All in Creativity
A few years ago, I was at a Van Halen concert - specifically, the David Lee Roth Reunion incarnation. Halfway through the gig, Diamond Dave sat with an acoustic guitar without the band and said to the crowd:
"When I die, I want you to sprinkle my ashes over the 1980's".
When you’re in the midst of it, the power of the herd is almost unavoidable. When it moves in a particular direction, the pull to do the same - to move with it - is relentless.
Aside from its very momentum, there’s a seemingly rational justification as well. All those folks couldn’t possibly be wrong, could they?
So, if I’m honest, I’ll admit that I’d settled into a very managed emotional pattern when it came to how I engaged with football (soccer for you non-English speakers) and specifically my team, Arsenal Football Club.
Arsenal would play their games and I’d watch, but in a very managed, somewhat detached way (most of the time). If we won, that was great and it gave me a nice feeling, but it wouldn’t send me over the moon.
This month's podcasts focuses on the mental aspect of how we work - on the why we get started, how we get caught in ourselves and the mental mindset needed to succeed.
In this episode, I talk about confidence, how it's difficult to gain but easy to lose. I also spell out the key behaviors, thought processes and tactics we should deploy to get it back. Our futures depend on it.
I’ve talked before about how technology has democratized access to the tools that help us create. This is as true in fields traditionally considered to be creative as it is in those that are more commercial. We have options in terms of how we do our work, how sophisticated we want its production to be, and where and when we distribute it.
In 1969, Led Zeppelin released their sophomore album titled Led Zeppelin 2, which is widely regarded as one of the greatest rock albums of all time. A year later, they followed up that album with Led Zeppelin 3, which diverged from the path that their first two albums took. Where as the first two albums were driving rock albums, this one, while it didn’t lack for driving rock songs, dove pretty heavily into the acoustic realm. The album was panned at first but is now regarded among their best.
One of the interesting byproducts of our COVID quarantine has been the amount of art that’s been created during this lockdown. And by art, I don’t just mean painting or music, what we consider to be art in the strict sense (although I do include both of those forms in my definition).
Rather, I’m referring to all forms of expression, any act of creativity, including the culinary arts.
So in recent weeks, I’ve hosted or moderated virtual webinars, panel discussions and happy hours with people all across the world (separate from the countless virtual one-on-ones and small group meetings that have become such a mainstay for us all now).
I approached these events with some trepidation, unsure of the how the back and forth that’s necessary would happen in the virtual world, given the normal back and forth of in-person conversation (versus the sequential nature of videoconference technology) or the pronounced nature of (awkward) silence in such settings, especially ones where not everyone knows each other.
Episode 29 of the podcast is now available. Today’s episode is about the concept of "productive struggle", this idea that our success in life is based on our ability to work through difficult issues and problems without knowing or having the path handed to us.
If you’ve ever committed to learning a song on a musical instrument, you’ll know that there’s a certain amount of struggle that’s involved in the process.
Part of this struggle is knowing the technical details - where do I put my fingers, what chords do I play, what are the timings and how should I think about the phrasings here or there.
Those Marketing folks - what do they do?
Why do we need to hire another marketing person?
Is it really necessary to spend that on Marketing?
You see it time and time again - organizations have this funny relationship and view of Marketing.
We love the mystique that Apple has built around its business and think it’s entirely down to its products.
“If you wish to improve, be content to appear clueless or stupid in extraneous matters." — Epictetus
I’ve been turning this quote over in my head for a long while now, and there’s something about it that resonates incredibly strongly with me.
The trouble is, I can’t quite figure out what.
Is it suggesting that if we are focused on becoming expert in a particular area, we mustn’t be afraid of appearing stupid or unknowledgeable i.e. that we’ve figured everything out already…
Episode 10 of the podcast is now available and this episode kicks off this month's focus on the art of Communication, a subject that's integral to our ability to succeed in just about anything we do.
Episode 7 of the podcast is out now, and in this episode, I close out this month's focus on "Story" and its role in our lives. I talk about how we use stories to define who we are and what we do and how we can begin tell ourselves better stories to change who we are.
Episode 7 of the podcast is now available and, in this episode, I continue this month’s discussion about story and it’s role in our lives. I talk about my first business trip and the book, A Million Miles In A Thousand Years.
If you like podcasts, I wanted to let you know that I’ve relaunched the omerisms podcast - after (more than) a little bit of a hiatus.
I've revamped the style of the podcast and will be speaking about key themes I've discussed over the last three and a half years on this blog. I'll cover older posts in audio form, adding additional commentary where appropriate.
What it boils down to is this: there’s a legitimate fear that if we actually make something, we’ll have to face the true state of our skills and accept how much improvement we still have ahead of us” Chase Jarvis - Creative Calling
This is the hard part about creating - particularly for the very first time, when we’re trying something brand new.
“How people may emotionally connect with music I’ve been involved in is something that part of me is completely mystified by...Human beings are really different, so why would it be that what I do connects in that way? I discovered maybe around (Radiohead’s album) The Bends that the bit I didn’t want to show, the vulnerable bit...that bit was the bit that mattered.” Thom Yorke
The 1,000 true fans of what you do, the ones who will follow you through hell and high water, aren’t there because they expect you to sell them something. They aren’t interested in you because you’re thoroughly researched, or because you’re crafted to the nth degree.
It’s a really weird thing.
In the process of learning something on guitar, specifically when I’m dealing with particularly tricky fingerwork, I’ll hit a point when I just can’t get my fingers moving fast enough, or to the right notes, or with the fluidity and rhythm needed for the song.
It’s that situation when the mind knows what to do, but the body can’t translate. Time after time, I’ll try but I’ll miss this note or I’ll flub that one.
When my kids were very young and they wouldn’t sleep at night by themselves (which was a lot), my wife and I would worry about what we needed to do to get them to sleep a) in their cribs and b) through the night.
As is our way, we’d read articles and we’d read books on the different methods that are out there to ensure your child gets a sound night’s sleep. There was the Weissbluth Method (or leave your child in the room and let them cry themselves to sleep) versus the Ferber Method (same thing but you come back in the room periodically to console the crying child).
