My new work challenges me to rethink and rethink my thoughts on work, creativity, and our blog. I am in a new industry, working with new types of information and thinking less about creativity and effectiveness. Now, I spend more time figuring out how I will understand how a team I lead helps people succeed with some software.  I don’t find my end-users business creative or passion-rousing. But what if that’s the point? What if the end-product/end-user is not what matters, but instead our role in showing up for that person?  My mom would tell me that if I didn’t do well in school, I could find myself flipping burgers at George Webb’s. Sometimes, it’s easy to feel like the work I do now is nothing more than flipping burgers. I am sure you feel the same way from time to time. I counter that feeling by taking a step back and saying: It’s not about flipping burgers. It’s about showing up and being the best burger flipper because someone depends on me to make their day - they care.  Who cares about how you show up to work? And, are you showing up to be the best in the world for that person?

What if every decision we ever made was really just one small test that’s part of a larger experiment? And how might we use that question to approach life better?I recently learned that I become hyper-focused. I probably already knew this, but I accepted it about myself earlier this week. When I become extreme in my focus, I lose sight of my other work. I asked myself a few questions to help me focus but not lose sight of work:Why does increasing my focus in one area cause me to fail in others?What if I could what I learn from overextending myself and revise that approach? How might I do that?And, in this failure, what did I do right?Think back to your last “bad decision,” and revisit that decision through the curious lens of the questions I wrote down.  What did you discover?

The problem with having lots of ideas is figuring out what to do with them. That’s why I am struggling at work.

In music, we say that silence between the notes gives the piece a chance to breathe. And in that space—i argue—is art. In visual arts they call that negative space.

I struggle with creating more negative space in my head and on paper. Lots of ideas, lots of ways to connect ideas, and not enough negative space.

Would you like to better at building something from nothing?Creatives are often misdiagnosed as people who seem to have endless ideas - they come out of thin air. But I argue that creativity is quite the opposite.  To be creative, you must look at what’s around you for inspiration - you make something from “already.”  If you’re a musician, you use the available notes on your instrument combined with the music.If you’re a carpenter, it’s a piece of wood.If you’re a parent, it’s your children’s interests.Our neighbor brought us shrimp last night. We didn’t eat it. Instead, I decided to fry it up with butter and garlic to serve over eggs. As I was thinking about how it might taste, I noticed I had chipotle seasoning in the cupboard.  What if I added chipotle seasoning to the shrimp and garlic?Get better at making shrimp and eggs by noticing your spice cabinet a bit more. And get better at being creative by learning to stop, notice, take from what’s around you, and then start imagining what might be better.

Have you ever wondered what it’s like to live with bipolar disorder?  

I was describing the feeling to a friend of mine the other day.  

• It can feel like an intense desire to do more and believe yourself capable of doing everything.
• It can feel like extreme focus - where even the slightest disturbance becomes a universal problem.
• It can feel out-of-body - having a war of thoughts inside your head, but totally blank outside.

I lost the rest of the thought for this blog post… it’s gone. There’s someone in the other room speaking - it’s consuming my thoughts.  

In March, I will be music directing the music, Cinderella, for the University of Wisconsin-Parkside theater department. Today, while learning the show, I realized a few things.To learn a musical:Start by playing what you can and make all the mistakes possible.Take a step back and learn every singer’s part note-by-note. Think about the story they are trying to tell and why.Re-play your part, but this time play it slowly and tap into what the singers are trying to communicate.Play your part again at the correct tempo.The other day I wrote about playing the gig; here’s another way to think about doing life better.Start by making mistakes: asking questions, learning, failing, getting up, and doing it again.Take a step back - listen, see who’s in the room, try to understand where they’re going and how you help them.Try again, this time mindful of the space you hold, your role, and what you’re all trying to do.Wash, rinse, and repeat.It’s a different kind of Cinderella story, but it works.

I chose to spend New Year’s Eve doing nothing - zip, zilch, nada. And I loved it! Honestly, I could not recommend the experience of doing nothing enough. I love the rush of ideas that come into my head when I hit that bored state. I get new ideas about what to do in the next minutes, days, weeks, months, and years. And, I get to write those ideas down to make room for new ideas. I imagine many people move into new stages of life with hopes and dreams - read expectations. I am trying to start a new year with nothing but questions and ideas.

If you’re called to play a blues gig, your bandleader is not looking for you to sound like Bach. And if you’re hired to do a job at a company, your employer is looking for you to show up and be what they need you to be.  “Authenticity” is knowing how and when to be what the people you serve need you to be.  Last week, I realized that I am a bull in a china shop - most times. My personality tends to command a room, influence the band, and bring others into an experience I am trying to create. The people I serve don’t always need that from me. Does that mean you have to change who you are?  The working musician knows lots of music styles–if they didn’t, nobody would hire them. For any given performance, the musician needs to switch from one genre to another fluidly and effortlessly. Changing how you play doesn’t change who you are–you are only changing how you play the gig. Life is no different.To learn a new style, ask these questions:How are my peers showing up?How do they respond in meetings?How do they do the work they do?Think outside of work, maybe you’re traveling:How do people sit down to eat?How do they eat their food?How do they greet others who are in authority or older?Getting better at playing the gig is learning how to show up, listen, and contribute. Life is no different.

Write a letter to yourself and date the letter: December 31, 2021. In the letter, describe the following:Accomplishments big and small;Failures and how you learned from them;Relationship with yourself and how it developed;Relationships with others and how you improved them; andWhat you hope tomorrow brings.Close the letter with a parting thought to yourself. Read that letter to yourself once a month.  Don’t look for reasons why you should do it. Start it. See what happens.

If you want to learn to play rock, start by listening to the blues because the blues musicians influenced rock-and-rollers. If you’re going to learn the blues, listen to slave songs and spirituals because that music gave birth to what we know as the blues. No matter what you do in music, there will always be a fundamental starting point - a source of truth from which to grow. Curating a “books to read” list of 384 titles spanning 60 topics was no different. I read a lot of Seth Godin’s work. His books often contain citations or endnotes for further reading - his influences. I then begin researching the people who influenced Seth, and then the people who influenced them, and I keep going until I arrive at the fundamental. I do that process for many of the authors I read.  So why does any of this matter? Because of exploration. Because I get to choose how and who to explore next. I may not get to everything on the list, and that’s okay. Achievement is not finishing the list; it’s hoping that the list never stops growing.  If you want to see the list, go here.