the old little version — are now in my Artie Isaac Creativity website. Right here.

For you. For free.

Maybe it's time for a little creative planning for you. What is your creative adventure this summer?

Questions We Must Ask Ourselves

Oh, you don't have to ask yourself any questions, I suppose.

But there are some questions — the biggest ones — that the world won't ask you. You are left to ask yourself these questions. Or they might just go unanswered.

I'm going to ask these questions of a lot of people.
You can leave your answers as a comment here. (Menacing legal note: by leaving a comment here, you permit me to include your words, with attribution, in any eventual publication.)

Then, I'm going to write a book to encourage more asking.

For now, here's a page you can carry into the woods or post in your cubicle.

The title question — "What is the greatest thing in the world?" — was a first-day-of-class ice-breaker annually asked by John Detrick, my high school geometry teacher. He just wanted to get to know the students and was usually surprised that the question had not been previously considered.
 

 

 

Skin Deep

A student recently asked why I discourage tattoos.

Every semester, it slips out: I emphatically discourage everyone from getting tattoos.

"If you don't have one, don't get one. If you already have one or more, don't get another."

It's An Unpopular Recommendation.
"Unpopular" because tattoos are popular. I know. I've been to a water park.

I guess that half of my college students already have a tattoo. It's a don't ask / don't look situation.

It's Your Skin.
What you do with your skin is none of my business. I might inadvertently glimpse it. But you have to live in it.

So do what you want.

We Might Disagree.
If you are friend who is painted, I still like you. I still can see you through the ink.   

You chose to be painted. If the ink is visible to others, you also chose to be an advocate for tattooing. You might not want to be an advocate for tattooing, but — because you are wonderful and your tattoos are visible — you are automatically a Role Model For Tattooing.

I disagree with you on tattooing. I'm an advocate for not getting a tattoo. But the absence of a tattoo doesn't make me a visible role model.

So I have to write about it.

I hope that doesn't make you angry at me. We're both self-righteous, which is not a bad quality, in moderation.

Before You Paint Yourself
Before you get a tattoo, here are the reasons I'm not getting tattooed.

Try on these thoughts for yourself. Do they fit?

Each takes just a minute to consider — an intelligent step before making an indelible decision:

1. I don't have the time. It's must take more than 20 minutes. I always have something better to do. When I have nothing better to do than get a tattoo, either my imagination or my ambition has failed. 

2. I don't have the money. A good, clean tattoo must cost more than $200. If I had $200 to spend right now, I'd go to the bookstore or the bakery. And there's a million charities that could use my $200. I always have something better to do with $200.

3. I am a role model, however unlikely and unworthy. I don't want to make tattoos popular by joining the tattoo squad. It's like fur. Wearing one encourages others to buy them (which fires up the supply chain). Plus I'm already shilling for other conspiracies: marriage, higher education, blood donation, arts. I'd rather influence you to do something else. 

4. I am not someone else's canvas. I am my own canvas. 

5. I want to be philosophically nimble. Things change. I want to be able to change my mind about as many things as possible. I'm still growing. I can't even think of any jokes that have remained consistently funny. I don't want a tattoo that can't evolve with my sense of humor. (And I don't want to have to remove a tattoo to change my mind.)

6. I don't need a tattoo to make me look different. I already have a big nose, bushy eyebrows and glasses. (No, the nose doesn't come off with the glasses.) When I need more weird, I wear a bow tie.   

7. I already have a mouth. I don't need a tattoo to speak for me. I speak for myself. I don't want my first statement in every conversation to be printed and immutable.

8. My skin is already interesting. It's not as clear as it could be. But it's interesting as it is. It's oddly green.

9. Self-mutilation usually fails. I know when I chew my fingers, I think, "Hey, if I chew that off, everything will look better." Then it bleeds. I'm better off leaving things as they are.  

10. Shirts work. I already have tee shirts with hip (and dumb) words and images on them. If I want to amplify my hip (or dumb), I can put on the right (or wrong) tee shirt.

11. Indelible actions require long-term perspective. "Long term" isn't 30 years; it's three. How much have I learned during the past three years? A lot. I have no idea how differently I'll see the world three years from now. For now, I'd like to keep my ignorance temporary.

12. There is a big difference between I can do it and I should do it.

13. Too many people have told me they regret getting a tattoo. Then they sheepishly explain why it was a good idea at the time. It's an easily avoidable potential regret.

14. I believe in learning. I'm going to know something tomorrow that I didn't know today. If not, who needs tomorrow? Learning something tomorrow usually means recognizing that, hey, I don't know everything today. Because I don't know all that I don't know, I'm not confident to ink anything I think I know on my skin. 

15. Blood diseases. This is a big one. The Red Cross sometimes prohibits folks from donating blood if they have recently gotten a tattoo. Or the blood donation is permitted, but the donated blood is discarded after failing a laboratory test. Tattoos become an ethical issue when they prevent the saving of lives.

16. I can always do it later. It's hard to undo. And if it's really a great idea, I can do it tomorrow. In this case, procrastination works.

I sound old-fashioned and stuck in the mud. But I prefer that to how it sounds when someone explains why he got a tattoo. That often sounds short-sighted and drunken. 

My Father Would Have Argued Thusly
Getting a tattoo is a question of balancing risks, which is clouded by our relative youth. (If you are ten years older than I am and want a tattoo, go for it. What the hell; smoke a joint.)

When I was 16 and a new driver, my father explained why my automobile driver's insurance cost more than his. To bolster his argument he introduced me to the early 19th century essayist, William Hazlitt. This is one of the joys of being raised by an English major.

Hazlitt's On the Feeling of Immortality in Youth begins: "No young man believes he shall ever die." 

Hazlitt's essay should be required reading at every tattoo parlor.

Want to meet to discuss your current (or next) creative adventure?

How are you strengthening your creativity?

Is it worth study, work, investment?

Many of you have asked, "May I take your creativity class?"

Until now, the frustrating answer has been, "No." The room is full and Ohio State doesn't allow unregistered auditors.

But now the answer is "Yes."
Because — now — here's a creativity class for you.

Based on the sold-out success of last October's Creativity In Your Life, co-presented with my friends at The Columbus Museum of Art, here is a program that meets three times during the next six months. The goal: establish, maintain, and build your momentum toward a creative goal.

Here are the details:

Creativity In Your Life
open to the public
Sundays, February 6, May 15 and August 14, 2011
in the Center for Creativity
at the Columbus Museum of Art

Click here to register for Series One to attend all three Sundays between 1:30 p.m. and 3 p.m.

...or, for the same thing at a different time of day...

Click here to register for Series Two to attend all three Sundays between 3:30 p.m. and 5 p.m.

Featuring communal brainstorming on your creative plan: helping you determine your creative goal and pursue its accomplishment. We'll work in a group of not more than 30 like-minded people, each on his or her own creative adventure.

Sounds good?

Come along. I look forward to working with you.

Toward A Creative New Year, part 3

Sometimes people shrug and say, "I'm not creative."

And I say, "Really? How hard are you trying?"

So, how hard are you trying?
You already know the next two questions.

First, have you identified a creative goal? Have you spent even ten minutes reflecting on what you would like to achieve?

Second, are you making time, by making hard choices about how you pass your time?

Now, third, are you putting some skin in the game?

3. Invest In The Goal
In years past, I touted the idea of dedicating a 90-Day Self-Education Budget.

So what's your budget for supporting your creative development during the next twelve months. You already know — perhaps from painful personal experience — the idea of tuition. You pay for education.

This is like that. You want to grow? Lay out some tuition. What for?

• Books. What can you find at Barnes & Noble to help you grow?
• Teachers. Who is the person who can show you how? What can you learn for the price of a lunch?
• Materials. You'll need the basic materials. You can't say, "I can't draw," if you haven't even bought a pencil and a pad of paper.

After the first two steps, this one seems obvious. But I see people all the time invest nothing — no money — in their personal growth. And then they wonder why they are creatively starving.

It's no wonder. It's a self-inflicted hunger fast.

Feed your creativity.
Divert toward creativity some of that money you easily spend on comfort.

Money spent on your creativity is not self-aggrandizing or extravagant. It's humanity's best bet on your highest productivity. Which is good for everyone. Because you just might change the world.

Are you trying? No? Then you aren't trying.

Toward A Creative New Year, part 2

I've had some trouble finding time to write this. That's as it should be. Time's hard to come by these days.

But we must find time for the second of three ideas for making 2011 the most creative year possible. (Earlier, we looked at the first step in planning a creative year, defining a creative goal.)

Before reading on, you may help yourself to a two-page worksheet I've just developed to help you approach new creative challenges. I keep this worksheet for your free use at CarryForth.com.

Today: making time.

2. Make time.
Several years ago, I heard Jim Collins, the author of Good To Great and Built To Last, present on his research to a large audience in Cleveland. As an aside, he asked the group, “How many of you have a To Do List?” Nearly all 2,000 raised their hands. “Of course,” he said. “You are highly functional people, and you have a list of tasks you plan to accomplish.”

He quickly followed with what, for me, was a stunning question. “How many of you have a Stop Doing List? That is a list of activities, behaviors, or routine tasks that you fully intend to stop doing.” We can't, after all, continue to add new pursuits and experiences to our busy lives without retiring old pursuits. 

My Stop Doing List
On my three-hour drive home, I assembled my Stop Doing List. It was easy to come up with four or five items that I could fully promise to stop doing. One of them for example, was Quicken. I had for years used this wonderful personal finance software to keep track of my spending and investing. It had been helpful: illuminating self-destructive mindlessness of the wallet. But was it worth continuing? No.

So I never again used Quicken for personal finance. (I do continue to use QuickBooks for business accounting.) And, in fact, I stopped balancing my checkbook all together. This might seem irresponsible. Indeed it is. But in 35 years as a banking customer, at several banks, no bank has ever made a mistake. So why spend 30 minutes a month in a futile, painstaking pursuit?

I do have a dim memory of a bank error. Back in the days before computers, when there was a truck fire in New Haven, a check of mine had reportedly gone up in flames during processing. It was for $50. Is that a reason to balance my checkbook for the rest of my life? (No.)

What's The Hardest Part?
I had to recognize that some of my current activities, practices to which I was devoting meaningful time, were no longer worthwhile. Humbled, I rationalized these habits: perhaps these behaviors were functional in the past — helping me grow to where I am — but are no longer the behaviors that will help me grow from here.  

Stop Doing So Well List
Since hearing Dr. Collins encourage each of us to develop a Stop Doing List, I've come up with a companion list: Stop Doing So Well List.

The Stop Doing So Well List is a list of activities, behaviors, or routine tasks that you fully intend to stop doing so well. An example: a neighbor cuts her lawn diagonally — and then cuts it again at a 90° angle. The result is a beautiful pattern, like you might enjoy at Wrigley Field. I'm not the arbiter of her use of time, but she can surely choose to recover several hours each summer by not cutting her grass so well. (Moreover, I've found that I can cut my grass half as often as my neighbors — maybe twice, or even once, a month — and no one notices or cares. It stops growing and sort of flops over after a while.)

Starting Your List
What is on your Stop Doing List? What is on your Stop Doing So Well List?

If it's not placed on your Stop Doing List, surely watching television can fit on your Stop Doing So Well List. Most television watchers could choose to watch television less well. They could redefine "competence" as something other than watching others achieve.

Who Has Time?
Some years ago, I retired from teaching Sunday School. It had been a great experience and the students had been gracious and appreciative.

So were the parents. At a meeting of the synagogue education committee, a parent bemoaned that I was not going to teach her child the following year. She said, "We need someone like you who has the time to do this."

Excuse me? Someone "like [me] who has the time to do this"? Whatever does that mean?

I don't have any more time than anyone else. I just chose to invest some of it teaching children. And to make that choice, I chose to stop doing other things (and stop doing some things so well). Most people could do that.

It's an economic choice: the juggling of scarce resources.

Find time to make time. Make time to have a fully creative 2011.

How To Memorize — And Why

Last week, I finally passed a substantial memorization test.

Since 2008, I've been in five theatrical productions. Each one required me to learn lines.

Memorization Has Never Come Easily.
I'm not a natural memorizer. I prefer to wing it, relying on wit and improvisation.

So, I failed to fully memorize my lines for the first four plays. There were moments of stage panic, the blood chilling fear of falling out of character. During the best moments, I was acting, but was never free enough — from The Fear — to truly be the character. Not good enough.

But last week during ConAm's XMAS, I had my lines. They came to me, reliably, without undue anxiety. I was able to play the role, enjoyably for me and the audience. What was different this time?

I knew my lines. I had memorized them. Not cold, but darn near completely.

That let me act, rather than recite. It was a lot more fun.

I Believe In Memorization.
During the past decade or so, we — as a nation seeking to educate its people — rejected rote memorization. Memorization became the sign of an education producing doers rather than thinkers: factory workers and masons rather than engineers and architects.

And what, pray tell, is ignoble about working in a factory or a trade? Why would we ignorantly disregard the skills and efforts that built — and are needed to sustain — this country? Why would we disdain the hands that sew and hew for us? O, short-sighted, comfort-seeking countryman, learn to fix thy own commode!

Now, when everything is on the Interwebs, we don't need to remember anything — except where we put that damn cell phone. Because, once the beloved cell phone is found, our facts are at hand, a mere Google away.

But memorization is a fundamental exercise of the brain. It is the bench press of mental fitness training. It helps the brain stay pliable and plastic — and neuroplasticity matters. We memorize, not only to remember a fact or song, but also to have stronger memory muscle.

I'm going to get my next creativity class to team memorize a poem, each student taking one stanza of Robert Browning's beautiful Rabbi Ben Ezra. ("Grow old along with me! / The best is yet to be,....")

How To Memorize
A year ago, I wrote about memorizing. I wrote about it, rather than spending the time actually memorizing my lines. (That's a sign that I wasn't going to be ready. And writing about memorization is not memorizing. It's like porno, a poor substitute for the real thing.)

Anyway, I used new methods this year and they really worked. Actually, they are old methods, with some technology thrown in. Here's what I did.

I followed the effective suggestions of four memorable teachers from Available Light Theatre: Matt Slaybaugh, Ian Short, Eleni Papaleonardos and Acacia Duncan. Here are their suggestions:

1. One line at a time. Repeat a line aloud 100 times without acting. Just chant it with a variety of inflection and with no inflection. Over and over again. It quickly becomes muscle memory. After repeating the line so many times, there really is no other way — no other words in no other order —  those words could come out. After mastering a line, add a second line. And the next. Onward. This seems slow and painstaking, but it works wonderfully and — objectively — you only have so many lines and each of them needs to be memorized. One at at time makes sense.
2. Listen to the play. Record the entire play — swiftly again without much inflection — and listen to it over and over again. (I use Garage Band on my Macintosh, then burn it to a CD.) Speak or whisper along with the recording. It's great while driving. This teaches the flow of the narrative, the order of scenes, the logic of the structure. Again: over and over.
3. Learn your cues. Record a different version of the play: just the others' lines. Leave the right amount of silence between for your lines — so you can say your lines as you listen to the recording. Practice it over and over and you will master your cues.
4. Don't lose your voice. I need to hear my mouth forming the words but, if I am too nervous about the memorization, my neck will be tight and my voice strained. And I will lose my voice during the memorization. How terrible: to know the lines, but not be able to say them! Separate memorization from acting.
5. Take breaks. It's too dull to keep at it endlessly. Take a break every half hour.
6. Review all lines every morning and every afternoon. Even after you know the lines and are off-book. Even on the days of performances.

Sound like drugery? Poor baby. Want to know your lines?

You'll know you have them memorized when you can go about your day — taking a shower, folding laundry — reciting your lines.

Which reminds me of a joke.

An aspiring actor humbly peeks into the door of a theatre agent's shabby office on Broadway.

The agent is on the phone, saying "Yeah.... Yeah.... Yeah.... Hang on a minute." He looks at the actor and barks, "Say: 'Hark! Is that a cannon's roar I hear?'"

The actor screws up his best dramatic face and deeply intones, "Hark! Is that a cannon's roar I hear?"

"Great," says the agent. Then, into the phone, "Yeah, I got a guy for that. Sure. He's on his way." He hangs up the phone. "O.K., kid. this is your lucky day. You're hired," says his agent. "Go to Grand Central. Take the first train on the New Haven Rail Line. Get off at Stamford. A car will be waiting for you at the station. You're going to the dinner theatre there. An actor just fell sick. You have one line: 'Hark! Is that a cannon's roar I hear?' Got it? Good. Go."

Rushing to Grand Central, the actor prepares for his moment on stage: "Hark! Is that a cannon's roar I hear?" He hustles to the train, "Hark! Is that a cannon's roar I hear?" All the way on the train, "Hark! Is that a cannon's roar I hear?... Hark! Is that a cannon's roar I hear?... Hark! Is that a cannon's roar I hear?"

He bounds off the train at Stamford and a cab driver says, "You the actor?" 

He replies: "Hark! Is that a cannon's roar I hear?"

"Get in," says the driver. "We ain't got a moment to lose."

They careen to the theatre and screech to a stop on the gravel drive at the stage entrance. "Hark! Is that a cannon's roar I hear?... Hark! Is that a cannon's roar I hear?..."

He rushes into the door where the stage manager says, "Who are you?"

"Hark! Is that a cannon's roar I hear?"

"Great," says the stage manager. "Just in time." And shoves the actor through the curtain.

As the actor lands on the stage: FLASH! BOOM!

"What the hell was that?"

Which reminds me of a true story.
The day before the off-book rehearsal — when everything is to be memorized and the scripts are no longer used on stage by the actors — I asked Matt Slaybaugh, the director: "Do any actors really know their lines at off-book?"

"Some do," he said. "Do you know what we call them?"

"What?"

"The good ones."

Learn your lines.