innovate by knowing
I’m a sucker for a good story.
Just bought number 945, the smallest odd abundant number.
Smallest … odd … abundant … number. Hilarious. Brilliant.
Thanks to Seth Godin for the link.
Site Search Tags: perfect+for+purpose, viral, story
From the Blog of Henry David Thoreau:
“With all this opportunity, this comedy and tragedy, how near all men come to doing nothing! It is strange that they did not make us more intense and emphatic, that they do not goad us into some action. Generally, with all our desires and restlessness, we are no more likely to embark in any enterprise than a tree is to walk to a more favorable locality.”
Related to category two is Dick Richards’ book “Your Genius at Work”. A workbook that walks through 32 exercises for finding where we’re unique and genius, deciding if we’re using that brilliance at work, understanding our purpose, and putting our genius and purpose together.
I’ve always believed that the great differentiator between those that are successful and those that wallow in obscurity (despite having comparable carrying capacities) is self-knowing. Those that understand themselves reach for challenges where they are confident of success. Those that don’t understand themselves play a lottery with every opportunity, unsure of the outcome.
What I appreciate most about Dick’s book is the way he leads the reader. Like a trail guide, but one that’s open source. At the bottom of the mountain he explains why it’s worth climbing, he points out the advantages of each route, describes the benefits of each alternative destination, and leaves ample room for individuality. In the books are 13 exercises for helping us understand our genius. Each one is an alternate path to discovering our brilliance but he doesn’t insist that each step will work … if it doesn’t work there’s lots of permission to skip over to the next path.
Also freeing is his attitude to what genius might be. From angels and daimons to core process, Dick frees us to see this idea as spiritually or technically as necessary.
I’ve spent an enormous amount of time looking inside myself. Beside my desk is a printer paper box overflowing with journals, notes, articles, and diagrams I’ve used to try and understand myself and my capacities. In my life I’ve always wrestled with two questions: What am I great at? and What was I built for?
What is my genius? Oh, I don’t know for sure. Here is my response to Dick’s kind invitation to sort through some of these questions in an online discussion group.
Out of that process came a stronger conviction that within us are two ways of knowing. And that I can confidently rely on either source when making decisions.
For other reading on these ideas:
- Dave Pollard’s got several posts: book review, some additional ideas, a crack at purpose, and a further extension.
- A review on Slacker Manager.
You know what’s right, don’t you?
In that meeting, where the big cheese was confabulating about external pressures, internal shortages, and murky outcomes — you knew what needed to be said. So why didn’t you say it?
For lack of experience, lack of authority, lack of time in the company, lack of hard skills, lack of support, lack of track record, lack of resources, or something else lacking: you told that little voice to be quiet. That voice that’s so easy to ignore and sideline. That voice that goes quiet the minute you tell it to, but at the cost of a small chunk of your heart.
At the board room table we each arrive with two capacities. Unfortunately only one gets recognized and used. Category one includes education, academic certifications, previous job descriptions, job performance, and current projects get counted. Personal genius, intuition, artistic sensitivity, and insight are in category two and they don’t count.
That voice that told you the truth is in the second category. You couldn’t listen because it wasn’t in the first category. So, what does that mean? What are its implications?
First, that we’re not after truth but a fragment or shard that everyone can understand. A sliver of purity driven into a block of confounding historical perspectives. That we’re not after perfect. That we are after suitable.
Second, that the burden of proof is left to the individual but the prize of success is shared with the group. How different would things be if you could share your genius while others shared their experience, hard skills, and track record?
Third, that there’s only two ways into this second category of understanding. Either, respect its value and accept it as an appropriate feed for decision making or learn to translate its implications into category one type offerings.
From Thoreau’s blog:
“All that a man has to say or do that can possibly concern mankind, is in some shape or other to tell the story of his love — to sing …”
Related, to the earlier thoughts on time, but found after (honest - trust me) — René Berger on real time:
“A dozen years ago something happened that was unexpected and unforeseen, the invention of the World Wide Web and the networking of the world introduced the idea that anyone can establish a contact with anyone else on the planet, in real-time. It’s a Quixote-like idea, in a way. Real-time never existed before, and it brings a total transformation of our spirit, cultural categories, and behaviors”.
Time. The regular theme is that we haven’t got enough. No time to chat, no time for the rest of my coffee, not enough time to play, not enough time to listen, no time to read it again, haven’t got time to go there myself. No time.
Where did time come from? Didn’t the Romans make it? In a world where everything else is changing, fragmenting, becoming more modular — what about time?
In an Industrial world, time mattered. Mostly because you wanted everyone there at the same time. We needed to be together on the line, in the factory, in the field. I couldn’t work without you. You needed to hold that side while I held this one. Not anymore.
That’s why we can outsource in tidal waves. We can give nearly everything away because I don’t need to be there while you get your stuff done. When you’re done, I can start. I can even work while you work because we have real-time synching. Real time?
Isn’t real time … modular time? Your piece of time plus my piece of time, together they land at the same place in time when someone else is making a decision. Isn’t that real time? Isn’t that modular time?
So doesn’t real time (meaning modular time) mean that work time … isn’t? Isn’t it fake … a bit contrived, to have an nine hour time slot carved into my day where I sit like a line worker at my desk?
And isn’t time management more about stress management where my stress is driven higher while sitting at my desk in fake time trying to be interested in something that the rest of me can’t possibly care about right then?
Because while there’s real time, there’s also natural time. Like sessions, like migrating birds, like erosion … there are cycles in everything. Including me. Like lightning, there are moments when I can change the world, literally. It’s my time. There are times when I can carry bricks from one end of the yard to the other … forever … or at least until it’s done. And there are times when I couldn’t lift a finger or move a fly. It’s not my time.
So it’s not really about time at all. At least, not in the sense that we regularly mean when talking about it. It’s about something else.
At the dirty end of the stick, it’s about trust.
I trust that you will get this done. That in real time, I will have what I need when I need it. And if it takes lightning or carrying bricks, either way, it’ll be there when I need it. And I trust that while you loll there, gazing at that pesky fly, something is happening in natural time that will eventually lead to you getting back up again.
I trust you to give me your brilliance (because that’s what I paid for). And I won’t ask for anything less.
I won’t ask for less by asking where you were at 2:00. I won’t ask for less by asking for an update every three days even though the real time deadline isn’t for another fifteen. I won’t ask for less by describing how you’ve spent to much time on inconsequential things.
Because when I trust you, I free you. I unload you’re brilliance. I call out from you everything I hired you to do. I ask for you … as a person.
Time is a tool. Like a cattle prod’s a tool. It isn’t an invitation. And it’s an invitation that’s needed.
It’s a standing invitation to be human that will bridge the gulf between all the time management courses you can handle and a brilliance few of us can imagine. Not because time’s the bane of all that’s worth having … but because lack of trust is.
Lack of trust is the gate keeper of myriad insidious things like gossip, doubt, envy, jealousy, insecurity, indecisiveness, and frustration. Lack of time’s just a symptom.
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do.”
