You already have an amazing story to tell.

Many will go through life thinking they have to be someone else to have a story worth telling, to succeed, to be exceptional in something, like Picasso:

“My mother said to me ‘If you are a soldier, you will
become a general.  If you are a monk, you will become
the Pope.’  Instead I was a painter and became Picasso.”

In his new book, Erwin McManus writes this of Picasso: ‘Pablo had nowhere else to go, no one else he could become but Picasso’.

This is true for each of us.  We have nowhere else to go but to become more of who we are. and herein lies our story.

Sometimes our stories are realised by identifying our dreams and turning them into reality; sometimes our stories are defined by some need which calls to us – Harriet Tubman’s story caught my attention in this way.  Harriet was born into slavery in the United States but escaped to the north, only to realise this is what she had to help others to do, and so she returned, was a founder member of the Underground Railroad.   Then something else came to mind – Kintsugi, the Japanese art of restoring (restorying?) broken pottery.  The repairs incorporate gold, resulting in objects which appear more beautiful and poignant than their unbroken counterparts.

To know and live your story is to be successful.  This isn’t about telling a series of incidents from our lives as if they are a story.  Oftentimes we tell these little stories without knowing or realising how they fit together.  Our story appears when we’re able to reincorporate these smaller stories into a larger story – a narrative arc – understanding how all everything comes together, restorying into something of beauty.  (My mind pictures a story equivalent of kintsugi gold in this.)

We can’t always control where a story will go but we can come to embrace every part of it.  It strikes me that to do this is a courageous thing to do.  To share it with others is a generous thing.  And to live courageously and generously, well, that’s to live wisely.

Because we’re living in a world of increasing choice.

(C is for other things too, like creativity and courage and confidence – all of which tell us more about how important choice is.)

Seth Godin wrote about small being the new big.  There are things which small businesses and groups can do which larger ones cannot – such as keeping their eyes on a different bottom line or changing direction quickly.

The smallest small is one, is you.

You decide what it is you want to master and deliver in that unique way.   You decide and implement how much of your time is going to be spent on the right kind of training (deep practice*) which will allow you to excel and keep on excelling.  Companies have to work harder to keep upping the training for all their people (though there are big businesses and organisations which act like small ones).

Just look at what’s available on youtube, TED, online courses, Meetup, Ragged University, never mind the books available to read.

The result, when we see that we are the ones responsible for the development of our unique outlooks and skills, is to unleash something both powerful and beautiful – even if within a larger company if you’re part of one.

The thing is, it’s your choice.

If you’re the only person on earth who could have done
what you just did, then you’re a proud amateur.

(*Deep, or deliberate, practice, is that which keeps you reaching for and mastering more skills and knowledge – practice which merely repeats the same old same old is actually counterproductive.)

A very popular TV singing competition on both sides of the Atlantic.  The four coaches choose their the voices for their team blind.

They are listening for the right voices.

The Voice is also you listening for the authentic voice – calling, vocation, purpose, element, future Self – to shape your life in ways which are creative, enjoyable, and generous.

Yes, part of finding our own voice will involve listening to the voices of others (friends, colleagues, family members, experts – in person, in writing, in films, in social-media) – I’ve shared how finding my own voice involved someone whispering into my life at an important moment, maybe not even realising how significant his help has been.

So many voices.  There are voices which come to us from without, and voices within.

How do you know which ones to listen to?

The person on the other end of the phone was very angry with me; I can no longer remember the details.  All I remember was imagining my colleague turning purple on the other end of the line as he told me that he didn’t know what job I ought to be doing but it wasn’t the one I was in.  (As it happens, he was right, but for all the wrong reasons.)

But his was not a voice calling me to my future.

Then there are the voices within.  Otto Scharmer warns that we face three negative voices amongst all the others: the voice of judgement – seeks to keep our minds closed to more; the voice of cynicism – seeks to prevent us from identifying something we will open our hearts to; and, the voice of fear – seeks to prevent is from taking action on what we know we must do.

The best voices to listen to, without, and especially within?

The ones which call you to the future, to more, towards other people, and to making a contribution of goodness in the world.

The phone call?

It wasn’t anyone I knew.

The caller may have called me “mate” a couple of times but he was from my printer supplier wanting to know if I needed more ink.

Before he mentioned his company or ink, though, I knew it wasn’t anyone I knew.

It’s intriguing how we know who’s calling within a few words (unless they’re pretending to be someone else)  – we recognise so many people’s authentic voice.  As I picked up the phone, I’d been thinking about authentic voices as a metaphor the art we produce from our lives.

There’s an interesting line dividing plagiarism and imitation from innovation and uniqueness.  Those who charge people with plagiarism most likely overlook where they themselves got an idea from.  Whether it be a thought, movement, composition, musical riff, way of delivery, they all began with things other people have created, the artefacts they’ve left behind.

It’s what we go on to make and produce from these that often becomes exciting – and the more we mix things up, the more amazing the creation.  I’ve still got my vinyl copy of Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells from the beginning of the 1970s.  Oldfield’s ability to combine contemporary and classical music was nothing short of brilliant, and took the musical world and markets by storm (mind you, not so many people have heard of Hergest Ridge his follow up album, which I also have – here’s the first google suggestion, but this is the one you want).  But Oldfield  began by learning his music from others like everyone else.

Steven Covey held that to find our voices and to help others find theirs is the most important life-habit we can develop.  We learn from others but then we have to develop our own voice.  None of us can share a voice with others, but we can harmonise.

There are lots of things we have to wrestle with if we are to hear our own voice and develop it – pressure to: fit in, to pass an exam, to get a job, to keep a job, to avoid conflict, to avoid hard work, the belief that the chance has been missed, that now is not the right time, others do it the right way, there’s only one way to do it, it would never work, you have to be born talented, fear of failure … .

But finding our authentic voice is not only possible, it’s essential.  Your take on things, the way you combine ideas from many different places in a way no one else has thought of maybe just what the world needs – at least someone’s world, but possibly more more than one person’s world.

And who knows, someone may be waiting for someone like you to to do that thing you do, so they can take this and make something from this and other places you’d not even thought of.

You are not in control.

This is number four out of five elemental truths I try and keep in mind.*

I might like to imagine I am in control, but if I think about all the emails, phone calls which come my way, the flow of conversations I’m involved in, what I’m really doing is trying to bring the best of who I am in response, and to make sense of it within my story, and hopefully help others to do the same within their own stories.  More of an impro-dance.

(Some even believe what we think of as the Self is simply a series of responses to the things around us.)

Keith Johnstone writes, ‘An inexperienced improviser gets annoyed because his partners misunderstand him.’  This person makes  a blind offer: expecting a certain response.  When we “offer” something and the expected response doesn’t materialise we can be upset, or, we can remind ourselves we’re not in control, and perhaps need to go with the flow and see what happens because maybe something more will emerge from the dance, something with flair and joie de vivre.

(*I’ll mention the other four another time, but  these five comprise what a child passing into adulthood might learn within an ancient culture.)

Offer-block-accept.

In three words, the success or failure of impro-theatre.

Two actors on stage.  The first says, “Where’s my elephant?” – here’s the offer.

The second actor replies: “What elephant?” – block.

But the second actor could have said, “You know he’s being stuffed?” – accept.

The first reply allows the scene to go nowhere, the second leaves us wondering, “What next?”

Impro may exaggerate, but it does shed light on life: we are the ones who daily block or accept offers and possibilities.  (I’m thinking of the positive and good kind, not the nasty ones.)

Life offers us opportunities to produce our art – art is the essential work of our lives when we’re connecting with the world, with others, and with our future Self.

We can block  – the industrial mindset still prevails, and life is the production of more same old same old.

Or we can accept – because we are perhaps living at an unprecedented time in history.

Your turn.

Two world views, but which is yours?

Those who go with a scarcity worldview believe there’s not enough to go around: only some are special, you have to look after number one.  They’ve probably swallowed this error from somewhere and someone else (give people permission to give up their scarcity worldview and see what happens).  In a world of scarcity you need lots of people who aren’t special, (our systems appear to reinforce this error, including education systems which are set up to identify and stream the best of what schools and colleges include).

But what if Humans are set up for abundance, for abundant creativity – not only the ones who measure up in our schools and present-day businesses?

(Interlude: What are you going to do on the first sunny weekend of the Spring?)

What did you think about – what did you imagine?

You have just imagined something which doesn’t exist yet.  This is an astonishing ability we exercise hundreds and thousands of times a day.  Your ability to imagine is evidence that you have what is necessary for creativity.  I don’t mean the way someone else is, but the way you are.

Yesterday, I was meeting with a couple of people imagining the content of an event we’re working on together.  Amazed by the things they were picturing and combining, I came away wondering, What if everyone gets to be  as excitedly imaginative as these two, awakened to the life only they can live?

This is what I am intent on imagining and pursuing; what do you imagine?

Responsibility.

It’s important to do what you’ve been entrusted with – the normal way of thinking about responsibility.

It’s more important for you to identify what you must do and do it – a sharper definition of responsibility.

Break down the word responsibility and it’s about having the ability to respond.

The first definition helps you to respond when something or someone needs your help – a friend, a situation, work.

The second definition means you get up every day ready to do that thing you do with courage, generosity, and wisdom, and not to do it hurts – in relationships, work, leisure, interests.

Courage, because true humility has allowed you to be more who you really are in an uber-connected way: with others, the world, and your future.  Generosity, because gratitude has made it possible to see you have everything you need right now to begin.  And, wisdom, because your faithfulness in daily practicing your talents and being grateful in everything you do and every relationship, means you’re living wisdom – nothing wasted.

Maybe this is resilient living – able to be who we are in every moment and situation. or, maybe its more, what Nassim Taleb has named antifragility – the ability to flourish in difficult places and situations.*  (Flourish is another way of saying passionately create your art.)

Of course, it’s easier to make others responsible for creativity – partners, employers, teachers, best friends, politicians, God.

And, yes, clearly, there’s the possibility of failure.

And the possibility of the best of futures.

(*I’m not suggesting stupidly dangerous ways and places where we’d get squished rather than flourish – the things which are akin to walking in front of a moving bus.)

E is for experimenting.

The way by which Humans shape their future.

When you consider the ways in which Human talents and passions come together, the resources they have, and the ways and means they invent to experiment and express (habits, practices, and behaviours), you may conclude Humans are by essence, future-shapers.

Future, though isn’t the F word.

Right at this moment, in different places around the world, there are people who are shaping your future, your children’s future, and your children’s children’s future.  They know the future is not fixed, and, for good or ill, they are grabbing their opportunity make some kind of difference.

If we’re awake to how we’re all capable of shaping the future – through our art in small ways or in larger ways – then we can begin experimenting, proto-trying our thoughts and ideas and dreams in the laboratory for research each day offers: whether it be someone we help or we give extra at work or peruse and pursue an idea or bake a cake for someone or offer a kind word with someone or … (you know where this is going).

Here’s the F word.

Failure.

When we experiment we fail faster, which also means we learn faster and cleverer.

I know we’ve been brought up that to fail is not an option.  Wrong.  Not to try is not an option.

Maybe it started with education.  You failed or passed an assignment, then an exam, then you failed to get the grades you you needed.  Many education systems appear to set us up to fail, whilst failing to recognise they could all be figuring out how to connect education with how to make life better on earth: taking on the challenges of poverty, crime, and human rights, or energy conservation, space exploration, and genetic technologies, or cancer, AIDs, and Parkinsons.

The good news is, we live in a world where we get another opportunity, because the barriers to education and expression are breaking down.  E and F are waiting to be added to our daily alphabets.

Full?

Empty?

How would you finish the sentence?

Suzanne Segerstrom suggests seeing the glass as full or empty has more implications than we perceive on the surface.

Half-full and you’re more likely to push ahead.

Half-empty and you’re more likely to quit.

One opens up possibilities, the other blocks possibilities.

In Yes Man, Jim Carrey plays ace-blocker Carl, coerced by a number of personal circumstances and relationships into saying Yes to every proposition which comes his way (though he later finds out he had more choice than that).  Although a funny look at optimism and pessimism, there’s perhaps a serious point in this dynamic of saying Yes leading to more good things happening for Carl, and having fun along the way.

I’ve been exploring how concepts of humility and gratitude might lead to the things Humans most seek: autonomy, mastery, and a greater purpose than themselves.  So is Carl’s experience replicable in real life?  Can all of us become more positive?

In the conversations which make up my work, I meet wonderful people able to do amazing things.  I’m not just saying this, nor do I see them being someone they are not – only more who they are.  It seems, sometimes, people are using something positive in a negative way, or trying to be someone else, when life is only asking that they be creative, enjoying, and generous with who they are.

Half full?

Half empty?

What now?

The third question is the most important one.