Melissa Dinwiddie | Create the Impossible™ | Innovation Keynote Speaker & Consultant
Empower your team to innovate on demand. Melissa Dinwiddie helps tech leaders Create the Impossible™ through playful, interactive workshops and keynotes. Unlock breakthrough creativity today.
It’s been All-Book-All-The-Time around here, as my book launch looms closer.
(November 15th! That’s less than two months away! Ack! Click here for more info.)
But, of course, life doesn’t slow down just because you’re writing a book. No, sir-ee!
That’s why I got ruthless a few weeks back, and cut out a bunch of activities I’d been doing regularly which weren’t directly helping me get the book done.
Like making [Read more…]
Last weekend Miracle Man and I went on a three-night mini-honeymoon to Monterey. We saw all sorts of amazing creatures at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, ate delicious food, went on a walk on the beach at sunset… It was great.
Then the day after we got home, a few things happened that left me utterly deflated about my business.
If you’ve ever worked for yourself you’ve probably had this experience. Things rarely grow in a straight, uphill line. But everyone else’s highlight reel is so shiny and bright, so it’s easy to get caught in the Comparison Trap, mired in the certainty that you’re a massive loser, that everyone else has the Secret to Success, that you somehow missed the memo and as a result will never be able to figure out the puzzle.
I posted a status update to Facebook that it was a deflating day. I cried on Miracle Man’s shoulder. I felt pathetic.
It was hard.
But you know what the really beautiful thing was? Even in the midst of my deflation, in the midst of feeling like I was never going to figure this out, I was still able to see — to really feel — how good my life is.
I could see and feel all the imperfection and all the things I want desperately to change… and at the exact same time I could see and feel how good things are. Sort of like Dickens’ famous first sentence, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,” I was able to be in and embrace both at once.
This was really cool.
It didn’t make the pain and deflated feelings go away, but it did help me keep going in spite of them. (God bless all those years of therapy, co-counseling, and inner work that have gotten me to this place!)
Then, while I was trudging ahead with business-y stuff in spite of my deflated feelings, I happened to notice that my insiders’ newsletter mailing list has grown 250% since June.
[Cue sound of dropping jaw and eyes boinging out of their sockets.]
And this after “purging” my list of all subscribers who hadn’t opened an email in six months. (Note: it’s a good idea to clean out your mailing list like this periodically. After all, you only want people on your list who really want to hear from you! This is why I do a happydance when someone unsubscribes — it means less “dead weight” and more true fans.)
In other words, although things weren’t where I really wanted them to be yet, they had, in fact, improved in ways that I wasn’t paying attention to.
Which made me think about so many other ways I’ve made progress in the past year. The “Great Experiments of 2013” that have dramatically improved my quality of life:
The experiment:
I finally bit the bullet. Instead of seeing Cindy, my samurai* massage therapist, only on an “as-needed” basis, when things were already really bad, I committed to coming in for an appointment every three weeks. Even though it’s expensive.
The result:
Wow. What a difference. I’m in approximately 80-90% less pain than I used to be, and the places that used to have me moaning in agony (yes, literally) when she’d dig into them, now often don’t even elicit a comment.
The upshot:
I’m continuing with this every-three-weeks thing, for sure!
The experiment:
Since 2003 I’ve been printing my ketubah prints in-house on an Epson 7600 wide-format printer. I’d moved away from outsourcing and bought my printer in order to have greater control over the end product. But as my business has evolved, dealing with printing, packaging, and shipping has become more and more onerous. It simply no longer made sense for me to try to save money by doing it all myself!
So I met with a local fine-art printer who’d done some scanning for me in the past, and decided to try out sending him my print jobs.
The result:
Wow. Again, what a difference! The time (and emotional energy) I save by having someone else take on the boring, tedious, stressful stuff has been more than worth the cost. I haven’t used my Epson 7600 in almost a year!
The upshot:
I’m putting my Epson 7600 printer up for sale! (If you’re interested in buying, shoot me an email. Local pick-up only!)
The experiment:
I hate bookkeeping. I never know if I’m doing it right, and besides, data entry makes me want to stab my eyeballs out with fish sticks.
I wasn’t quite ready to pay someone else to do my books for me (that’s on the list for one of my 2014 experiments!), but I was ready to dump the data entry piece. I signed up for Xero.com and hired someone to help me set my books up there. Now all the data from my various accounts gets sucked automatically into my system!
The result:
Wow. What a difference! Okay, I still procrastinate on my bookkeeping, but Xero saves me so. Much. Time. Brilliant!
The upshot:
I still hate bookkeeping, and still never know if I’m doing it right. This year I’m going to bite the bullet and try working with a real bookkeeper! And Xero will hopefully make that much easier, since there are no files to download/upload/email/etc.
The experiment:
I’d been lamenting for ages what a sedentary person I’d become. I spend 90% of my day in front of my computer. Sitting.
My clothes were getting tighter. My back hurt all the time. Ugh. Ugh. Ugh.
When I was rehabbing my knee after surgery back in 2010, Miracle Man set up a borrowed-from-my-parents ancient exercise bike in the dining room, facing the kitchen counter, so I could do stuff on a laptop while I pedalled. It was brilliant.
Alas, the bike is a piece of junk, and very uncomfortable. So when I didn’t need to use it anymore for my knee, I stopped.
I fantasized about a big office with multiple work stations: a (good) stationary bike, a treadmill, and a (really good) office chair. But that (I thought) would require a third bedroom, which we did not have.
Then I heard a radio interview with author Susan Orlean, all about treadmill desks and office walking. And I learned that treadmills don’t have to be the giant monstrosities you see at the gym…
Bing!
I was on fire. I researched like a madwoman (as I am wont to do), and a few weeks later I had a walking desk, hacked from a cheap $299 treadmill and a $9.99 Ikea side table propped on my regular desk.
(Click the pic at left for a larger view. And yes, I know my desk is a mess. An overhaul of studio organization is on the list for a Great Experiment of its own…)
The result:
Wow. What a difference! After a couple of weeks of achey knees and blisters while I got used to it (and found the right shoes), I was a total walking desk convert! I actually have no desire to sit at a desk anymore.
And no, it is not hard to type while walking. No harder than chewing gum while walking. Really.
I’ve logged over one thousand miles since the end of May. My tight clothes are loose now. And my back is so. Much. Better. (Who knew sitting was such a killer???)
The upshot:
I love my treadmill desk!!! The next step is to get an adjustable desk — not because I want to go from sitting in a chair from standing, but because sometimes I do want to get off my feet. So I prop a bar stool on the treadmill, and this puts my keyboard at the wrong height for comfortable typing.
I’d also like to build more cardio exercise into my day, but in the meantime, better is better!
The experiment:
This last one was really a matter of completing a clutterbust I’d initiated months ago. The living room had become a staging area for all the assorted items I intended to offer for sale on Ebay, take to Goodwill, etc.
As our wedding approached, however, I was haunted by the thought that our out-of-town relatives might want to see our place. That spurred me into action! I finally faced the reality that the time and energy it would take to sell a lot of this stuff was worth a lot more than the dollars they might possibly be able to bring in. So I packed the car to the gills and delivered all of it to Goodwill.
I also had the carpets cleaned. Which meant we had to get even more stuff off the floors, which led to even more purging and organizing.
The result:
Wow. What a difference! Miracle Man and I were walking around in a daze for a good week after the carpet cleaning, enjoying the newfound spaciousness. Aaaaahhhhhh… (Good thing we didn’t know that nobody was going to come visit our place!)
The upshot:
I love being surrounded by order and spaciousness! I’m committed to creating more of it in 2014.
The wedding kind of interrupted our momentum, but we’re both really motivated to do more clearing out. And all this clearing has given me new ideas for how to revamp the studio, home improvement, and more!
Are things perfect? Not by a long shot. But from my business life to my home life to my physical wellness, I’ve been making progress, even if I don’t always notice it.
This, to me, is the essence of living a big, bold, creative life: noticing where life is good while you also notice where you want to make changes, and take the nanosteps you need to get there.
As an ex-boyfriend of mine used to say, better is better. I think the biggest value of marking the New Year for me is that it helps me to pay attention where I have made things better.
When you’re trudging up the staircase of life, the tendency is to keep your eyes on the step right in front of you. Cyclical events — like the New Year or other holidays, a birthday, Jazz Camp West, my Create & Incubate Retreat over Memorial Day weekend — these all offer a reminder to lift my gaze and notice the span of the staircase ahead of me, as well as how far I’ve climbed from the landing below.
Yeah, if you’re like me you probably have a really long way to go with pretty much everything important in your life. But don’t forget to acknowledge how very far you’ve come.
PS — Pssst! Know someone who might benefit from seeing this today? Pass it on!
Starting on Monday, I’m sending my subscribers a special series: Secrets of Living a Big, Bold, Creative Life.
Five days of sharing.
Five big “secrets” that have helped me and countless others live bigger, bolder, more creative lives.
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Plus, everyone on the waiting list for Your Big, Bold, Creative Life Academy will get some extra goodness along with the series, AND a FREE ticket to a workshop on January 20th, Shatter Your Self-Installed Glass Ceilings (and the recording afterwards).
Want in? Click here to read more about the Academy (next session starts January 27) or put your info in the form below to get on the list:
If you haven’t guessed by now, your intrepid correspondent can be a bit… obsessive sometimes.
To wit: just as soon as I make a public announcement that I’m not yet ready to commit to making a new painting every day, I go ahead and form the private intention to do just that.
Sometimes I drive even myself crazy.
But the truth is, way back in May I had my first (and so far only) life coaching session with Susan, in exchange for designing and installing for her a new WordPress website (not yet live at the time of this writing; if you click through that link, that is not the site I designed — check back in a few weeks). In that life coaching session I got very clear that I really, really want to be making art every day.
Did you catch that? Every day.
Because the thing is, when I’m actively creating, when I actually make art, the whole rest of the day goes better. I feel like I’m living in alignment with my life’s purpose, and I’m just plain happier.
My Irresistible Yogini line of artwork sprang from that life coaching session, which was awesome. And for a number of weeks I was making art every day. It was great. I was happier, and the whole rest of my day did (for the most part) go better.
But gradually my discipline dwindled, and I stopped making art every day.
Why? What would make me stop making art, when that was the exact goal I was going for?
Honestly, I was kind of stumped, and felt pretty badly about not following through.
Recently, though, I figured something out. I realized that although I love my Irresistible Yogini and I do want to fill out the line, after the first few days, working on that line didn’t actually satisfy the need that I was hoping to fill.
I wanted to play. To experiment. To mess around with color, get my hands dirty, and not worry about rules.
Think adult finger-painting.
Making Irresistible Yogini is a lot more about designing than experimenting. It’s fun figuring out how to turn simple brush strokes into a female form in a yoga posture, but after the first few minutes it doesn’t feel like playing anymore.
Instead, it’s redoing the same brush strokes 57 times until I get a version I’m reasonably happy with.
Then it’s calligraphing the words over and over until I get a version of that that I’m reasonably happy with.
Then it’s scanning and color correcting and messing around in Photoshop, which, while it can be fun, is 180 degrees from my original goal of messing around and “finger-painting.”
Which brings me to my four tips:
My initial goal, to make art every day, was not really clear enough. I didn’t really just want to add a new line of art to my website (though of course that’s always nice). I didn’t want a new work assignment. What I really wanted was to use my hands to be in the creative zone.
As a result, my real goal would maybe have been better stated as:
To mess around with paint every day
or
To make a tiny painting every day in one hour or less, even if I don’t like it
or
To spend 20 minutes every day making marks on canvas or paper
Thankfully, I did finally get clear, and guess what — today is the third day in a row that I’ve made a painting! Knowing the real aim of my goal (to play, experiment, not feel bogged down by rules or expectations) helps keep me on track.
Getting clear on your goals is really important, but it’s just as important to do some processing to figure out why you want this particular goal, what you want to get out of it. If your goal isn’t in alignment with what you really want to get from it, you’ll run out of steam.
But if you’re clear that performing the tasks to get your goal will feed and nourish you, I’ll bet you that very little will be able to stop you.
and a related tip:
I am most definitely not making a public commitment to make a completed painting every day. I’ve already made enough big public commitments recently, thank you very much. But I did go out and buy 15 tiny canvases and 3 tiny boards, and I do have a goal of painting every one of them by the time I put up my booth at the To Life! festival in Palo Alto, California on October 10.
That is achievable. And if I do end up making art every day, fantastic! That would make me phenomenally happy. But feeling like I have to because I’ve made a public commitment, while a great idea in theory, for me right now would feel too much like yet another client deadline I have to meet.
For me, the whole purpose of this make art more often goal is to provide an antidote to all the client deadlines that fill up so much of my life. Besides, it’s always better to under-promise and over-perform than vice-versa — to yourself just as much as to other people.
Now you may decide that making a public commitment is exactly what you need to light your creative fire. Great! Fantastic! The point is to do some thinking about what is really going to work for you.
For example, if you want to make a painting every day (even if you’re not publicly committing that you’re going to [ahem]), it’s probably a lot easier to make that happen if you canvasses are, say, 4 inches square, rather than, say, 12 feet by 18 feet.
Just sayin’.
It’s also a lot easier to scan a smaller piece to reproduce it as a print and/or post it online. A few months back I bought some canvasses with the intention of playing in a new medium, and I used those for my first two paintings. They happened to be 10″ square, which is not a large canvas in the scheme of things, but it is an inch and a half too wide to scan in one pass on my desktop scanner.
Doh!
But no matter. I learned a wonderful lesson, and when I stocked up on more canvasses I kept them on the really small side. Clever monkey, aren’t I?
(It also doesn’t hurt that smaller canvasses cost a whole lot less, and use up a lot less paint, which costs money too. :))
It took me a few months, but I finally figured out what I really want from my make art every day goal. I figured out how to make my goal achievable and right for me, and I set things up so that my goal is as easy as possible to achieve.
In case you haven’t guessed, the image at the top of this post is today’s effort (see a side view below). I’ve got 17 more little canvasses and boards sitting on my drafting table. Watch for more little paintings to appear here (though not necessarily every day…)
And you? What’s one of your goals, and how can you tweak it to make it achievable, right for you, and as easy as possible to achieve?
I had to hit the ground running when I got back from music camp, what with a custom ketubah waiting to be completed (photo below) in and among catching up with general business stuff.
Oh, and my sales tax return (still) to be done. (Yes, I know I’m a horrible procrastinator.) Running a business comes with its own built-in deadlines.
After a string of 80-hour weeks before and between music camps, however, this week has felt practically like a vacation.
Okay, that’s an extreme exaggeration, but it has been dramatically more relaxed than the rest of my summer at home. Instead of working late every night, I actually took time to have people over, meet a friend for tea, and even to have a girls’ night out in the City last night (conveniently combined with delivering the ketubah to the waiting clients, whose wedding is Monday).
All of which got me thinking about one of my favorite topics-of-obsession:
In an interview in the Unconventional Guide to Art + Money, Australian artist Hazel Dooney credits her success to her single-minded drive: “…this is my sole focus in life. This is all I dedicate my time to. I am totally undistracted by anything else, even a love life.”
In a similar way, 20+ years ago, all I really cared about was succeeding as a dancer. I can’t say that I was totally undistracted, since I definitely longed for a love life. But success — getting really, really good at this thing that I was so passionate about, and being publicly recognized for that mastery — and happiness seemed inextricably interlinked.
In fact, I remember having a certain amount of contempt for people who didn’t have such ambitions.
My parents, for example. How could they possibly be truly happy, living such… normal lives? Not making (as I saw it) some large, indelible mark on the planet?
The (younger-than-I-am-now) adults who took classes at my dance school were objects of somewhat sneering fascination and scorn to my snotty teenage self. Why were they even bothering? They’d never amount to anything as dancers, so what was the point?
If anything, they were to be pitied.
Now I’m amused and embarrassed by that teenager. I also have tremendous compassion and pity for her.
Happiness, for the teenage me, was utterly dependent on a certain level of a certain type of success and recognition. I lived in a state of constant emptiness, desperately seeking to be filled by validation. No matter how hard I worked and how good I got, it was never good enough. Nor would it probably ever be.
As a result, I was quite willing to give up all sorts of normal teenage pleasures in order to pursue my dream.
There’s something quite admirable about this. Dedication, commitment, discipline can lead to amazing things.
On the other hand, I missed out on a lot. For example, although I’d been backpacking since age 6 and was an avid outdoorsperson, I quite literally ceased going camping and backpacking the year I started dancing. Heaven forbid I miss a weekend — or even a day — of dance classes!
It was a trade-off I was willing to make at the time, because I wanted so badly.
Now? The teenage me would sneer, roll her eyes and and shake her head at the present-time me. No doubt she would see me as a drop-out and dabbler.
In her eyes, I’ve become one of those adult dance students: rather pathetic.
I remember when I noticed this change in attitude starting to happen. The year of my divorce I re-discovered dance, but in a gentler-to-my-body-and-soul form, and dove into the world of social dancing. For awhile I took private lessons from a ballroom dance teacher to learn how to follow.
Yes, I still wanted to get good at this thing I loved — that part hadn’t changed. But the desperation, and the willingness to give up everything? That part had.
I remember one lesson at a ballroom where several other private lessons and rehearsals were going on around us. One of the couples on the floor was drenched in sweat, repeating wild leaps and spins over and over again, stopping only to get notes from their coach.
It turns out they were national (or world?) youth champions, practicing for an upcoming competition.
What struck me most was that, although they were amazingly good at what they were doing, there was no joy on their faces. No bliss. And it occurred to me right then and there that I didn’t want to work that hard at anything ever again.
Oh, I’m still willing to, and do, work very, very hard. But I’d experienced dancing like that myself, in pursuit of mastery but without any real joy in what I was doing, and I never wanted to be there again.
It was that moment when I realized I’d lost some of the drive I had as a youth. Don’t get me wrong — if you’ve read anything on this blog you know that I still have plenty of drive. But what I don’t have is the willingness to give up all present-time-happiness in pursuit of some hoped-for future gratification.
It’s sort of sad, in a way. I mourn that loss. Without such willingness I’ll never achieve the Greatness I’ve always longed for.
But on the other hand, I think I’m a happier person, day to day. I live more in the present than I used to. I’m much better at enjoying the moment, rather than putting so much of my energy into a hoped-for future. There’s a lovely sweetness to it.
It does mean, however, that sometimes things like writing blog posts (ahem) get left undone in favor of moment-enjoying. And if I’m totally honest I have to confess I still have conflicted feelings about this. I clearly haven’t quite achieved the zen-like state of being able to let go and feel totally okay about it.
Ah, well. There’s always something to work on.
Comments? I’d love to hear your thoughts on happiness and greatness. Is there a link there for you? Or are they totally unrelated in your world?
Okay, the short answer is because I (almost) never buy a ticket. Which does, of course, make me slightly less likely to win than if I did (but only slightly).
But that’s not the real reason I’ll never win the lottery.
The real reason has a lot to do with a great post the Seth Godin wrote today. “Entrepreneurial hope,” he writes, “is essential.” But there’s a certain kind of hope that’s more damaging than helpful: the hope of the magic lottery ticket.
I know this hope only too well, and I’ll bet you do too. Who hasn’t fantasized about winning the lottery and never having to work a day in your life again?
It’s that same fantasy hope that Oprah Winfrey will read your book and turn it into a bestseller.
Or that your song will be catapulted onto the top of the music charts.
Or that your amazing performance/product/business will be magically discovered and become an overnight success.
The problem, of course, is not only that such fantasy hopes rarely come true, but also that putting energy into the hope of the magic lottery ticket takes energy away from doing the hard work necessary to create the life you really want, on your own terms.
I spent last weekend in Vegas with 100+ other music artists who have figured out that we don’t want a gatekeeper determining our fate. Forget trying to get signed with a label (or getting your artwork shown in a big gallery, or your writing picked up by a major publishing house). Smart artists take the reins of our careers into our own hands.
The thing is, with the right strategy, a musician (or artist/writer/creative) can actually make a better living (and possibly a better quality of life) by finding her audience directly than she would by signing with a label.
(Oh, how many sob stories have I heard about musicians signed with labels? Their biggest goal is frequently to get out of the contract that’s making the label rich at the expense of the artist’s creative freedom. Labels are set up to make the record company rich in the same way that the gallery system is set up to make the gallery owners rich.)
Having your work seen or heard or read by a million people is not the only way to succeed. How about 100 or 1,000 truly dedicated fans, who buy everything you create?
Yeah, it will probably take a helluva lot of hard work, but the sooner you start, the sooner you’ll get there. Waiting for a shortcut in the form of miraculous overnight success will just keep you from doing the important work that’s calling to you.
As Godin writes:
When someone encourages you to avoid the magic lottery, they’re not criticizing your idea nor are they trying to shatter your faith or take away your hope. Instead, they’re pointing out that shortcuts are rarely dependable (or particularly short) and that instead, perhaps, you should follow the longer, more deliberate, less magical path if you truly want to succeed.
If your business or your music or your art or your project is truly worth your energy and your passion, then don’t sell it short by putting its future into a lottery ticket.
What he said.
Which brings me to the real reason why I’ll never win the lottery: I don’t really want to.
Okay, that’s not entirely true. If a pile of money landed in my lap I would certainly not turn it down! I’d be thrilled, to be honest (right now I’d sure love a windfall to pay off my debt!) But my goal is not to lie on a secluded beach sipping exotic drinks for the rest of my life.
I want to create something I’m proud of.
I want to prove to myself that I’m capable of building the kind of success I seek.
Although I’m grateful for help and support whenever it comes my way, I don’t want to be rescued, I want to rescue myself, thank you very much.
And though I have mixed feelings about the whole Law of Attraction thing, I do believe that to a large extent we create our own reality. If my overarching goal in life were to win the lottery, well, perhaps it would happen.
But on the other hand, if my overarching goal is to create my own success, a winning lottery ticket is almost certainly not in the cards.
And I’m okay with that.
Which, if you think about it, is a very good thing.
For another great blog post that touches on this subject, see The myth of the overnight sensation, at the Creative Penn.
