Category Archives: Creativity

Nov 19 2013
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Awareness, Change The World, Creativity, Discipline, Focus, Imagination, Let The Music Play, Music, success

Rule # 1 Of Your Music: Insist On Yourself

I believe you are a musician.

I believe there is song after song after song waiting to be awakened in you.

I believe there’s far too many people telling you what to believe your music should be.

I believe your music is your call.

I believe finding your music is your true and holy vocation.

I believe the vocation of finding your music will help move others into the same pursuit, resulting in a world of less noise and more music.

I believe your music is why you are here.

I believe we will all be better after having been exposed to your riffs, rhythm, and rhyme.

Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote, “Insist on yourself; never imitate. Your own gift you can present every moment with the cumulative force of a whole life’s cultivation; but of the adopted talent of another, you have only an extemporaneous, half possession.”

A successful life is one that says ‘here’s my music.’

Emphasis on my (which is yours).

You need not borrow that which is already in you.

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Nov 18 2013
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Awareness, Change The World, Creativity, Imagination, Leadership, success

Raising Your Hand

Remember elementary school? Remember the golden rule of raising your hand?

Well, good news, you no longer have to raise your hand for permission to do something, ask a question, or make a statement.

In this new (and what appears here to stay) economy you just need to start the doing, the questioning, and the statement making.

We used to fear raising our hand for one of two reasons: we were afraid of what the teacher’s reaction would be or we were afraid of what our classmates would say behind our back.

Now, with hand raising no longer in the rule book, the fear lies in starting something great, asking great questions, and making a great statement.

The resistance will pour you a glass of fear to drink if there’s any chance of you making or doing something great and worthwhile.

Three things:

1) Starting is step one and must happen for step two to occur. Talking about step ten will never make starting step 1 easier. Just do it.

2) Questions > Answers.

3) The statement I’m talking about here is the metaphor you were sent here to show us.

You can put your hands down now. Go.

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Nov 15 2013
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Awareness, Change The World, Creativity, Focus, Imagination, Leadership

From the Paint Pallet To the Canvas

As a leader, your response to the question from your followers ‘what should I paint?’ should almost always be ‘you tell me.’

Of course the easy thing to do is hand out coloring books (let’s call these manuals) with prearranged lines and drawings to color within, but where’s fulfillment, where’s the creativity, and where’s the bravery that a blank page or canvas invokes?

Leadership boldly leads followers to the blank canvas, swaps eye contact between the canvas and the followers eyes, smirks, and then says ‘show me what you see.’

In the end, being told what to paint will never compare equally to simply being asked to paint what you see.

We are all one of two painters: one that is free or one that is imprisoned.

Imagine having to paint behind bars and knowing there’s the option of painting with eyes pointed towards the sun rising or starlit horizon.

 

Nov 12 2013
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Awareness, Business, Change The World, Creativity, Discipline, Focus, Imagination, Leadership, success

Who Says?

Who says your name is just Teacher?

What if today you changed it to World Changer?

Who says your name is just Mom?

What if today you changed it World Changer?

Who says your name is just what’s on your card, door, desk, badge, or name tag?

What if today you changed it to World Changer?

And what if, not only did you believe this, but you lived this out? Day to day. Hour to hour. Moment to moment.

You are not just the mediums you live, move, participate, and exist in.

Rather, you are the meaning carried and transmitted within in these mediums.

Blame Picasso, not the paint.

Blame Mozart, not the violin.

Blame Jobs, not the computer.

Blame Lincoln, not the White House.

Blame Spielberg, not the camera.

Blame Wynn, not blackjack.

Blame Jordan, not basketball.

Blame Zuckerberg, not the Internet.

What if we all repeated this exercise tomorrow?

I say we do.

Then we’ll get to blame you for a better world.

 

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Nov 11 2013
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Awareness, Change The World, Creativity, Imagination, Leadership, success

What’s Trending?

Google “what’s trending?” and they will provide you about 89,700,000 results in 0.52 seconds.

89,700,000 clicks and options to see what’s up. A never ending game of I Spy.

The Rat Pack, Bob Dylan, Elvis, Madonna, and Hank Williams Sr. never asked this question.

Doing your thing > Searching the trends.

Why?

Because…Standing out > Lost in the mix.

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