Tag Archives: creativity

Thoughts On: Busy Is The New Lazy

by on April 16, 2013 in Quicklinks

The word “busy” is packed with layers of meaning. I see it often used, as the author notes, as a way of communicating importance to the business and elevating professional status. And why not? When economic times are rough and fears of being laid off run rampant, we want some way of reminding the people around us – bosses and executives, in particular – that we’re invaluable and would be sorely missed.

That’s one concept of “busy” in the pejorative sense. But it’s just a word and we have the ability to re-construct its meaning in new ways.

Today, let’s consider new ways of what it means to work and to be truly busy:

  • When we say we’re “busy” what are we trying to communicate?
  • What fears or insecurities does “being busy” mask?
  • Does my sense of busyness include time to also think, reflect, create, wonder, and learn? To make connections with the people around me?

Source: Busy Is The New Lazy

Three Things I Learned In 2012

by on January 4, 2013 in Life

pathway into woodsHow was your 2012? Now that we’re on the 2013 side of things, I find it makes it easier to reflect on the year that was. Personally, 2012 was both hellish and magical. It was a year when I got my ass kicked…A LOT. But it was also when I discovered some important things about myself. About the direction of my life. About what it means to live, love, dream, and fail. Through it all, what I have come to know is that a year in our lives isn’t all bad or all good. It’s a complex and messy mashup of wonder and loss, where each experience offers learning if we choose to accept it.

Throughout December, I started to write down some of the things I learned (or relearned) in 2012. The list was long, but here are some of the highlights:

Find your rock.
I simply do not know what I would have done without my wife, Carrie, last year. When I had my bad days, she was there. And when I had my REALLY bad, curl-up-in-a-ball-in-the-corner days, her strength and presence helped me stand back up. See, we can’t do this thing called Life alone. I discovered a new level of gratitude for her that I may never have known without living through 2012. (I’ll say the same thing about my absolutely wonderful parents, Linda and Dennis.) If you have a similar rock in your life, stop reading and tell them right now how much they mean to you and that you’re glad to have them in your life.

Failing is an act of courage.
I left a well-paying job to start a solo business in 2012. Actually, I started two of them when counting the venture I started with Carrie called BabbleRousers. And neither of them took off. We sunk a huge amount of money into these ventures and the whole process nearly bankrupted the family (Access to Capital is now my new entrepreneurial mantra). And if there’s one thing that I am not able to handle very well, it’s the idea of bankruptcy and losing everything. A couple of times, I was visited by panic attacks where it felt like Jabba the Hutt was lounging on my chest.

It took a few weeks for this struggling perfectionist to start to relearn something important: failing takes guts. There are plenty of really good blogposts that speak to the necessity of failing in order to succeed. I don’t plan on launching any new business ventures anytime soon, but I’m grateful for the experience and wisdom I gained from the process. Namely, learning and failure must co-exist together if we are going to grow into who we were meant to be.

Dare greatly.
Related to failing, is the act of daring. And no one influenced me to dare greatly more than Brené Brown. Her book, Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead was a tough yet welcome read for someone with an undiagnosed vulnerability phobia. Prior to mid-2012, I was doing a bang-up job of extracting as much uncertainty and emotional vulnerability from my life. However, that came with a cost to my creativity, sense of adventure, and desire to leave a powerful legacy. I’m still not where I want to be in terms of living a more daring life…but I’m again moving in the right direction.

What Greatness is ahead…in 2013 and beyond?
It’s a terrific question, isn’t it? It acknowledges that the very best we can achieve is directly in front of us. It offers hope when we feel stuck in neutral or (worse) wondering if we’re traveling down the wrong path.

Here’s the truth: this path each of us are on is exactly where we need to be. If we feel like we’ve taken a wrong turn somewhere in the past, we can take comfort knowing there are no “right” or “wrong” turns. They are just choices we’ve made. Every choice offers an opportunity to embrace the totality of life’s experiences, both good and bad. I’m very grateful for everything I am and have. I know I wouldn’t be where I am right now without encountering the magic and pain of life in 2012.

So, here’s to a 2013 full of inspired thinking, bold action, and personal evolution. I look forward to walking it with you.

The Beauty Of Small Marketing Budgets

by on June 4, 2011 in Marketing

April Dunford published a great post this week on the “beauty of constraints” in small marketing budgets:

Taking the money away often takes away all of the really obvious options. And that’s exactly where the magic happens. So we can’t just spend more to acquire new customers. Now what? Well, we could figure out ways to engage them to send more business our way, we could figure out ways to sell more to the customers we have, we could figure out ways to improve our customer retention. There are always a thousand things you can do with a small budget.

As someone who has spent his marketing career working for nonprofits and small, scrappy startups, I can definitely say I love the challenge of having to do a lot with a little. Necessity truly becomes the mother of invention.

Do yourself a favor and read April’s whole post.

Python Thursdays: In A World Full Of Supermen…

by on May 27, 2010 in Career

…Sometimes it’s the simple things that really differentiate who we are and what we can add to the world.

What our hero, Bicycle Repair Man, shows is that it doesn’t matter if we’re surrounded by awesomely powerful individuals. Our job is to dig down and discover what truly makes each of us unique and what skills we have that we can use in our own distinct way.

So what about you…how do you relate to our hero here?

Why Social Media is Like a Gigantic Refrigerator

by on August 27, 2009 in Social Media

Today, my youngest daughter, Katie, brought home something super-incredible and imaginative she did in art class. She was so proud of her work she practically burst through the front door so she could show me. And indeed, it was something to take pride in.

What did I do with it? Did I bury it under my papers or throw it aside with the bills? Nope. I hung it on the fridge so everyone in the family could admire it. And for Katie, it serves as a visible reminder of her own creative talents.

Isn’t this what social media is…a big whopping refrigerator? Each of us has the ability to create something magnificent and now share with the world. We get to be kids again complete with the same giddy excitement we once got when proudly sharing work.

Now, let’s flip this around a bit. As a company, are you creating a fridge for your customers to post their own proudly created content? Perhaps a video or pictures showing what they made using your product? Or a story about how your service made their day (or work) better? (Nonprofit organizations, you can feel free to ask yourself similar questions.) Imagine how much your customers will feel about your company if you give them a place to show off their best work? If they’re like Katie, they’ll be beaming from ear-to-ear.