Creating Creativity

For the entire month of January I was in a slump mentally. I just couldn’t focus on anything even remotely creative, any kind of problem-solving; even reading was a challenge.

Some of it was probably diet, some of it was other things. It surprised me, though, what broke the dam and got things flowing again.

Songwriting.

Every year, I participate in February Album Writing Month where songwriters from all over the world to cheer each other on as we write an entire album, 14 new songs. Each.

Each January 31st I wait up ’til midnight so I can start writing the very second it’s allowed (one of the very few rules at FAWM is that you can’t start before it’s February wherever you are.) Official challenges are posted at the website (“Title involving a color ” “Mangled cliché” or this year’s first, “Photograph”) to inspire you if you need it.

I started writing a song and it just wouldn’t come out. Last year, I had a song written and demo recorded to post at the website by 3 a.m. but this year, at 2 a.m. I just went to bed, mulling over the lyrics I couldn’t write.

I woke up with the song almost fully written in my head, and had a demo recorded within a couple hours.

And then, they just kept coming. I’ve written and recorded eight songs in seven days, and I’ve intentionally avoided doing any musical work this week to focus on other kinds of work. Still, I have eight more song ideas on the whiteboard on the wall behind me.

It’s not just music, either. I’m suddenly having ideas for blog posts, solving web design problems, creating graphic designs for my wife’s clients, organizing projects under tight time constraints. I’m thinking more clearly, I have more mental and physical energy, and as a result, feel better both emotionally and physically.

Creativity transcends boundaries. Even when you chased it with a stick instead of waiting for inspiration.

(If you’re so inclined, you can listen to the wildly eclectic music I’ve written this year at the February Album Writing Month website.

How Does That Feel?

So where were we? Ah, yes; Marcus Buckingham’s tools.

We tend to go on semi-autopilot when we’re working. We also tend to assume work is work and shouldn’t be fun. The former habit makes it really hard to disabuse ourselves of the latter notion.

Part of Buckingham’s program is to step out of autopilot and consciously analyze how we feel about what we’re doing. The first step to loving what you do every day is to know what you love and what you don’t.

For one week, pay attention to how you feel about while working. Every task, consider whether you’re looking forward to it, or you’d really rather not. At the end of the week, compile the list of what you look forward to in your work, and what you dread. You may find activities clearly grouped, or you may discover that your interests are scattered, but either way, at least you have a starting point: I love this and I loathe that.

If you like fun tools for the process, you can download the ‘Loved It’ and ‘Loathed It’ cards from Oprah.com.

Of course, now you have to know how to offload the stuff you don’t like, and how to amplify the stuff you do. We’ll start there next week.

Seth Godin: Good Guys Finish . . .

I try to avoid ‘me, too!’ posts, but Seth says what I’m thinking so I’ll just point you to him.

How to Make a Great Living Doing What You Love, Part 1

Have I mentioned Marcus Buckingham’s book “First, Break All the Rules” ? I have? Good.

Marcus talks a lot about how we put ourselves through so much nonsense when we work. We assume, as my father told me in virtually the only bad advice he ever gave, that ‘work is work, not fun; stop looking for something fun to do for a living and settle for a real job.’

Well, that’s not how it works. At least, it doesn’t have to. Except nearly 90% of the working people in this country don’t like what they do for a living (I was astonished to discover that this statistic includes the self-employed. Why on earth would you hire yourself to do a job you don’t like?)

Buckingham offers a couple simple useful tools I wanna talk about, but first, a book I just read on the same subject that really expanded my thinking about doing what you love for work.

Jonathan Fields just released his first business book called Career Renegade. It is, as the subtitle says, about how to make a great living doing what you love. I’ll quote my Amazon review:

“An excellent read even for those of us already firmly in the entrepreneurial world. Fields knows his stuff and doesn’t gloss over the hard parts. He does, though, deliver on the title. Even though I already love what I do, the book started me thinking about other paths as well.

Absolutely packed with practical information and resources. The success stories are much more than feel-good ’see? it can be done!’ They’re usable examples.

The list of Career Renegade paths is a tool I’ll use the rest of my life.

I wanted to write this book. Probably best that Jonathan beat me to it; he’s done an excellent job.”

If you’re one of the 87% who aren’t happy at work, consider Jonathan’s book. It will make you think and help decide if you’re ready to move or bluffing yourself.

Ah; those Marcus Buckingham tools. How ’bout next week?

Three Free eBooks from Tribes

Seth Godin’s book Tribes spawned an online community, leading to two fairly hefty ebooks, both free (here and elsewhere; the video below by the illustrious Paul Durban has a web address for the Q&A.)

Seth’s Change This manifesto is a thought-provoking introduction to his excellent book. The casebook is a series of anecdotes illustrating the thinking endorsed in the book. The Q&A is shorter and more didactic. Well worth reading.

How to Sell a Book
(or Any New Idea)

Tribes
Casebook

Tribes Q&A

Why Don’t Seagulls’ Feet Freeze?

Seagulls spend quite of bit of time standing on ice. They don’t wear fleece-lined booties or even warm socks. Why don’t their feet freeze? Or worse, why doesn’t the ice melt from the heat in their feet, then re-freeze, trapping them?

The answer, and the reason this question comes up in a business discussion, is countercurrent heat exchange.

The arteries (carrying blood away from the heart) and veins (carrying blood toward the heart) in the bird’s legs lie next to each other so warm blood coming from the bird’s 104 F interior gives its heat to the blood returning from the feet.

Here’s what interested me: if you have two liquids flowing the same direction, about half the heat is exchanged from the warmer to the cooler.

If they’re flowing opposite directions, though, as much as 90% of the energy can move from the outgoing to the incoming.

And that’s where it relates to business.

Old ways of doing business are dying. Traditional record deals for musicians, for instance. If you’re creating or promoting an alternative, it can be a long slow grueling climb.

It’s almost instinctive to shy away from the traditional when we’re trying to be ‘the new thing.’ But there’s still energy in the collapsing empire. Make use of coutercurrent energy exchange. Work close to the traditional lines, but in the opposite direction.

As they spiral downward and you spiral upward through the middle, you’ll absorb energy. Folks who are tired of the traditional and can foresee its demise will jump ship and join you. Folks who had no idea there was something else will to the same. That proximity makes the difference between the old and the new much more obvious; instead of a new version of the old thing, you can become a new thing. (I’ll write about ‘anchoring’ and how it gives you the advantage another time.)

It can be cold out there. Don’t make your own heat when you can get it ready-made.

The Bucket and the Basket

Ask a business owner what would motivate his unhappy employees and most will answer “More money!” Unless his people are genuinely underpaid, he’s wrong.

Frederick Herzberg’s studies on mental health in business are a sort of practical application of Maslow’s heirarchy of needs (which, by the way, isn’t really heirarchical.) Often called The Two Factor Theory, Herzberg’s Motivation-Hygiene Theory shows that, as expected, there are things in our work which make us happy, and things which make us unhappy. What’s unexpected is that they’re not the same things.

Certain aspects of work fall into the ‘preventing dissatisfaction’ bucket. Workers need to be paid fairly. They need safe working conditions and reasonable hours. If these needs aren’t met, workers will be unhappy.

Which is very different from saying that if they are met, workers will be happy.

Other aspects of work fall into the ‘creating satisfaction’ basket. recognition, advancement, meaningful work, a sense of achievement—when these things are present, they increase happiness (which, we assume, will increase production and value; this assumption is intrinsic to Herzberg’s work.)

Which, again, is not the same as saying they decrease dissatisfaction.

The ‘preventing dissatisfaction’ bucket gets filled with water. Pay enough money, have a safe workplace, meet the basic needs, and the bucket is full. Add more water (by paying more money, for instance) and it doesn’t pile up—it overflows. Once dissatisfaction has been reduced as far as possible (hopefully, eliminated) there’s no value in trying to reduce it further.

It’s not a long scale with ‘unhappy’ at one end and ‘happy’ at the other. It’s not a zero sum game, where reducing dissatisfaction equals increasing satisfaction.

What you have is two separate containers. Once the ‘preventing dissatisfaction’ bucket is full, you can’t fill it more. But the ‘creating satisfaction’ basket—that, you can pile to the sky.

Recognition? There’s no such thing as too much. Tell every employee, every day, how much you value their loyalty and hard work. Do it sincerely. Read The Carrot Principle and put it into practice.

Achievement? How about helping every employee do as much as they can? It helps fill their satisfaction basket, and fills yours at the same time.

Keep checking the ‘prevents dissatisfaction’ bucket, ’cause sometimes it leaks. But once you’ve got it full (or if it was full to begin with, for you A+ entrepreneurs) focus on creating satisfaction for your employees and customers.

And at the same time, you’ll be creating your own.