Starting a new job requires you to adopt the posture of a child. You don’t know what you don’t know - someone needs to guide you. But imagine how daunting it must be for the person that starts a new job, in a new industry, from home, and with limited guidance. I can imagine for that person, it’s near frightening. And I can imagine that we are in that situation more than care to be - 2021, what will it hold? Who will guide us through it? Will we see our families? Will a vaccine help or hurt? I challenge you that the angst and discomfort ought to be embraced. Let’s embrace uncertainty, ambiguity, and what-ifs. Because if we do, we’ll have direction. Because embracing the unknown is stepping into - towards - possibility. Being in the posture of possibility is being endlessly curious. The question, “What will 2021 bring us?” turns into, “What will I do in January?” Then as January nears its end. you’ll ask, “what will I do in February?” And before you know it, your curiosity will have taken you through the entire year - time to start thinking about 2022. If you are feeling stuck, be curious about what’s immediately in front of you. Step towards it, and then step again.

I believe anybody can be creative. Like learning an instrument, it requires practice and dedication. How to become more creative?  Stop. Observe what you automatically do and think at that moment. Then ask why.  You’re at a stoplight, the car in front of you takes forever to turn - you get frusted. Why? Why did you get frustrated?  Was it the car moving slowly? Was it thinking that the driver should be more decisive? Was it that you’re running late?  Why ask why?  Because asking why makes you think about intent, and if you think about intent, you can then ask the most powerful question in creative thought - how.  How could a driver feel more secure in deciding to turn right?How could drivers make turns at faster speeds?How can I get to where I need to go faster?And if you ask how, you then get to ask - what if.  The process of becoming creative is not for artists. It’s for everyone - and it starts with stopping, listening, and being fearless enough to ask questions.

Does it anger you when you see progress stopped? When you see someone about to do something significant for others only to be stopped by a leader who says, “but before you do that, we need to set some rules.“That angers me. And it’s not the leader interfering that angers me - it’s the interference. And I anger because I care.Anger is for showing care. It’s for showing the world that what frustrates us – matters to us. It’s for communicating to others, “hey, can this matter to you too?“But, like foresight, anger stops becoming useful when it becomes excessive. Care. But care just enough.

Angst for what happens next, excitement for the new job, concern for a loved one, or fear of the unknown are all forms of hope. And hope piques curiosity, that pulls us into possibility and exploration. Hope offers us the opportunity to decide who we will become, who we will serve, and determine what matters.For all its good, hope does not predict the future. It does not make our fears real, our angst into anxiety, and nor does it turn our dreams into reality.  Like custard, hope is best in moderation.

I decided to do something pointless today - catalog my to-read list. The list goes back to 2018, and I have counted up to April of 2019. There are 247 titles on the list.  A few interesting trends:I add titles when seasons change - March, April, May, October, November, and December. April and November receive the most additions.I have read 11% of the list, and I plan to finish some more books this year.I am most interested in books about Personal Development (12.6%), People (11.7%), Marketing (12.6%), and Leadership (8.9%).I’m hoping to finish cataloging the list soon. When I do, I’ll share another trend that you might pick up on if you’re a faithful reader of the blog. If not, stay tuned for a revelation.

If I send you a message, and you think it’s funny, you might reply to my message with “LOL.” LOL means “laugh out loud,” and it is your signal to me that what I sent you caused you to laugh. The other day I received a message from my sister - she lives in the room adjacent to mine. She sent me a text with the words, LOL, but I could not hear her laugh. So what was LOL for? LOL is for nuance. In a world where we text heavily to one another, LOL and emojis are our ways to create nuance in our messages. To show our fun side. Or perhaps to signal that the black and white text isn’t just black and white. If it’s a signal, who is the signal for? An argument could be made that we add “LOL” and other nuance to our message for the reader’s benefit. But I don’t think it’s for the reader - it’s for the sender.And if you’re curious what I mean by that, the next time you use LOL, stop for a moment. Were you laughing before you sent it? If you were silent, then why show someone that you were not? Who is the LOL for?

The other day I played music with a band I’m privileged to play in. Each band member comes from a different school of music - one was a House DJ, another a jazz musician, someone else was a school music teacher. The lead singer is a saxophonist that runs an auto body. Nobody is the same - everybody is different. At this rehearsal, we were helping the singer write new material. The singer said, “I this is more ‘Huey Lewis & the News’.” Right away, we each started thinking of what that means to us. Then we all started throwing out ideas. Seconds went by before each member began to throw out new ideas. Then we immediately built on each other’s ideas. After two minutes, we had created the shell of a four and a half minute song. How many ideas did we go through in that time? Too many to count. Did we get defensive about one person’s idea not being good enough? No, because we were not sharing ideas to make our ideas stand out above the rest. We shared ideas to help make our collective work better. Musicians, and other artists, have a unique way of making things better by making better things through iteration and collaboration. I never realized how valuable these skills were until I began working with non-musicians. I now appreciate every lesson I ever had and every teacher who pushed me to try something different. And more, I appreciate every musician who has ever said - we can make this better together.

Imagine a factory with a conveyor belt system, and ideas are moving about. In my head - now - the conveyor belts are stopped and empty. The only words that come to mind are the words that I write to you now. The only thoughts that creep in are the thoughts that produce the words.The only idea to communicate is the idea that produces these thoughts.A blank mind is a free mind. Free to explore, question, learn, and create. Brain alive now.

Italian Futurist, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, published a cookbook in 1930 called, The Futurist Cookbook. In it, he offers a recipe for Raw Meat Torn by Trumpet Blasts.  “RAW MEAT TORN BY TRUMPET BLASTS: cut a perfect cube of beef. Pass an electric current through it, then marinate it for twenty-four hours in a mixture of rum, cognac and white vermouth. Remove it from the mixture and serve on a bed of red pepper, black pepper and snow. Each mouthful is to be chewed carefully for one minute, and each mouthful is divided from the next by vehement blasts on the trumpet blown by the eater himself.” - Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, The Futurist CookbookFor Marinetti, and those like him, the trumpet blasted raw meat dish provided the diner sustenance, art, and mind-opening experiences. For those not like Marinetti, it is absurd.  The value of absurdity is the value of creativity - connecting ideas to make something better for someone who cares. And more than that, realizing that your work is not for everyone. What you do is for someone specific.  Next time you see an idea that’s totally out there, give it a second thought. Ponder who it might be for and why they might care about it. Build your empathy.If you would like to read more about Marinetti’s war on pasta, go here.

Each morning, I make an effort to read from a book and review blogs. While reading Austin Kleon’s blog the other day, I fell into the proverbial rabbit hole of discovery about Morning Pages.  I learned about “Morning Pages” to spur creativity, thought leaders, methods to motivate, and I validated that writing every day is an effective use of time.  I would not have learned so much had I not given myself space to be curious, question, and discover.  No matter where you are in life, if you want to grow, take the posture of curiosity, and step into discovery.