When I was 10 years old my family went to Chicago for a big family reunion. We were staying at what I thought was a pretty spiffy place called ’50th on the Lake’. Something happened at that reunion that has stayed with me my entire life. It became deeply rooted in my memory.
Today that memory and all the moments since came rushing back. My sister, Nancy, remembers it slightly different than I do but here is the story as I remember it.
Nancy and I came down the elevator into the lobby. As we exited we saw a black man sitting by himself on a couch. We both knew exactly who he was because my father was a big boxing fan at the time. I don’t think people now can understand how big boxing was back then. I really was one of the biggest of sports, along with Baseball and Football.
We both became very excited and very scared because, after all, this man beat people up for a living. But we knew what we had to do. We went to the desk and got hotel postcards and a pen and went up to him. In my memory I went first and asked, “Mr. Clay, may I have your autograph?” He said yes, and signed my postcard. My sister, standing right next to me, did the same thing. But this time he stopped and said, “Yes, but only if you call me Muhammad Ali.” Which she did when she thanked him. He wasn’t mean, he was kind and soft spoken when he said it. He was generous and easy going with us and it left a deep impression on me.
Of course, just as any of us do when we have a personal moment with a star, he was forever and always the one I rooted for. I was devastated when, 2 years later, he was stripped of his Championship after being convicted of refusing the draft. I was upset because I didn’t have him to root for anymore. Nobody else in boxing came close to being of interest to me (or to millions of others). But then, as I grew up and became aware of the larger issues in the world I realized I still could root for him. I could root for him to win his legal battle, because I believed he was in the right, and maybe then he would be able to box again.
And that is what happened. He came back from a 3 year layoff to fight again. Not many people gave him much of a chance since a slew of very hard hitting boxers had come up in his absence. Frazier, Norton and a particular big, hard hitting man named George Foreman.
It took him 4 long years of boxing to gain a fight with Foreman for the Championship. The fight took place in Kinshasa, Zaire and was promoted as ‘The Rumble in the Jungle’. While it happened in Africa I was sitting in a college pub at Brandeis University listening on the pub radio to the round recaps after each round was over. Nobody else was paying attention, but I was. I believed he would find a way to win. The press didn’t think that would happen, but millions of people around the globe believed it. They were rooting for this man to defy the odds. After all it had been 7 long years since he had been World Champion. But we believed.
And, in the most amazing upset since he won the title in the first place 10 years earlier, he won. He boxed a brilliant match, luring Foreman into boxing all the energy out of himself by using the now famous ‘Rope a Dope’ strategy. He knocked him out in the 8th round. I pretty much made a fool of myself in that pub with my excitement at his victory. People didn’t realize what it meant to me, but it meant a lot.
He ended up keeping the title for 5 years until losing and regaining it again in 1978. He was the only person to win the championship 3 times up to that point.
But why, besides me having met him, does he means so much to me? It’s because he believed in himself. A scrawny kid from Louisville always knew he was the greatest, and he wasn’t afraid to say it because he always knew he could back it up, and he did. He inspired me, not in athletics obviously, but in life. That if you believe and you act to make it happen, you can make it happen.
But it was more than that. It was also because he wasn’t afraid to grow as a man, a thinker, a human. He kept moving forward in pursuing ideas and ended up where each of us really want to end up, and that is believing love is the most important thing in the world. You can’t do much better than that.
It’s because of those lessons as well as his boxing career that he was the greatest to me.
As I was about to start writing my thoughts on this quote this morning, I came across this post on Facebook:
I know that in two years someone will probably mention his name and I will deny that he was ever actually important because I will have forgotten all about him. Facebook will tell me I have a memory to look back on and I will laugh at this status. I may or may not remember who it’s about… but right now… this hurts. He sought me out when I knew nothing but his name. He wanted to spend so much time with me. He wanted me to move in with him, wanted me to get a tattoo he designed, and he tried his last name with my first. Then, just like that I wasn’t good enough. I didn’t live up to his idea of the girl deserving of the pedestal he placed me on. Ugh… mess with my self esteem for fun, why don’t you?
It is from a friend of mine, Emilie Disney. I know her because years ago our families knew each other at church, she was friends with one of my daughters.
Time –
It tells a way too common story of someone being blindsided by someone. I mean, how can you know the ropes and not be tied up when everything seems perfect, right? Time is the answer. The key thing to know here is that her suitor said all those wonderful things within a two week period of time. TWO WEEKS. But one wants to believe, right? He was persistent and persuasive and she was seduced by it. And then all of a sudden, he was done.
Luckily, while she is trusting and sincere, she is also smart and mature. She knew inside that something was off when he moved that fast. It was red flags popping up. It didn’t take her long to realize she had dodged a bullet, or at least was just grazed by it and received a flesh wound not needing extreme medical attention!
Experience is the Teacher –
And now she is a more experienced woman. She has learned the ropes to a more sophisticated degree. She won’t get tied up again that easily, that is for sure. And that’s how it is, right? You don’t learn the ropes from reading a book on relationships. You learn the ropes by having relationships. That is how we learn.
BUT, just in case you don’t want to go through it yourself and you do want to learn from other’s experience….if some guy promises the moon within two weeks? Be wary, no matter how seductive he is.
One of my favorite lines in any song is “Sometimes we’re blinded by the very thing we need to see.” It’s in ‘The Last Word’ by Mary Chapin Carpenter. She’s one of my all time favorite singer/songwriters. She never fails to bring real and raw meaning into the world with her poignant lyrics and powerful music. This song also happens to be on one of my all time favorite albums, Stones in the Road. If you haven’t ever listened to it, I really do believe you are missing one of the most perfect albums ever made.
My Blind Spots
Hearing those words made me start to look at my own blind spots, which is hard, since they don’t want to be seen. Actually, that isn’t true. The spot itself, as is shown in my drawing, is actually what we do see. We see it so big and bold that we don’t see beyond it. We don’t see what it’s hiding.
We can even be enamored of our own blind spots, as when we brag about our ignorance on a certain subject, or our lack of talent in some area, as if it is a badge of honor instead of something to pay attention to and move beyond.
What both the quote and the lyrics say to me is that you see what you want and need to see; infatuated love, the possibility of wealth, the dreams of fame for example, and seeing those things so big can blind you to seeing the emotional desperation, the selfish greed, or the empty loneliness that might come along with those things.
Desire
In other words, desire often begets blindness. So I try to ask myself as often as I can, what is it I am desiring here, and how is that changing, and perhaps warping, what it is I am paying attention to?
Many years ago I did a napkin drawing of the actual lyrics I mentioned above. Here it is. it is one of the earliest of the napkins drawn for the world instead of just for my daughters. it’s from 2009.
I have had this drawing in my sketchbook for quite a while. I hadn’t been able to come up with what I wanted to be in the word bubbles. Recently I went to a lecture by Bob Mankoff, the cartoon editor for The New Yorker magazine. He was the one who started the caption contest that is always on the back page of the magazine. It sparked the idea for this post. Why don’t I have you all write the caption for the drawing!
And guess what? The winner will receive a print of this drawing!
So, here it is. the quotes can be your original idea or quotes from elsewhere. It can be one saying divided into 2 parts (which I do frequently in my drawings) or it can be 2 distinctly different quotes. It can be funny, profound, quirky, etc. If your quote is from someone else, please let me know who said it.
I am looking for is something that amplifies and clarifies the image (and vice versa). So, look at the image and think about it. What is it saying to you and others?
To submit your idea just put it in the comments below. Designate the part of the quote you want in the top and bottom by just putting a 1 and 2 before the various parts. Ok? then let’s GO! Also, I would love it if you shared this with your social media channels because the more the merrier when playing this sort of game, right?
When I was in High School I was in the second tier cool group. We weren’t in the ‘popular bad boys’ group, we were the ‘make everyone laugh until they blew milk out their nose’ group. We were the group who would do anything funny to get attention. Once, when we were in art class and working with clay I made a giant penis. Why? Because I could and I knew everyone would think it was funny. And they did. Well, except for the teacher. She came over, grabbed the dick and folded it in two, breaking it, right in front of us. This of course made the whole thing even funnier. We seriously laughed until we couldn’t breathe. I probably went to the Principals office, I don’t remember. But it was worth it.
For Girls
But who was I being funny for? I assume there had to be another guy there in the classroom that day but I would never have known. I was doing it for the girls. That’s what mattered to me. And to show you my amazing gain in maturity and wisdom over the years, it’s still what matters to me.
Getting Attention
But it wasn’t just about being funny to get attention. It was about making plans to fight a rival at the baseball diamond across from our elementary school. It was about dancing better than some other doofus at the school dance. It was about finding some really cool shirt or pair of pants I knew would impress. It was about doing daredevil stunts.
A Dark and Stormy Night
Once it was about walking around with a baseball bat in the dark when a girl was scared about a mystery figure supposedly lurking outside her apartment. It turns out her college roomies and she invented the story to get us boys down the street to come out and act macho for them. Sheesh, what college kids will do. I did get my one and only kiss from that girl as a result so that was cool.
They Know It When They See It
Now that I am older and wiser (depending on who you speak to) I have seen that this is a pretty universal trait. Men do funny and stupid things to impress women. I used to try to explain this to my younger female friends then I realized that women see it almost every day and don’t need it explained. They know it.
That’s why the eye roll was invented after all, right?
This is how I create. I find something and I do something with it. It might be a napkin, a quote, an object, a person, or a combination of all of them. But whatever or whoever it is, I will transform it. I will combine, destroy, build, repurpose, take apart, hide, reveal and more. It’s what makes art fun and interesting for me. It’s how I think about things and people I see. I think about what I can do with them visually to say something of interest to me and others.
Here are some of the things I have transformed over the years. There are more, most of which you can see at the same flickr.com site that these links go to.
Rejection letters – a series I did in response to hundreds of rejection letters I got while applying for full-time teaching positions in the 80s and 90s.
Faces – A recent series I am doing on my iPad using my fingers (in most cases) to paint portraits based on photos and/or screenshots.
Mannequins and Games – Three Dimensional artwork that started with plastic or modeled mannequin heads that I turned into light boxes. Also a foosball table I turned into a self-portrait.
Bible – Drawings done in the bible I used from the mid-90s until about 2000 or so.
Book – I started with the book titled ‘Of Human Bondage’ and collaged into various pages photographs of the body in bondage.
Famous artwork – I started with a book on Impressionism and glued onto the images photos of body impressions.
I did a drawing of a woman at Starbucks today. I didn’t know her. All I knew was she was writing on her laptop and had a journal style book open with writing in it. She did some sort of writing I assumed, but didn’t know what sort.
What Was She Thinking?
I was Periscoping as I was drawing, so I was talking out loud to my viewers. As I finished the drawing I added a thought bubble above her head. I asked my viewers, “I wonder what she is thinking” and a thought occurred to me. What if I had the woman I was drawing fill in the thought bubble above her head instead of me making something up? I thought it would be a pretty cool idea. And so I asked her. What would she choose to say she was thinking?
This is what she wrote, “I want people to know the wild and free love of God. Because he loves them!”
Atypical
I asked her some questions at that point, about the seeming contradiction between typical Christian talk and the words ‘wild and free’. Wild and free are not two words typically thought of when considering Christianity. As a matter of fact, most of the time those words would scare many Christians. They would make many a Christian wary of what was really meant by those words. Are they code for sin and licentiousness? Are they a way of avoiding personal accountability? What exactly do those two words mean when attached to God and the love of God?
Dreary Morals
I am pretty well-versed in the vocabulary of Christianity but I was sort of at a loss about what she meant. Then I saw the drawing below again, which I did a few days ago but had not posted, and it clarified it for me.
For me it’s about love and joy. It’s not about making your life, or the life of others, one of drudgery and obedience for no reason. It’s not about legalism, it’s not about a list of rules, it’s not about a set of cosmic instructions you must obey or you go to hell. It’s about enjoying and sharing your life, your creativity, your interests. It’s about acting as if you believe that.
Hate and Hurt
What it’s not about is giving yourself permission to hate, to be immoral or to hurt. If those things ever do feel ‘free or wild’ to someone, they are temporary and at the expense of others. That isn’t true freedom. And it isn’t being wild in a positive sense either. Being wild in the positive sense is about being courageous enough to be who you want to be, even if it seems ‘wild’ to someone else. Even if they disapprove. Because an individual’s disapproval is not your own disapproval and it’s not God’s disapproval.
I have a theory that if you are an artist, you are an artist whether you create art or not. This is because what counts is that you have an artistic mind.
Practice
In practice no one will ever call you an artist unless you actually create art. This is because without the creation of art, the artistic mind atrophies and dies.
Works
My favorite passage in the New Testament of the Christian Bible is this passage in the book of James:
‘So too, faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works.’ James 2:17-18
What do you want to be?
You become what you practice. Practice art, you become an artist. Practice running, you become a runner. Practice love, you become a lover. It doesn’t matter what it is, if you want to become something practice is the only way to become it.
I drew this as a gift to my wife, Linda Coleman, on Mother’s Day in celebration of what a great job she has done in growing a beautiful daughter, Caitlin.
Once upon a time there were two sisters from a tropical island. One of the sisters was round and voluptuous, the other thin and angular. The one who was round and voluptuous was very popular. She had boyfriends and was invited to parties all the time. The one who was thin and angular would often tag along with her sister, the pretty one, to the parties and other activities. Her sister and her sister’s friends were mean to her and the men showed no interest because she was not very pretty or sexy. She knew she was ugly and just accepted it as the way it was.
After she graduated from high school the thin one had a chance to move to the city and live with relatives. She didn’t see many prospects or options staying on the Island so she decided to go. As soon as she had moved to the city she had started to notice men paying attention to her. They would chat with her in cafes, flirt with her on the street, smile at her even when she took her young nephew for a walk. All of it was quite confusing for her since she knew she was ugly.
The thin one had only been in the city a few weeks when she was stopped on the street by someone who asked if she was a model. She laughed at the man and told him she was not and could never be, a model. He begged to differ and gave her his card. He asked her to call him if she was interested. She laughed all the way home but her Aunt, when she heard about it, said she should go check it out, that she actually was model material. The thin one laughed because she knew she was ugly and certainly not model material.
The thin one decided to go meet the man just to get her Aunt off her back. And in what was the biggest surprise of her young life, the man was actually the artistic director of a very large and legitimate modeling agency. They liked her and within a month she had her first paid assignment and within 6 months she was making a good living.
In the meanwhile the voluptuous one was hearing about this back on the island. She was very confused, and a bit jealous, because she knew what her sister knew. She was the pretty one, the popular one, and her sister was the ugly one. But now she was hearing she was a model in the city? How could that be? It made no sense. She decided to go visit and see for herself.
The first thing the voluptuous one noticed when she got to the city was how few men paid any attention to her. She walked through the airline terminal, picked up her bag at the baggage claim, and even hailed a taxi and no one paid any attention. It was not something she was used to and it made no sense. But she chalked it up to her maybe not being all that fresh looking after the long flight and forgot about it.
It didn’t take her long to become annoyed by how opinionated her sister was. She wasn’t nearly as meek as she used to be. She had even argued with her about what to wear when they went out to the party her sister had been invited to that night! The voluptuous one wanted to wear a revealing dress, one that showed off her cleavage (which was plentiful) and her legs. Her sister told her that was not a good look, that she had to choose one or the other, show cleavage or show legs, not both. The voluptuous one didn’t like that but decided to go with the leg look, just so they wouldn’t have a big fight on their first day together in the city.
The party was very exciting. There were some people the sister who was visiting recognized from TV and from magazines, though she couldn’t remember their names. Her sister introduced her to many people, so many she lost track. She realized that her sister was one of the stars of the party, she was popular with men and women alike, older people and younger. When the sister from the city would go off to chat and leave the sister from the island alone she noticed once again she got barely any attention from anyone, unless it was when someone came up to her to tell her how amazing her sister is.
It was then that she had her epiphany. She saw it so clearly. They had switched roles. Here in the city her sister was the pretty one, and she was the ugly one. She went to the bathroom and sat in a stall and cried. When she came out her sister realized something was wrong. She smiled inside, happy to see her sister, who had been so mean to her so often get a taste of what it was like to be the ugly one. The sister from the island tried to explain to her how she felt but the sister from the city wasn’t showing much sympathy. By the time they got home to the Aunt and Uncle’s house they were having a fight about it.
The Uncle and Aunt were still up when they got home and couldn’t help but hear them fighting. They invited them to sit in the kitchen and have a cup of tea, calm down a bit and maybe talk to them about it, which they did. They both explained their version of what happened that night, which led to an explanation of what used to happen on the Island. How they both felt ugly and both felt pretty, all depending on where they were. They talked about how they didn’t want to feel that way but did in spite of that.
The Uncle said, “You know, your Aunt has gone through this too.”
They looked at her and said in unison, “You have?”
“Yes. I was voluptuous and popular on the Island just like you are. Then I came to the City and I didn’t get nearly as much attention, just like you.” she said to the voluptuous one. “So I decided I would do whatever it took to become attractive to the people in the City. I worked and worked and worked. Finally I started to get noticed. I went on dates, had fun, had a lot of friends. Then I was in that car accident you heard about many years ago and wasn’t able to keep in shape after that. I became like I had been before. Many friends left me and I wasn’t asked on any dates anymore. But there was one person who knew me when I first came from the Island, knew me when I became popular and pretty, and knew me after my accident. That person was always my friend, was always supportive, was always saying kind and complimentary things to me. I saw him almost every day because he worked the counter at the grocery store I would go in. You know who that is, right? He’s your Uncle.”
The sisters had never heard that story before. They smiled and told their Uncle what a great man he was. But he stopped them. He said, “I was not that great a guy. All I did was care about your Aunt. I didn’t know anything about ‘popular’ or ‘pretty’ in the city. All I knew was your Aunt was kind and thoughtful and smart. She also was very pretty to me, so I am not saying that wasn’t there. But her ‘pretty’ came as much from her smile and kind words as it did from her beautiful face.”
“What that taught me girls is this,” the Aunt said, “You are planted somewhere in the world, it’s called your home. But not everyone fits in perfectly to the larger home that is your island or your city. Some look out of place to others in the city or the Island. Some look like they belong. You can’t control what the rest of the Island or the City are going to think of you. What you can do is develop the things that matter, no matter where you are, city or island. You develop those things and someone will be there to see them. In my case I was lucky enough to have the boy at the grocery counter notice them. I am grateful for that.”
The uncle piped up with a laugh, “And I am grateful this beautiful woman noticed me!”
The sisters went upstairs to bed. They talked a long time, apologizing for all the small and big slights they had laid on each other. They decided to be more supportive and loving to each other and others in the future. And they did just that.
And in the most ironic twist of all. The sister from the Island met the man of her dreams on the flight back to the Island. The man was from the city and was going on a business trip to visit some resorts he had contracts with. They talked the entire time and she knew by the end of the flight he was the man for her. They ended up marrying and settling in the city of all places. She felt loved and cherished the rest of her life.
The sister from the city had a more roundabout journey to her true love. But it was equally ironic when it happened. It was when she went back to visit her family on the island 10 years later. She was a famous model by then and everyone on the island knew of her. Well, almost everyone. There was a man in her home town who ran the local orphanage. He never really had time to pay attention to fashion magazines or watch TV and didn’t know who she was. But when she came with her mother to help at the orphanage one day, he watched her play with the kids with rapt attention. He noticed the care she showed, the willingness to get dirty, the smarts to figure out why the roof was leaking in one corner. He asked her to come back again if she could. And she did, the very next day. Within a year, after she had made many more visits to the island than she ever had before, they were engaged. She moved back to the island permanently a short while later and they got married in a ceremony on the beach with all the orphans and her family all around.
She would occasionally do some runway modeling shows at the resorts but otherwise she was full-time at the orphanage, loving her life and her husband until the end of her days.
Hiring and promotions in business works like this all the time. It might be political considerations in a University President’s office. It might be a stylistic or theoretical dislike on the part of one of the senior executives at the firm. The reasons can be valid and real, but they can also lead to a compromise candidate that isn’t as well qualified as the ‘best’ candidate.
Creativity
It happens all the time in art too. How? By the artist deciding they must bow to pressure from a gallery director, or a studio head, or the media marketplace. They want to create one thing but they are told it won’t sell so they compromise and create a Frankenstein instead. Part their vision but part other people’s visions as well. The result might sell but is probably not nearly as unique or authentic a creation as would have been created if the artist were left alone to create what they wish.
Is this a bad thing? not always. But it is something that often diminishes originality to the point that you end up with something bland and uninteresting. And that’s a shame in my book.
It’s constantly a struggle for many people to let go of not only the desire to be right, but the desire to be acknowledged as the originator of an idea. I just finished reading a book called ‘The Innovators’, about the history of the development of the computer and all that has come from it.
Blind
One of the most amazing aspects of this history is how many big companies dismissed and derided new ideas coming down the pike from their own developers and engineers. So much so that the smart people at the large corporations figured out they needed to isolate their innovators away from the corporate bureaucracy, even to the point of setting them up on the opposite coast.
And even then most of these large companies did not exploit what was discovered and invented right in their own labs. Why? Because they believed that their version of the future was correct, and it didn’t include outlandish ideas like transistor radios or personal computers.
Mindset Matters
This quote is by Akio Morita, the founder of Sony Electronics. As a result of his mindset, Sony has had an amazing run at the forefront of electronic product development. Their record isn’t perfect, they missed out on some things, but overall they have been able to grab hold of new ideas and run with them.
For me the application of the idea behind this quote, whether in business, science, religion, or life, is simple. Let my ego and greed diminish and let my open mindedness and love of others increase.
I just finished reading a book called ‘The Innovators’ by Walter Isaacson. I highly recommend it. It’s the history of the computer and digital revolution. It’s an amazing story of people trying something that people before them said couldn’t be done. It’s the story of people fiddling around in their garages and workbenches; experimenting, failing, experimenting again and again, sometimes not even really knowing specifically what it is they are reaching for. They knew it had never existed before and that is exciting. It’s the story of collaboration, trusting others on a team to be both rigorous in their work and open minded in their willingness to attempt things that have never been attempted. It’s the story of people respecting and understanding ideas and inventions already in existence but not being limited by those same ideas and inventions.
This Is How It’s Done
One of the hardest things for a person who has been at the same company a long time to do is let the new people make their own discoveries about what works and doesn’t work in the business. This is also true of parents with kids and of coaches with athletes. In these cases we think we can see the best way to do something, whether it’s how to close a sale, cook a roast or do an exercise. We know because we have done it so many times, right? It’s good to have training in place so new workers can know how something is done properly. It’s good to have your child in the kitchen with you so you can show them how to prepare the roast properly. It’s good to show the athlete how to lift the weights properly.
This Is the New Way It’s Done
But there comes a time when they have ideas of their own. Maybe they see a flaw in your method. Maybe they have figured out a shortcut. Maybe something about the process just doesn’t make sense to them. Or maybe they are bored and just want to try something new. What do you do then? You let them try the new ideas. Of course, we aren’t talking about allowing something dangerous. But something new and untried? Why not?
My father wasn’t good with money. He was raised without a lot of it so when he ended up getting enough to go around than then some he didn’t spend it or invest it all that wisely. Honestly, early on I was the beneficiary of those decisions. For example, when my grandmother on my mother’s side died, he used the inheritance to by a boat. It was our first boat ever. But it was not a sensible little boat we could learn on. It was a 47′ houseboat. It was big. As a result we hung with the big dogs at the various marinas we docked at and I was able to use the boat as my own personal playground for many summers. But in the end the boat blew up on us. I mean that literally. It did actually blow up and I was burned on 75% of my body as a result. Buying that boat was temptation over opportunity.
He once invested in a company simply because it happened to be located in the same office building as his. Of course, it could have turned out great, if the company had been Apple. But it was an obscure little company that found hard to find needles for record players. I still have the stock certificates, worthless now for many decades. Why did he do that? Because he liked the guys who ran the company. He wanted to help them out and that was how he could do it. But it probably wasn’t a wise investment. It was temptation over opportunity.
Questions
I am not immune from this. I am easily tempted as well. I haven’t had much money to throw around but there are other ways to be tempted. Temptation has more to do with where your attention is focused than anything else.
Ask yourself these questions:
Is your business attention focused on long term or short term goals?
Are you planning for something in your business’ future by saving or organizing? Or do you just deal with things as they pop up?
Are you able to keep your business focused in a certain direction even when the initial excitement of your choice has dwindled? Or do you change your direction based on your enthusiasm and excitement level?
Do you rely only on what you see and hear in your immediate business environment to decide what to do with your time and money? Or do you investigate by purposely exploring areas and industries you aren’t familiar with?
Are you able to imagine your business ideas being implemented by others? Or do you feel you need to do it all?
Are you able to adapt to new circumstances? Or are you rigid and firm in your direction, no matter what?
It’s in the Building
I just finished reading a great book called ‘The Innovators – How a group of hackers, geniuses and geeks created the digital revolution’. It is an amazing book that I highly recommend. One of the major takeaways I have from the book is how completely obscure their business future was to each and every one of these entrepreneurs. We look back on this history and we see it as inevitable that IBM, Apple, Intel, Microsoft, Google, the internet, all would exist. But not one of the people building those businesses had any idea what they would eventually become.
They started with an idea and they had a vision, but they didn’t know about the technology’s future. Some predicted what would happen, even as far back as the mid-1800s. But those people didn’t build the machines. Those who built the machines and the software, they didn’t have the luxury of just prognosticating. They had to build something. It was in the building that the future was created, not the philosophizing.
And building takes place when focus is good, when opportunities are taken advantage of and temptations are minimized.
Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman | napkindad.com
When a child Viola loved the violin. She played it every day. Her mother had been a viola player of some renown and had named her one and only daughter in honor of that. But Viola fell for the violin instead. Her mother, Violet, didn’t mind. All she wanted was for her daughter to be happy.
Chapter Two – When an Adult
But when an adult Viola was not happy. She had stopped playing the violin because her girlfriend, Clarina, didn’t like the sound of her practicing and she wanted more than anything to make her girlfriend happy. She thought if she stopped playing her girlfriend would love her more and be happy.
Chapter Three – When a Lover
The happier Clarina became the unhappier Viola became. She didn’t know why but she was very sad most every day. Her therapist, Timpany, said it was because she wasn’t playing the violin any longer. Viola wasn’t sure but she thought it might be true. She decided she would play the violin again, but only when Clarina was not at home.
Chapter Four – When Alone
Viola started to play the violin again. Viola’s neighbor, Mr. Horn, who was french, heard her every morning. He saw Viola in the hall when they were both getting their mail one day. He told her he loved hearing her play, that it made his mornings so relaxing and happy. He told her he was a photographer and asked if one day he might be able to take some photos of her playing. He had been doing a series of musicians and had not yet done a stringed instrument player. She was delighted and said yes.
Chapter Five – When Together
She didn’t tell Clarina, but Viola went to Mr. Horn’s apartment 3 days later to be photographed. He had her stand on the fire escape and he took photos of her with the city in the background. He complimented her again on her playing. It only took about 20 minutes to get all the shots he wanted. Then he offered her some tea, which she accepted. He asked her questions about her playing, her life, her interests. She was happy to have some attention and was sad when he said he had an appointment he had to get to.
Chapter Six – When Apart
Viola was very excited to see the photographs. But she didn’t see or hear from Mr. Horn for a number of weeks. It was making her crazy waiting. It wasn’t just that she wanted to see the photographs but she wanted to see Mr. Horn again. She liked him and felt positive and hopeful when she had been with him. She wanted that feeling again.
Chapter Seven – When Surprised
After 2 months had passed, an interminable amount of time for Viola, she saw Mr. Horn in the hall. He greeted her warmly and apologized profusely for the delay in getting back to her. He invited her right then to his apartment to see the photographs and she of course accepted. She was so surprised to see the photos. She didn’t realize he would convert them to black and white or that they would be so dramatic and emotional. She actually started to cry when she saw them. He embraced her lightly around the shoulders and said, “I hope those are good tears.” She said that she had never actually seen a good photograph of herself playing before and she didn’t realize how moving it was going to be.
Chapter Eight – When in Love
Mr. Horn asked if she would mind if one of the photos was put in an exhibition he was going to have. She immediately agreed that it would be fine. She asked if she could have a small print of the photograph just as a remembrance. He said that was part of the plan. 5 months later the exhibition opened. She went to the opening and saw the print framed for the first time. She cried again. She also whispered to the print when no one was looking, “I love you.” She felt the image speaking it back to her. She was happy.
Epilogue
The next morning she confessed to Clarina she had taken a lover. Clarina was hurt and asked, “Who was it?”, “When did it happen?”, and “Why?”
Viola brought out the little print Mr. Horn had given her and showed it to Clarina and said, “This is my new lover.”
Clarina didn’t understand and never did. Viola and Clarina broke up later that day and Clarina moved out 2 days later. Viola became 3rd Violinist in a local orchestra and was very happy. She also became one of Mr. Horn’s favorite and most popular models. He eventually published a photography book called ‘The Violinist’ that became a big seller for his small publishing company.
Viola and Mr. Horn’s friendship spanned over 30 years. They remained great friends until Mr. Horn died at age 78. Viola helped organize the work he had not yet been able to catalog due to his sickness and led the effort to have one final book published of his work. She succeeded and was very happy for him.
When Claire the Clarinetist was finished playing she could have chosen to leave the altar as do many of the other orchestra members. But the orchestra was arranged today so that she was facing directly towards the congregation (usually she is facing sideways) and she thought it would be fun to just sit there and see what the pastor sees every week.
Chapter Two – NO
The first thing she noticed was the raven-haired woman in the front row trying to control her kids. Her husband was also there but he was having no interaction with any of them. She had seen this happen again and again with this family. The mother had to do the hard work of interacting with the kids constantly and the father did nothing. She wondered if they would ever be friends. She thought, “No.”
Chapter Three – YES
As Claire looked at them longer she realized something else. The mother was getting the hugs and the smiles from the kids. The father was not. He may have been missing the hassle, but he was also missing the love. Now when she wondered if they would ever be friends, she thought, “Yes.”
Chapter Four – I DON’T KNOW
She then cast her eyes on an elderly man. He looked alert, with sparkling eyes. He had on a very nice sweater. She wondered about him, who he was, who he had been. She imagined him as a young man. She wondered if they would have been friends back when he was her age now. She thought, “I don’t know.”
Chapter Five – I KNOW
Her attention was pulled back to the sermon. The Pastor was telling a joke. It went on way too long and when the punch line finally came it was terrible. The whole congregation laughed though. All except the elderly man. He rolled his eyes. That is when she realized she would have to go meet him because they would be good friends. She thought, “I know.”
Chapter Six – MAYBE
She looked up into the balcony and noticed a striking blonde woman. One of the spotlights aimed at the altar was directly behind the woman and it lit up her big blonde hairdo like a halo. She could tell, even from a distance, that she had on impeccable clothing. She looked like she had a lot of money. She wondered if they would ever be friends. She thought, “Maybe.”
Chapter Seven – MAYBE NOT
As she continued to watch the woman in the balcony she noticed her looking back at her. Then she leaned over to the woman next to her and whispered in her ear. When she did that, she gestured toward the altar and pointed her finger. They both smiled and suppressed a giggle. The Clarinetist knew she had been pointing at her. She thought, “Maybe not.”
Epilogue
Claire eventually met the woman in the front row. They became good friends. She would babysit their kids once in a while when the couple would go out on date nights. It turned out they were very old fashioned but very much in love. He was kind and thoughtful to his kids, though not particularly warm. She adored her husband and greatly appreciated his ability to discipline the kids with love.
Clair did go and meet the elderly man. They became good friends. He started attending the noon concerts she did once a month with her little quintet she had. He was a widower, having been married 57 years before his wife passed away. Claire played his favorite song at his funeral 5 years later.
Claire ran into the blonde woman in the church bathroom a few weeks later. The blonde woman said, “I just want you to know how much I admire your playing every Sunday. My friend and I sit in the balcony and just adore the entire orchestra. We both like to sit up there because the acoustics are best. We can hear your clarinet very distinctly. We always make sure to point you out to each other when we think you have an exceptionally cool outfit on.”
Recently, I showed you a number of ‘Three Letter Word’ drawings I did in anticipation of my talk at SXSW and SMTulsa. When I showed them to you I left out the actual Three Letter Word in each drawing, just as I do in my actual presentation. I want the participants to try to figure it out before I tell them. Each one of these Three Letter Words is about igniting creativity in others (and yourself). They are about using words to take a statement from finality to possibility.
Here are the drawings with the words in them. My hope is you can see that just by adding these words you are saying your state of talent, interest, expertise or being isn’t permanent nor complete. You are saying that you believe you can become better, smarter, faster, more creative, more enlightened, more understanding in the future. It is a much different statement with the Three Letter Word than without it.
You can see the other posts about this presentation, ‘Igniting Creativity’ by finding ‘Three Letter Words’ in the series drop down menu to the right.
If this peaks your interest and feel your company or group could benefit from this sort of presentation about creativity, by all means contact me and we can talk about how I can help you!
Many believe these things happened. I assume most believe the crucifixion actually happened. And some certainly believe the resurrection is to be understood as having also actually happened. Others believe it is to be taken symbolically, not literally.
But as heretical as it might be, that isn’t of great concern to me. The reason is because, whether literal or symbolic, the resurrection is still a story about an idea. It’s the idea that you cannot kill good. You cannot kill love. You cannot kill forgiveness, mercy, compassion. Those things will always be more powerful than hate, than selfishness, than greed, than judgment. They will always triumph because they are always needed more than hate.
Hate is an indulgence. I think when we see someone filled with hate we should say, “Wow, there’s someone with too much time on their hands.” Because it’s true. They are indulging in a selfish, greedy exercise for their own entertainment, their own self-righteousness, Their own feeling of superiority.
But Love? Love isn’t an indulgence. It’s a life necessity. Humanity can’t live without it. It is what engenders hope. It is what builds relationships. It is what sustains us in the midst of tragedy. Hate can’t do any of those things, only love can.
The Passion Lesson
So, whether you believe Jesus physically or symbolically rose from the dead, there still has to be a reason for it to have happened. If you believe it is so you are saved? Saved from what? Eternal damnation is, of course, one answer, and that may be true. But what about another answer? Maybe you were saved from hate and judgment. Maybe you were saved from thinking hate and judgment were the best road forward, the best way to react to life. Much of the world around us certainly promotes them as something to feel and act on.
Maybe you were saved when you learned from seeing Jesus being willing to practice what he preached so thoroughly that he allowed himself to be crucified. Not just to fulfill an ancient prophesy, and not just to make a cosmic level save for humanity, but to show humanity something about living on this earth.
Your Neighbor, Here and Now
Jesus so often talked about the Kingdom of God being at hand. I think he meant in the here and now on earth. And how do we access it? By following his teachings. And what were his teachings? Yes, there are teachings about the theology and government of the afterlife. But beyond saying you believe it there isn’t anything else you can do but believe it.
But his teachings on allowing nothing to get in the way of loving your neighbor? That we can act on right now. And he even made it easy for us all. When asked, “but who is my neighbor?” He made it very clear, everyone is your neighbor.
My friends in business, some as high up as VP, but most in middle management, have often told me over the years how little their bosses realize how much work they have done and currently do. Those bosses may have come to power in the past few months, and know nothing of the many years this person saved, expanded, corrected, instilled, encouraged, adapted, innovated, created, built, adjusted, revamped, and competed to make the division or the company what it is today. These friends may have had someone above them recognize their efforts during a year end review that ends up in a file somewhere. But the new bosses will very likely not read those reviews, deeming them irrelevant. It can be very frustrating for them.
Now
On the other hand, as a running coach who leads four sessions a year, I can’t tell my runners that the last session was great and expect them to be satisfied with that. The current session has to be great otherwise my bragging about past achievements means nothing. Now is what matters.
Balance
It’s good to recognize other’s accomplishments. It tells them they are doing a good job and are appreciated. That is important. But, in another sense, it’s also good to not pay too much attention to those past accomplishments because they are not what will cause the business to succeed today and into the future. For that to happen you have to perform today. Of course, both can take place, and that is how it should be. Recognition of past efforts is what makes a person want to continue to put out effort in the present and into the future.
One might think that it is critical when you reach a certain point of success that you up your game and push your level of excellence, going beyond ‘good enough’. But the truth is you can’t wait until you reach any particular level of success to do that. If you don’t push for excellence and originality from the very beginning chances are you won’t ever reach a high level of success. If you do somehow reach that level of success, you will have a hard time sustaining it.
This past week I went to SXSW (South By Southwest) in Austin, Texas. SXSW is actually 3 conferences and festivals; Interactive, Film and Music. I was invited to speak at SXSWInteractive. I also was invited to speak in 2014 so this was my second SXSW experience. And if you haven’t gone, trust me, it really is an experience unlike any other conference.
LARGE
First off it’s larger. Attendance this year is estimated to be around 100,000 for all three events. The Interactive/Film portion, which overlap, is said to be about 25,000. SXSW takes over one of the biggest conventions centers you can imagine and that is in no way enough space. They take over eight other hotels and other venues to have enough room for all the sessions and events. In addition eleven other venues participate as partner venues, associated with SXSW but run by private companies or organizations. I typically went to 3-4 different venues per day.
TOPICS
Second, there is a huge array of topics. This year I went to the following sessions, divided up into the tracks they were in: Click in each session to see my thoughts detailing what it was about and then my live impressions of the event via my tweets.
Keynotes and Featured Sessions
Conversation with Ira Glass (founder of ‘This America Life’ on NPR)
Twitter Notes and Quotes
Ira Glass was hilarious. His session was simply him being interviewed about his professional activities of late, which include (besides his regular radio show) producing numerous podcasts, a feature length movie and a stage act that he performs with two dancers that he has been touring in almost every weekend for over a year. He is disarmingly humble but he is not a slacker by any means. He talked again and again about ‘Will’, how you have to will something creative into existence, how you have to will something to be great instead of mediocre. That was his inspiration point for me.
Gretchen Rubin – Five Counterintuitive Truths About Habits
Twitter Notes and Quotes
Gretchen Rubin has been a favorite author and online personality for many years. She combines fantastic research with great story telling to illuminate ideas. Her ‘Happiness Project’ gained her great attention and she has followed that up with a book on habits called ‘Better Than Before’ this is what she spoke on. After the speech I was first in line to get her autograph on two books, one for my daughter and one for my wife.
I was in this session because the one I wanted to go to, ‘Gender in Media: Why it Matters’ with Geena Davis, was cancelled. This session though was very appropriate for me since it was about streaming media, which I use every day with Periscope. The presenters basically were creating a Periscope for foodies and it was very interesting to hear how they made the decision and what went into creating the website, which launched just 5 days before.
Sitting in on ‘Nom: Food and the future of live video’ after finding out @geenadavis had to cancel her session on ‘Gender in Media’ #SXSW
Elephant in the Valley: Gender Bias in the Tech Industry
Twitter Notes and Quotes
This was one of the big themes throughout SXSW this year. Whether it is the tech industry, media and film, politics or science, there were sessions and conversations about it. Hopefully these discussions will lead to change.
1984 35% of computer science grads were women, 2016? 19% why? #SXSW#genderbias
This session didn’t really break new ground on anything. We all know the world is full of BS, especially in politics, PR, and marketing. What was interesting was watching how hard it was for the presenters to avoid BS words and phrases even while attempting to discuss how to avoid using them. One of the presenters, Jon Favreau, had been a speech writer for President Obama, and it was interesting to hear his stories about Obama and his desire to be and sound real in his remarks and speeches.
Tech and Social Good: A New Model for Collaboration
Twitter Notes and Quotes
This session was a bit of a disappointment for me. I thought it would be more about how to use technology to help build awareness and raise money for non-profits and charitable causes in general. It did touch on that a bit as it applies to the LGBT community but not as much as I would have liked.
Mario had some interesting things to say about making money via Periscope and some eye-opening statistics but I was hoping for more specific tips on apps, etc. to use to facilitate doing this. He did use a number of testimonials on people who are making money on Periscope, including one of my favorite periscoping couples, Doug and Ally of ‘Frameable Faces’. One thing that bothers me in general about money making on social media is how much of it is made by attempting to teach people how to make money on social media.
This was a session focused on twitter and it’s uses in the media, especially in breaking news stories, and how easy it is for a tweet to be let out into the twitterverse without enough thought to the context, or lack of context. This in turn can lead to terrible judgment, misrepresentation, and viral condemnation before you can blink an eye. It made me nervous to tweet about anything!
Now in a panel on Twitter called ‘140 characters, zero content’ will I have any content to tweet?
This session was about applying for and participating in various fellowship programs for successful people. He focused on the Aspen Institute’s Crown Fellowship that he participated in recently. He explained the process, when they met, what they read, and things like that. It seemed to me to be a bit of a bragging session in some ways, talking a lot about all the other famous (and very wealthy) people he rubbed shoulders with. I understood it in some ways, he was like a recent convert who had great enthusiasm. But at the same time I wished he had known his audience a bit better and talked about a wider range of opportunities in more detail, not just those for entrepreneurs and millionaires.
Next session: ‘From success to significance’ – Josh Baer, owner of ‘Capital Factory’ #SXSW
This was one of my favorite sessions of the conference. The reason is that they delivered on the title. It really was about how to design happiness into experiences. They had an interactive section where they had to audience ask the panel how they might redesign certain things to be happier. The DMV was one. Then they had the participants vote on whether the ideas were happy inducing or not. They topped all other elements of the session by bringing out puppies, real live puppies, at the end for us all to ooh and aah over. It was a great way to have us all leave happy!
This was another favorite of mine. The facilitators wasted no time getting us up and active in learning a new, more natural way to network and connect. That’s why I had so few tweets during the session!
Next session – connecting at the speed of story – going beyond the elevator story #SXSW#strychnine the
Even though this was geared more toward elite college age athletes it still helped me a great deal in thinking about new and better ways to coach my runners at Fleet Feet. It really came down to staying connected throughout the coaching process, both in person and online.
‘Connected #Coaching: Active Learning for Athletes’ is about to start. I must be switching to coaching mode! @FleetFeetTulsa#sxsw
I had high hopes for this one but the speaker tended to wander off topic and not address the questions and issues as directly as I might have liked. She didn’t use any slides and I think they could have been helpful in giving details of apps and methods for protecting our privacy. Having said that there were some very interesting concepts and practices from around the world that she did discuss.
I went to this session because my daughter is a scientist. It was focused mostly on the University setting and how professors in particular can get away with egregious behavior and not have any or minimal consequences. When I talked to me daughter about it later she backed up from personal experiences, many of the horror stories the women in the panel were talking about. It is an ongoing problem in all too many professional fields and it seems the solutions are long term, first and foremost, training and raising boys and girls from early on to know what sexual harassment is. And second, to reorganize corporate and academic structures so people are held accountable in a consistent, transparent and fair way.
Next session – #distractingly sexy : fighting #science#sexism online’ w/ Summer Ash, Nicole Cabrera Salazar, Jennifer Golbeck
I really enjoyed seeing a session all about art. Sarah Green explained a program she started that is shown on PBS called ‘The Art Assignment’ where she picks artists from around the country to come up with an art assignment for themselves that when shown to the general public is then opened up to them also fulfilling that same assignment in whatever way they want.
I was enthusiastic and hopeful when I heard about it, that maybe I could participate as one of the artists, but upon hearing Ms. Green’s explanation I realized her criteria for picking the artists is way to bound by traditional art success in the museum and gallery world and it would be very unlikely she would consider me adequately successful. But I still like the idea!
Next session : Art for All: a look at The Art Assignment – with Sarah Green #sxsw#artassignment
This was another session dedicated solely to art and I was surprised to see so many this year. This was all about ‘appropriation art’ or art in which the artist uses preexisting art or images and repurposes them to create something new. Of course the problem and controversy is when either the new art is not a substantial transformation of the old art or when the original artist is given no credit or financial reward for his or her images being used in the new art. This is particularly troublesome when the new art is sold for millions of dollars, as has actually been the case more often that one might realiz in recent decades.
Next session – ‘creative thievery – what’s yours is mine’ #SXSW Jonathan Rosen, Hrag Vartanian, Mary Crosse, Sergio Munoz Sarmiento #art
This session was scary coming in. There were police everywhere in the hotel and there was a bag check that was MUCH more thorough than anything I have had to go through at the TSA line at an airport. Why you ask? Because this session, and the whole Online Harassment Summit, was created in response to violent threats having been given when an earlier session proposal about sexism in the gaming industry was proposed. Because of how bad threats were they cancelled that session. They then had a change of heart and designed an entire program for SXSW. This session was one of the big ones because it had Wendy Davis in it, the former Texas gubernatorial candidate speaking on the panel.
Sitting in on ‘women in media & online harassment’ – important for men to know! pic.twitter.com/5UEphb4vyg
This was pure art and I loved it. The artist was a great speaker, talking about her own creative journey and at the same time encouraging others to pursue their own path. Many things she said are very similar to things I have been saying to artists and students for many decades now, but it was great to hear a fresh take on how to say those things. She was very inspiring.
Next session – being an artist today – finding your way to YAY – #SXSW#art
That is it for part 1. In part 2 I will explain my sessions (I had two actually) and my Airbnb stay, and in part 3 I will show you a bit of the wild fun nightlife of Austin.
People often say they don’t want to argue, right? For example, they may say this, “Arguing has never changed anyone’s mind.”
However, the truth is that in business, politics, science, religion, even art, ideas move forward and action is taken based on arguments made, arguments replied to, arguments won or lost. Continued progress over any substantial amount of time isn’t made without argument.
Persuasion
Of course, there are many ways to argue. Yelling, screaming, ranting, raving, and bullying are some of the ways. And those who make the comment above about arguing never changing someone’s mind usually have that sort of arguing in mind when they say that.
But those are not the only forms of argument. Debate and Persuasion are two methods that usually are more effective. Debate is about logic and reason, persuasion is about self-interest. In debating you are trying to convince someone that your ideas are right. In persuading you are trying to convince someone it is in their best interests to believe and/or act on something.
Best For Business
In business all these types of argument are used. But from my experience inside and outside of business there is no comparison, the most effective method is persuasion. That is because it is the most long lasting. You have converted someone to your way of thinking because you have actually made it their way of thinking as well. And when that happens, a vision for a business can grow naturally within an organization.
Creativity is often seen as a solo pursuit. But that isn’t always true. Yes, the spark can seem to happen within the individual sitting alone in the studio. But all you have to do is think of all the creative ideas from others that went into that individual’s history long before the moment of inspiration hit to realize he or she does not truly create alone.
The Spark Within
Here is the drawing I did yesterday. I am using it in my workshop at SXSW later this week. I drew this while I was streaming live on Periscope. I play a game called ‘Guess the Quote’ when I do my napkin drawings, with the viewers playing a variation on Hangman, guessing one word at a time while I draw the image and give hints.
I came up with the idea of these two very unique characters, one standing on her head, to illustrate the idea of upending expectations. I had already drawn the two characters and had written in the quotes when one of the ‘#NapkinKin’ (my tribe on Periscope) suggested something that led to an even more effective illustration of the idea.
The Spark Without
He suggested I turn the second part of the quote upside down. I had already written it in so I couldn’t change it on the actual napkin. But I was able to change it in Photoshop. However, even without changing it in the drawing the idea sparked my decisions about how to complete the background.
All of a sudden I was thinking about symmetry and reflection, making the top and bottom look the same but not exact, so if you rotated it 180º you would feel it still made sense (granted, this making sense is within the context of a drawing that really isn’t about making sense, but you know what I mean).
Muse
In my larger charcoal and pastel drawings I often use models. The best ones are the ones that know it is a collaboration. Yes, I am the artist. But the creativity is sparked not just from within myself but by them as well. That is why models are often called ‘Muse’. Because they inspire the creativity of the artist.
Your Spark
If you are an Artist, never forget that your creativity, no matter how individual and unique you might thing it is, owes much to the artists of the past and those around you who inspire and collaborate with you.
If you are not an Artist, never forget your creativity isn’t restricted to that fact. Your creativity is not just about what you create, but about what you inspire others to create as well.
Either way, creativity is one way you can be sure to change the world.
Here’s the cover page for my presentation. It will animate with additional information after the Workshop starts.
I am finishing up the presentation and starting to rehearse content and timing this week. I leave for Austin Thursday, stopping in Dallas for lunch with my daughter Caitlin. I am staying at an Airbnb townhouse that I am hopeful will be a great spot.
Let me know if you are going to be there! Use twitter to connect if you can, I will be checking it often. I am @thenapkindad there too.
You will be able to watch the presentation on Periscope (hopefully). Just find me, @thenapkindad and tune in on 3/11/16 at 3:30 Central Standard Time (USA).
