Why I am a fool. And you should be too.
When you're in charge of your own destiny means you don't let others dictate what you do. Yes, there are customers to please. Bosses too. Being in charge doesn't mean the money just rolls in. You have to put in those reps as I said last time.
Getting ahead today, whatever your definition may be, requires thinking differently then you did 10 years ago. The old playbook doesn't work. Yet some practices never get old. Like having a high "say/do" ratio. This is something that there is never too much of. Remix with what worked well in the past with the new to forge ahead. Creativity in your work and how you approach your work matters more than ever.
It's in the creative realm I consider myself a fool.
And am not ashamed to do so. In this context, it means I don't take myself too seriously. I take my work seriously. Being the fool avoids hubris. Keeps you humble no matter how successful you become. Trying not to look the fool holds you back. Keeps you from taking risks out of fear of looking stupid. It's in the stupid where the magic lies. The magic of serendipity. The chance connection of dots.
Being the fool allows you to embrace the messiness of creativity. And messy it is. Too polished and packaged is boring. Gloss over substance. To break new ground requires you to step outside of the safe zone. In creativity, safe doesn't have a seat at the table. Or at least shouldn't.
Let's keep safe to how you want to be on a mountain. Or at sea. You want safety where lives are at risk. Lives are (usually) not at risk in the creative process last time I checked.
Being creatively dangerous is something we admire in those willing to take the risks of looking foolish. In hindsight we think they're genius. In the moment, we think they're nuts.
Those that know me probably don't think of me as creatively dangerous. I've played the safe card for many a year. I've done what's expected and what I know will 'sell' to the powers that be. I know how to successfully play by the rules. I know what happens when you don't. Even as I champion creative ideas, none were so far outside the safe zone that they scared people too much. Even then, many ideas were reigned in.
I know I'm not alone. Just off a creative class with Graham Fink, and others in the class talked about how do you sell such work when clients balk at dangerous ideas. Especially when they're paying the bill. I've often believed it takes a good client to do good work. Good work doesn't happen in a vacuum.
Most in the corporate world play it safe. No one wants to take risks. All want to cover ALL of their bases. No surprises. Which is why you get advertising that covers every single point every single time lest someone get left out. Leaving no benefit unturned rules the day in most marketing departments. Yet for the viewer, it's just noise.
Rarely is it the fault of the marketing departments. They're following cultural norms. They're checking boxes and making sure they don't step outside their lane. By taking risks deemed unsafe by the leadership. This is pretty much how corporate life is survived for any length of time. The square pegs get thwarted and booted.
But NOW is different. You have a chance to drive. You have the tools to create your future. What if you created a sandbox in which to test dangerous ideas? What if you ensured the safe 'lights' were kept on. That business as usual was. And found a place to test out your foolish ideas? And showed how business as usual isn't going to cut it. Companies that connect emotionally with their customers win.
I know I make this sound easy. Like anyone can do it. Well, most anyone can. But most won't. The tools don't create the work. You do. The beauty is that so many tools are at YOUR disposal to tap into. What you have is accessibility. What's still required is tenacity. Vision. Reps.
I've been thinking much about this lately as I recall a time pre-internet. When you had to use a library or telephone and phone book to get information. Sharing what you created widely was prohibitively expensive. It took a long time. And work was often blocked by posturing gatekeepers.
You had a zillion legit reasons why you couldn't do something. Or that it wouldn't work. Now you can test and iterate until you find your mark. You own the keys. You can play the fool and create what others haven't.
This is advice I'm internalizing.
Yet despite all of these tools, most all are still caught up in the need to be right and safe. Not dangerous and potentially wrong. It's frankly taken me too long to come to the realization I need to push more. Take more creative risks. Too long to realize my voice. And it's damn exciting what feels possible. How about you? What's stopping you from stepping outside your lane?
Are you distracted from doing your best work?
Is it the deafening noise in your head that's stopping you? A ping or two or eight? I know I'm an article or two away from another rabbit hole. Another visual dive. A design detour. You know, another 'squirrel.'
I've already removed all the notifications on my phone and desktop. No pop-ups, pings or beeps. No Apple Watch to add to potential distractions. Yet I'm still distracted. So many disparate thoughts tumbling around. Like my brain is a rock polisher.
I crave owning my productivity. I want to master doing the work when the work feels hard.
We delay what's hard. Like writing. Just one more bit of research I tell myself. One more query of Google and THEN I'll write. Our brains are hard wired to go to what's easy and comfortable. To seek confirmation we're on the right track.
It's finally saying enough's enough that I picked up Indistractible by Nir Eyal. It's filled with five years of research into why we get distracted and how to take control of it. To become indistractible. One of the things I found interesting was just the idea of calling yourself indistractible much as one may call themselves vegetarian changes behavior. As a vegetarian, eating meat is not what you do. So allowing oneself to be distracted is not what someone who is indistractible does.
Social platforms know how to get us hooked. But we don't have to succumb. And we don't have to banish them. We just need to make them work for us. Rather than us for them. That's what he talks much about. A key part of this is removing the endless notifications that take your focus away.
The four strategies to becoming indistractible are:
- Mastering internal triggers - knowing what distracts you most and easily. Naming it. Acknowledging it.
- Making time for traction - this is the opposite of distraction. This is about time boxing your day. If you don't know how you'll spend your day, it's super easy to get distracted by whatever interrupts you. But if you know how you'll spend your time, you're in much better shape to stay on task
- Hacking back external triggers - This is about managing all of those little automatic notifications on your phone. Even putting your phone out of sight can make a big difference.
- Preventing distractions with pacts. This is about engaging others and putting some skin in the game. Like giving someone $100 if you don't accomplish a goal.
These are the basics. Pick up Nir's book to get the full scoop. He also wrote Hooked, about how to create products that gets people hooked and so he was in a good position to help us get unhooked.
Nir shares the story of Jonathan Franzen, noted author of six novels, to show that even the successful have to go to great lengths to manage distraction. He uses an old Dell laptop for writing in which he's removed all of the apps that can distract, and made sure it can't connect to the internet. He's even gone so far as to super-glue an ethernet cable into the port and whack it off!
Why did I combine thoughts on distraction with creativity? Because the best creativity comes when you're mind has the space to wander. And this is uncomfortable to those who are used to constant inputs. In fact, we'll often pick up our phones when faced with quiet because we're losing the art of thinking. That's why your best thoughts are usually in the shower when you're not near your phone. Either take longer showers or manage distraction to make your work work for you.