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Creativity Clocked In

Work Life May 27, 2014 Leave a comment

The number of people who say that they aren’t creative astounds me. Maybe they have a very narrow definition of creativity? Maybe they don’t want to talk about their creative efforts because they don’t want to be judged? Maybe someone once told them that they aren’t creative?

I think that we all have our creative moments, if we don’t define creativity too tightly, with too many restrictions. To my thinking, creativity should be pleasing to the creator and build positive energy. It should be something that we encourage in everyone. A little quiet time, some mental space and more people might be able to tap into their own creative vein.

I have tried my own hand at sewing, knitting, painting, drawing, wood burning, wood working, writing, photography, acting, music, gardening, cooking, baking, crochet, embroidery (even designing my own pieces), and other pursuits that refuse to come to mind right now. I tried each of these things because they interested me. I have been somewhat more successful at some than at others, but I enjoyed learning about the process even if I was disappointed in the result.

Some of my past creative output

I suppose there are those who might say some of the things that I listed aren’t creative – back to defining creativity. I do define almost anything that can be subjectively applied and have a different end result as potentially creative.

I am impressed by the creativity that other people show. I am particularly impressed by people who are able to make a living using their creative skills. For many of us, creativity is something that is mostly applied to hobbies – though I have used creative thinking more than once at work.

I’m not entirely sure that I could be creative on demand. Though sticking with any creative pursuit does require a certain amount of discipline. And one of the biggest keys to creativity is being able to tap into the right mindset, so perhaps creativity on demand is just a matter of making sure that you tend the path, or paths, to that mindset.

I was very lucky to have two parents who were highly creative in their own ways. (Though I am wondering now how they might each respond to being called creative.) Both of my parents encouraged us to take on creative pursuits, and each spent time on their own creative outlets to lead by example.

The results of other people’s creativity are easily found on the internet and these can be inspiration to try something out for ourselves, or hindrance out of fear that our own effort won’t be so accomplished. I don’t think that deciding to express creativity requires accomplishment. Do you?

Writer’s note: I am changing my writing schedule because summer is a very busy season at my workplace. I love the challenge of coming up with topics to share here, and was proud of myself for keeping up with it during this last frigid winter when my thoughts were frozen, but I hope to find a balance between keeping things fresh here and keeping my team motivated through our busy weeks. I will be posting on Tuesdays and Fridays, which hopefully will give all of us a bit of time to enjoy the summer months.

A Highly Collaborative Introvert

Random thoughts May 19, 2014 Leave a comment

Maybe you are wondering why I am combining these two seemingly contrary traits. These traits cannot exist in parallel to each other. But they can and do, and I am living proof. On my original blog, in my most enduring and highly viewed post to date I talk about being an introvert with extroverted tendencies. And mention that I like to collaborate.

Collaboration is to work with another person on within a group toward a shared goal. Collaboration is a powerful way to take a good idea and make it something stellar through the use of the strengths of multiple people. True collaboration, and not the buzzword ‘collaborative’, can and does improve plenty of projects.

Introversion simply means that a person wants to choose where, when, with whom and for how long they interact with other people. Having no control over any of those points creates an energy drain for the introverted person. Introversion is not shyness, though Dictionary.com lists introversion as a synonym, because shyness is more about wanting to fade into the background when in a group. Shyness is timidity, wanting to limit your exposure to the unfamiliar. A person can be introverted and not be shy and vice versa.

All of the above is lead in to my topic, being a collaborative introvert. It took me a very long time to understand my introversion because I am not a complete introvert. But I often came away from group interactions feeling exhausted and anxious and I couldn’t figure out why. And part of the reason why I didn’t understand is because I love shared ideas. I get jazzed up when a group situation offers a chance to develop an ok idea or plan into a much better one.

public domain image

It has only been in the last few years, as I thought about defining these traits for myself that I realized the distinctions. And the parameters that I need to create for myself to prevent that exhausted, anxious feeling. Or at least lessen it as much as I can.

Simple things really help – taking a moment to compose myself before walking into the room, having at least some pre-idea of what might happen (meeting topic/agenda, reason for the event, who will be attending, etc.), knowing when I need a break. I also almost always have a notebook with me to jot things down (for potential blog posts later).

What about you do you find value in collaboration? Are you an introvert or an extrovert?

Related: I also wrote this follow up, Introversion Revisited – How Could I Resist?, which didn’t play as well.

A Sense of Place

Random thoughts May 14, 2014 Comments: 5

I have never lived in one place as long as a decade, though I am coming close with my current house. I think that this has given me a very purposeful perspective on how sense of place affects us. I’ve tried to talk to friends who have had more continuity of home but mostly had a ‘what are you talking about’ result.

A sense of place is the feeling of belonging, of feeling that things are right, content. Right time, right place, right people. The house and town where you grew up, plus your family and community, surround you and give you the context to decide who you are and what you are about. If they stay constant, they are almost invisible participants in this process – at least background or scenery in the story of your life. Although you may have a strong urge either to replicate or escape them.

If they change regularly, or at a crucial time in your development these elements might become more than background, they might shape a part of the story. They might, if you are me, pull into the foreground and make you wonder who you might have been had the circumstances changed. Had you stayed in one of the places, say? Or a different location had been chosen.

At one point, my dad had two opportunities to move up to run his own council – one in the Chicago area and one in Port Huron, MI. He took the opportunity in Chicago. I was already in my late teens, but I do sometimes wonder how the alternative might have affected things. It is possible he had other conflicting opportunities leading up to previous moves, but I only know of this one for certain. I do know that he entertained the idea of leaving Scouting when I was in mid-grade school due to a bad situation with council leadership. He stuck with it and we ended up in Portage MI and I had my own room, plus that was the biggest house we ever lived in.

I have come full circle in a way – the first house that my parents actually owned was in Hoffman Estates IL and I have now lived in 2 different houses in this village as an adult. Moving back to a childhood place was a bit of a comfort at a difficult time in my life. Familiar places reduced the stress of unfamiliar problems.

My nomadic childhood has led me to think a lot about community. About what draws people together and conversely sets them apart. About how important community is for well-being, for stability – financial and emotional, for opportunity and support.

Having no strong sense of place linked to a physical location, I developed a strong sense of place within myself and within the group of people who make up my family and close friends. I have also taken to collecting things that remind me of people and my past. Nearly all of the items in my house have history.

I hope that you have a sense of place that gives you comfort.

A Fitting Tribute?

Random thoughts May 9, 2014 Leave a comment

How can I possibly figure out how to say what I want to about having a mom and being a mom in a single blog post? I’m not sure, but I am going to try. Mother’s Day is almost upon us again and it has been a bittersweet day for me for 9 years now. It is hard for me to honor my own mom properly, since she is no longer with us, and on top of it let my boys know what might be fitting for me.

Growing up we had a set routine. Dad would put the same items on the grocery list as a lead up to the day – brown and serve sausages, cinnamon rolls, eggs, something to grill for dinner. Mother’s Day festivities started in earnest with brunch after church. I was always in charge of the cinnamon rolls. Dad had us all snapping to in the kitchen while mom read the Sunday paper. The day progressed and we could have been hard pressed to tell the passing of the years except that we three children got bigger. And the sweetly sentimental card that Dad picked out for mom would be different every year. (Dad was a champion at picking out cards for special occasions.)

public domain image – vintage Mother’s Day sentiment

I look back now and I wonder because I can clearly see that this ritual was more about what dad thought Mother’s Day should be than perhaps what mom did. I don’t think any of us ever asked her if it suited what she wanted.

My very first Mother’s Day as a mom came shortly after I gave birth to my older son. Daddy and son got dressed that day and went out to get me flowers and a card. Then we three had a picnic. It was perfect. I couldn’t say for certain now if I participated in the planning or if our day was based on my husband’s idea of a good Mother’s Day.

Other Mother’s Days followed. I got feted, and reached out long distance to my mom. I never understood the moms who said their idea of the perfect Mother’s Day was to have time to themselves. (Yes, that would be nice on any other day during the growing years, I agree.) I learned from my dad’s ritual that it is important for the family to turn the tables and take care of mom. I also learned that rituals are powerful. (Somehow that lesson worked better for me in the personal setting than in the formal setting of church.)

The next Mother’s Day that comes clearly into memory was the one during my transition to single mom. The boys and I made the trek to COSI – the science museum in Columbus, OH (we lived in southern OH then). I had wanted to have a very special experience because we were all hurting. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to help my mom from that distance – it was her first Mother’s Day without my dad. (We’d had a very bad start to our year.)

It dawned on me that year that I needed to figure out how to impart that lesson on my boys – the importance of turning the tables and showing care for mom. I had no idea how to accomplish this task.

And I’m not sure now if I did a good job in the intervening years. I do know that there are only 2 days out of the year that my older son remembers that the phone works both ways; Mother’s Day and my birthday. (Except the year that he blew out his knee on Mother’s Day.) My younger son has a stronger sentimental streak in him, like my dad, and has been known to make a small or even a grand gesture now and then between recognized holidays. I expect he will make a special dinner on Sunday.

For good or ill, a mom is a figure who looms large for a child. It is a most important thing and nearly impossible to get completely right, to be a mom. The effort does deserve a fitting tribute. Whatever that might be.

Offering a Gift

Random thoughts May 5, 2014 Leave a comment

I am still absorbed in my book about Louisa May Alcott. (It takes me a terribly long time to read a book through these days since books are mostly reserved to a few minutes before I go to sleep at night.) Louisa seems to have been rather fixated on presents. She is quite generous with her immediate family as her fortunes improve thanks to her writing but on the flip side she receives very few presents on those gift giving occasions. She deeply appreciates the gifts that she gets but there is clear envy of others who receive more.

It is May, therefore I am almost tardy in finding a gift for my brother’s birthday. He would be fine with a card, I am certain. But I like the ritual of gift giving. The lead up to gift giving occasions means an opportunity to think about that person. To set aside the constant scroll of things to do and places to be for a bit to think about that person. Times we have shared and our current relationship. What the person might like or need.

My brother and I are at that stage in life when we don’t need more things to clutter our homes, but we have lots of interests so a well thought out addition to our collections is appreciated. A couple of years ago, for his birthday, I bought a flash drive and loaded it with the family pictures that I have scanned so far. He was thrilled.

Nine years ago, only months after Mom died, I was doing my ‘oops May has started, gotta birthday shop NOW’ thing and ended up finding my current house. We were living in a townhouse at the time, the boys and I. A townhouse is cozy, but two teenaged boys make it claustrophobic and so we had been unsuccessfully seeking a small single family home. On the way to the mall with my younger son we saw an Open House sign and decided to check it out. It was a ranch just like we had wanted. We went in and it met all our criteria. We were getting excited (and nervous, there were other people touring the house too). Of course I had forgotten my cell phone so we drove home and called our realtor to set up a second tour which would include my older son. I feel like my family helped us to find this house and I got a great gift for my brother’s birthday that year. (I think I got him something from Brookstone…)

Despite the fact that I really enjoy gift shopping for the opportunity to reflect that it provides, regular obligations still take up too much of my thoughts and I find myself scrambling at the last minute quite often. I guess I should work on my planning ahead skills a bit.

Loving What You Do

Random thoughts, Work Life May 2, 2014 Comments: 2

We are told in so many ways to choose to do something that we love to make our living. It has become almost a cliché.

“I honestly think it is better to be a failure at something you love than to be a success at something you hate.”

~ George Burns

Is finding work that you love one of our modern myths? It certainly can be tremendously helpful to feel positive about your work because we spend a great deal of our time working. But plenty of people have found a way to be capable at work that is probably just a means to an end.

A garden is a work of love. Hopefully these plants come back this year.

Is it possible to excel at something that you hate enough to be successful doing it? I’ve noticed in myself and those around me that we usually stay where we feel valued and we think that we can provide value to others. That doesn’t mix with deep dislike in my book.

My first job was babysitting. A pretty standard method of earning money for a girl back in the day – not as much now, I think. It helped that I was the oldest girl on a block with plenty of kids. I had a great career for a few years until the opportunities kind of drifted away as the kids got older and I got involved in high school activities. I did love to babysit. I miss spending time with kids.

Next I got into food service. It was a relatively easy job to get without much experience, but not one that I was particularly good at because I just wanted to earn some money. I also did not fit in particularly. But food service jobs were available so I got one after another for a period of time.

A lot about the jobs that you get has to do with expediency, not love. I probably would have been better suited to general office work but I had no clue how to obtain such a job.

Along the line, I took a brief stab at retail work in a small shop that sold natural remedies. I do have an interest in the holistic approach and in natural remedies plus it didn’t hurt that a friend already worked there. I’d tried to get retail jobs back before I got my first food service job, but no one was interested in a person without experience. It was a means to earn some money while my life was in flux.

Eventually I got an office job. I was a single mother in need of steady income and regular hours – so, highly determined that an office was a good choice. That determination looked like confidence, which I had sorely lacked in my early forays into the working world.

I didn’t love office work, I loved my boys and wanted to find balance. I wasn’t doing what I loved, but I did learn to love what I did because I found plenty of things to spark my curiosity.

Love what you do, do what you love, love why you work, love what you can do because you work to support yourself – there are plenty of options, I think.

A Near Complete Lack of Curiosity

Random thoughts, Work Life April 21, 2014 Comments: 4

I never fail to be stumped when I encounter a person with a near complete lack of curiosity. I can’t even bring myself to say that the person may have a complete lack of curiosity. I have to qualify it, and hope that the person has some curiosity about something that I just don’t see. It just doesn’t seem possible to me that a person could have zero curiosity.

Sure there are things that I am not interested in at all, or so I believe right now. I would have said that was true about beer until last June when I sat through a talk that my son wanted to attend and the panel brought up the history of beer and tied it to some things that I am interested in. Heck, I find myself feeling curious about math at times now that my niece is so taken with the topic.

But there are people who just want to be told to put that there and twist this a half a turn and move on. They don’t want to know why. They don’t want to know how the thing came to be in front of them or what will happen to it after it moves on. Huh. I am curious why that is, what is it about their make-up that left aside the wonder? I can’t fathom it.

Sure, curiosity killed the cat but lack of curiosity narrows. Or at least it seems to me. I would like to have a conversation with someone who has no interest in learning new things, who is content within their comfort zone. Has that person ever had to deal with big changes? In my experience life brings alterations, from tiny to seismic, fairly regularly and my curiosity has helped me to get resettled.

What importance do you place on curiosity?

Remembrance & Relevancy

Random thoughts April 14, 2014 1 Comment

My dad comes up frequently in posts because I am pretty sure that my work ethic comes directly from his influence more than any other. I know that anything I understand about tools and fixing things was first honed watching him, sometimes directly for hours and sometimes covertly. He is still in the creak of the flooring when I manage to find an old-time hardware store and the smell of freshly cut lumber. I hear him laughing at old puns and sometimes catch glimpses of his very same twinkle in the eyes of both my boys, particularly when some mild mischief is involved.

Dad would have been 77 today, a date that he shared with Abraham Lincoln – one starting out his life and the other’s coming to an end on April 14^th, 72 years intervening. Perhaps it was this shared date that started my dad’s deep interest in history, American history, and specifically the Revolutionary and Civil War periods. Abraham Lincoln loomed large for dad. A fascination with history is something else that I share with my dad.

Dad was an only child who came to preside over a noisy family with three children. While he very much wanted a family, I don’t think that he was prepared for the chaos of multiple children so his basement workshop became a welcome retreat. He was always very good with his hands and happiest when working on a project, or even had various projects in different stages. Happy being a relative term for dad.

It was highly important to him to be a good man. A good man provided for his family and had a solid standing in the community. A good man embodied the Boy Scout Oath and Law, particularly since dad achieved the rank of Eagle Scout and went on to make Scouting his career:

Scout Oath (or Promise)

On my honor I will do my best
To do my duty to God and my country
and to obey the Scout Law;
To help other people at all times;
To keep myself physically strong,
mentally awake, and morally straight.

Scout Law

A Scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly,
courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty,
brave, clean, and reverent.

(Borrowed from the official website of the Boy Scouts of America)

These principles were the core of his purpose in life, though he had his times when these failed to help him know exactly what to do. Like many men in his generation, he was at a loss to best express his emotions – positive or negative.

Dad has been gone from this world for a little over 15 years. I just finished reading Jan-Philipp Sendker’s The Art of Hearing Heartbeats and really like what the character U Ba has to say:

“Do we leave the dead behind us or do we take them with us? I think we take them with us. They accompany us. They remain with us, if in another form.”

I like this because I have been thinking a great deal about getting farther and farther away from my parents. Maybe I’m not. Maybe because they are still with me, accompanying me, they are still relevant.

Dad can be anywhere and everywhere now. He is part of the appreciation of a finely crafted wood item, he is encouraging a young man on the path to Eagle Scout, he is present at campfires and taking in museum exhibits.

Happy birthday, dad.

A Chance to Lead

Random thoughts, Work Life April 11, 2014 Leave a comment

You decide if this post is about group dynamics or individual leadership. Several things have gotten me to think about leadership from different angles recently. Talk about leadership is everywhere, a distinct meaning of what it really is, is not so prevalent.

Have you ever been in a group where everyone is trying to lead – whether there is an established leader or not? Everyone is working to get the upper hand for their own agenda and chaos ensues.

George Washington in 1775 (public domain image)

Have you ever been in a group where no one wants to take the lead – even if there is a designated leader? Aimless chaos usually ensues, along with plenty of finger pointing when nothing is accomplished.

Have you had opportunities to lead? How did they come about? I had an employee once who would regularly tell everyone and anyone that she never got any opportunity to lead. Because she expected the opportunity to come gift wrapped with a tag that read ‘This is Your Chance to Lead’. When she would ask me about leadership opportunities, I would start to enumerate specific recent instances that were opportunities to show leadership – to direct a circumstance to her expected outcome.

Have you been on a team with a leadership vacuum? How did you respond? If you created your own method to get your work done and perhaps to help your coworkers do the same did you see that as leadership?

Have you ever known a leader who complained that they had to do everything because otherwise it wasn’t done right… because the only right way was their way?

A boss should be a leader, but a true leader doesn’t have to be a boss. I know I have quotations about leadership, being a boss and the distinguishing characteristics of each in a quote book that I keep, but those will have to go in a future post on leadership.

What do you have to say about group dynamics, leadership, and bosses?

Sprinters Running Marathons

Random thoughts, Work Life April 9, 2014 Comments: 4

I don’t run. For that matter I don’t jog, trot or canter either. I have been known to lope and I’ve been told I walk at a pretty fast pace. I well remember the joy that came along when, as a child, I would burst into a sprint. (And then because I was mostly bookish, I would gasp and pant for several minutes.)

But I digress, I think in part due to the burgeoning spring which encourages thoughts of being outdoors and being active. This post isn’t about literal running of any kind. It is about understanding the right pace and energy level for a project or activity. Most of us start out full of energy and enthusiasm for a new venture but if we didn’t clearly understand how the venture would go, we can let our pace lag well before the finish.

I’ve been known to sit comfortably on my couch and turn on the last portion of a long race like the Marathon during the Olympics or the Tour de France. It amazes me that the athletes who are still in the race at this point can find it in themselves to increase their pace at the very end. These people have mastered the art of being in it for the long haul. They can portion their energy and hold something back to make a strong finish.

How many times have you found yourself agreeing to something, thinking in the short term, only to feel disgust build as the thing goes on and grates at you? I’ve told the story how I accepted the request to be called by my first and middle names at the start of a job only to have to get everyone to change a now established habit when I started to think long term. How many marriages end simply because the two people weren’t really thinking long term at the start, were just entranced by their love goggles? How many times were you ill-suited for a job that you took? How many projects are in a partially completed stage around your house?

Relationships of all kinds can be entered into casually, even if intensely, and rarely do we think about how they may develop and last. Sprint or marathon tells over time.

Tasks and projects should be easier to identify as sprint or marathon, but this will require a bit of planning before the plunge.

Have you mastered the art of identifying and planning properly for a sprint or a marathon?