There’s the, ‘I will show them’ energy, and there’s the ‘I want to spread a good feeling’ energy.
Motivation is a category of fuel.
As with most things, it’s never one or the other.
It’s both.
Hooray, categories of fuel!
Stockholders or Stakeholders? /
Stockholders split up the profits of the company.
Stakeholders share the ideal, live the mission, and feel & spread the value, spirit, tone, and personality of the community.
Miles Morales /
I’ve become obsessed with the recent Spider-Man animated production featuring Miles Morales, the Hispanic kid that lives in Brooklyn who becomes Spider-Man.
The film is incredible on a production level, but hits home with story more poignantly than I have ever seen for an animated feature.
I’ve spoken with friends about how great it is, and more precisely, what representation means for inclusion & human potential.
The fact that Hispanic and/or brown kids all over the country will see themselves in a hero is one (massive) thing, but understanding how inclusion portends to blast humanity off into untold potential is the real story.
We live in a white man’s world, to the exclusion of so many important and evolutionary ideas.
What ideas haven’t been heard? Who needs to be at the table? Are the solutions we offer co-created by the people we serve?
Whether Miles Morales or the next gathering of collaborative minds we’re a part of, inclusion means sourcing the widest (best) range of incredible ideas & perspectives.
Miles Morales should have had a seat at the table a while ago.
Be it all /
Have you ever noticed that when we evaluate ways of being, showing up, our appearance, what we say, we often think more along the lines of ‘what kind of person does or says this, or acts this way?’
Sometimes we even ask this question before we ask what feels right to us.
The reality is that a lot of ways of showing up might feel authentic to each of us.
What we’re left with when it comes it personality, is a matter of selection.
As someone who has always naturally been extroverted and focused on relation, expression, and connection, it’s been interesting to moderate feedback, and then evolving into a space where I am way less impacted by how who I am lands with anyone.
I’m not dispassionate or flippant. I love people and connecting, but I am also good with who I am and who I am trying to be, which enables a ‘here I am, as I am, and I hope it lands, but if not, that’s OK too… I’m not for everybody,’ type of interior posture.
This also allows an awareness that helps me communicate in ways that I intuitively or factually know will resonate with a particular person.
It’s not compromise, it’s compassion.
It also means we can be whoever we are.
We can love comic books, ballet, Major League Baseball, hand-lettering, and peanuts.
We can be nerdy & athletic, funny & deep, artsy & math genius, extroverted & introverted, open & resolved.
We can have any identity & be anything, even connecting aspects of life that the mainstream might not understand together.
What I’m trying to say is, we can be it all.
Spurts, spells, & potential /
For those of you who regularly read my posts, you know things have ebbed as of late.
As much as I love writing, my practice has really always been this way. Spurts of activity followed by spells of inactivity.
I need to develop a consistent writing practice.
Intuitively, I know that the upper level of my own potential resides on the other side of making that happen.
There, I said it.
Brain on fire /
Lately I’ve been using this phrase to speak to the moments when I am overwhelmed by ideas & creative inspiration, to the point where I feel paralyzed.
The question must be, how do we harness those moments so we can catch as much as possible while having a better chance of actualizing the most potent bits?
Logically, we’d probably want to truly focus on receiving and recording in those moments. We just need to get it down so we can come back and build or edit.
If you have a system, I’m all ears…
The chicken and the egg /
We can’t be comfortable doing something until we’ve done it successfully.
In business, this can mean eagerness turns into a block. A place where ease isn’t, a space where our focus on the goal precludes the real purpose: awesome relationships with our clients & partners.
Not because we’re beholden, but because we love what we do and we love who we serve.
If we can lean-in while easing-up as we prove our concept, we might be able to focus on service the entire time.
If we do, it’s all gonna work out.
Ego inflammation /
There’s nothing like a bout with ego to throw us off our game.
When thinking about productivity versus reactivity, I’d certainly rather be executing my plan than responding to someone else’s.
It’s that bit of practical strategy that often gets lost when the ego is inflamed. Clap backs mean we’ve completely abandoned our plan & redirected our energy toward some outside disturbance that we deem to lack integrity.
Standing our ground should be practical too.
When our egos are inflamed, it’s so important that we have people & practices that help us pause and unpack. Stepping on the gas until ego is at 11 means they’ve won - all while our real goals remain at a standstill.
Can you tell I am really talking to myself?
It’s all art /
It’s how we speak, listen, work, play, solve, build, find, try, teach, make, discover, connect and create.
We have a way about us, and it’s constantly embedded in the things we do.
Embracing that fully is a process, but there’s no doubt that all the upside lies on the other end of doing that work.
Hats, rings, and probability /
The thing about reflexively throwing our hat into the ring for cool shit, is that probability wins.
It’s just a matter of time.
But there’s no doubt we’re gonna hit.
If the work to support the intention is humming along with humility in the background, then shit, I’d bet on us.
Too busy to get anything done /
The cult of “busy” is alive and well in America, but that’s more about being a glutton for punishment and craziness than it is an indication of the quality of work being completed.
I’d even suggest that those who work less give more to their projects because they haven’t tied themselves to the desk. They haven’t imposed work hours that require that one slog through that period that happens every day when energy lulls and work suffers.
What if we had enough time to actually finish something?
What if taking breaks meant getting more done?
What if by embracing our energetic lulls we made ourselves more efficient, present, and focused?
Hmmm…
Creating our own maps /
Ding! Ping! Swoosh! Boom!
Alerts of mundane happenings can make us feel like life is one big game of whackamole.
Bam, bam, bam with no rest in sight.
But what if we set a goal, built a plan, and executed it? What if alerts about sales, discounts and events receded because we already knew what we had to do?
Creating our own map is about seeing a future worth working toward, a project to complete… it’s also about believing we matter.
Making our own way isn’t about who signs our paystubs, it’s about whether or not we are part of the process of creating our own map.
Once we are inclusive enough, the maps will multiply.
You don’t have to be Magellan to chart a new course.
Purposeful /
No matter who we are, what we do, where we live, or what eyes we see with, there’s a disconnect when we don’t feel purposeful.
As I chatted with Len Samborski, Principal of the Adult Education Community Hub in Detroit, MI about our upcoming project installing art for their newly remodeled facility, I got the chills as he told me about the services and programs they offer families in inner city Detroit.
In that moment I thought to myself…
This is why I do this.
As much as I love working with artists and business leaders, and anyone who understands that art changes the world, it’s the moments when we’re working with teachers and community leaders, who are the backbone of their neighborhoods and cities, that I feel most purposeful, activated, engaged, positive, helpful, and connected.
Once we understand what makes us feel purposeful, it’s all about finding the nexus. Some place where ‘purposeful’ and ‘strategic’ come together.
It’s important that we isolate these moments so we know what we’re actually looking for.
It’s important because purpose + strategy is an antidote to the hamster wheel.
Wiggle room /
When interacting with the world, we’re always calibrating to figure out where we fit in amid the current landscape.
“What does someone like me do in a situation like this?” … as Seth Godin might say.
In a recent post about personality testing, I touched on the notion that we can test out who we are, what feels right to us, and what it is we want to be.
Wiggle room is a related idea. It has to do with specifications, stories we tell ourselves, and fit. Wiggle room is the space we give ourselves to operate outside logic, outside measurables, outside fact.
Most of us love to think we’re not one of the billions of humans who have ALL done this. But we are. Each one of us cuts logical corners, cherry picks, and externalizes the information that doesn’t jive with who we perceive ourselves to be.
Wiggle room can also pertain to our ability to step back from that reflexive way of being in a way that makes us softer to others.
Sure, we can get hung up on the little differences. They buy this, we buy that. They do this, we do that.
While I don’t see this organizational way of thinking leaving us anytime soon, I do think we have something to gain by using the wiggle room we often ignore to be more open to others - because the superficial variations just don’t matter that much.
Wiggle room is as much for us as it is for them. It’s a gift.
And if people like me (you) use that space to connect instead of divide, everyone we interact with will be one step closer to allowing themselves some wiggle room too.
You only have to be right once, but... /
I saw a quote on Twitter recently that said, "you only have to be right once." I think it was posted by a startup incubator. While I think there's a lottery mindset in many startups, fundamentally, the statement is valid. (Notice I didn't use the word "true.")
But the quote resonated with me. With some savvy, strategy, and love for what we do, a lot can be achieved.
Luckily for us, the distance from where we are to where we want to be is shorter than it has ever been, if only because we have more tools than ever before.
The present is cool that way. It always will be.
What's more, I think there's plenty of room for all of us to be right once.
We have to be discerning as well as hopeful. We have to find better ways to listen and work. We have to find the right partners. We have to be attuned to timing.
It can be hard, but we have to pick our spots.
Let’s pick intentionality over chance.
Personality testing /
Personality testing - is the practice of stepping back from the individuality of personage long enough to try out different ways of being.
All too often we use external data or imposed ideas about who we are as starting points for developing the rest of our-selves. The reality is, who we are is a mix of programming and choice.
We can decide to be the type of person who likes a ton of cream & sugar in their coffee or we can be the type of person who drinks it black. We can push buttons or we can follow rules and social mores. We can like cities or rural areas. We can prefer Pepsi to Coke. We can rise early or sleep late.
Most of these things are choices. We choose one, decide that’s who we are, and keep trucking.
But what if we decided we were the type of people who try new things on for size? Who view from different angles? Who appreciate differentiation to the rigamarole of habit? Who consider flexibility, variance, diversity, and newness as valuable personality traits?
We don’t have to pick reflexively. We can test.
After all, there’s no prize for never wavering… but there is a beautiful silver lining to discovering who we really are.
Switching costs /
Many of us have thought at some point in our lives that our scattered way of bouncing between projects was actually really productive.
There’s plenty of data out there now about how multi-tasking is really divided attention, which leads to lower efficiency, even though the maelstrom of consciousness might have us feeling as though we smashed epic amounts of work.
I have also noticed that I feel free and activated when I am able to move between projects. There’s a freshness of mind there that is invigorating, but I also want to make sure that my switching costs aren’t obfuscating an inefficient reality.
My wife, Lindsey, just told me about a Chrome extension called Dayboard that helps reduce switching costs by helping users focus on a concise to-do list while keeping us from the frivolous browsing that can derail digital work.
I have been thinking about short to-do lists a lot over the last year and I think this tool might help me get more efficient and impactful with my work.
I’ll test it and get back to ya. Lemme know if you use it and how it goes.
A list of my favorite things from 2018 /
It’s funny how the calendar gets us thinking thematically or with an air of reflection. In doing so myself, I thought it would be fun to highlight some of my favorite businesses, products, or experiences from the past year.
Being a conduit is pretty essential to who I am, and if we hung out in person, you’d certainly end up hearing about one or more of the items in the list below.
Have an awesome year and stay in touch. I love hearing about the things you all are chewing on……..
Uma Fox La Ruffa - this year my wife Lindsey and I had our second child on March 2nd, 2018 in the comfort of our home. She’s perfect and adorable. I do what all parents do… post photos of their kids in Instagram. You can see how fantastic her cheeks are there.
This Is Marketing: You Can’t Be Seen Until You Learn To See by Seth Godin - Seth is certainly one of my greatest teachers as a professional and we’ve never met in person. His books are all must-reads, and his continued wisdom and perspective which he offers through his daily blog is the greatest free gift you can give yourself. HIs latest book is more poignant than ever, showing how marketing is really about serving the people you care about, not spamming until folks succumb. Read this book if you care about being a better person and professional.
Whole 30 - we did Whole 30 twice in 2018 and plan on doing it again here in a few weeks. It’s a diet that focuses cutting out sugar, grain, dairy, alcohol, legumes, etc. It taught us a ton as far as learning to cook with new foods, creating new recipes, and making delicious food that hinges on great spices, quality protein, and tons of veggies. I lost 20 lbs the first month I did it and felt great. Digestion was tops. I think I need this diet a lot more regularly. This article tells you more about what you CAN eat on Whole 30.
Tinker Coffee Roasters - we discovered these guys on our drive down to Florida in late 2017 when we had their coffee at a local restaurant in Indianapolis. Super skillful stuff, and the last year has been good to them. They recently opened a roastery with an awesome new mural on the outside of it. We stopped by on our way to Florida a few weeks ago and the hospitality was great. A small business making the best stuff you can find in a town you’d probably never go to. We subscribe and get two bags of expertly roasted coffee delivered to our door monthly.
Rock N Roll Chicago Half Marathon - I set a big goal and did it!!! In July I ran all 13.1 miles of the Rock N Roll Half Marathon along Chicago’s lakefront. I’m doing it again in 2019. Join me.
Misfit Inc - for the majority of 2018, IPaintMyMind worked closely with the creative geniuses as Misfit Inc, a nomadic digital agency whose co-founders AJ and Melissa Leon committed to building IPMM a brand new website from the ground up. A huge, in-depth build that will launch soon. They run a foundation and a publishing house too… I’m convinced there are 3 of each of them. It’s been such a pleasure to work with professionals doing mission-aligned work and IPMM has been so grateful for their contribution to our mission.
The Dali Museum - Located in St. Petersburg, FL and home to over 90 original works by the master himself, if you are anywhere within a few hours of St. Pete, make the drive and get yourself a taste of mastery. The story behind why the collection is there is a hoot. Spend time to enjoy the audio tour and really let it the works sink in. It is a treasure. I call The Dali, my church.
Run Like Clockwork - if you run a business and feel like there aren’t enough hours in the day, it’s because you need to revamp your operational efficiency, period. This book helps you get serious about moving beyond the ‘spinning your wheels’ vibes of being overly busy and not effective enough.
Cafe Integral - a great coffee shop in River North, located in the lobby of the Freehand Hotel on Ohio St. They only roast and serve Nicaraguan coffees and the lounge space in the back is perfect for working in a relaxed atmosphere.
Pod Save America - it gets me riled up, and that’s what it’s for. I know being endlessly tied into the news cycle is crazy, but being uninformed because of some general pessimism seems to be a more of a threat than anything else. Daily politics and analysis. Produced by former Obama aides.
Fellow Coffee Kettle - unparalleled gooseneck electric hot water kettle for pour over coffees.
Official 2018 World Cup Match Ball - bad soccer balls suck, and really nice ones are awesome. That’s why I wait until right after any large tournament to purchase the very high-quality official match ball… because it’s more than 50% off at that point. Winning! It lives in our living room, it keeps us nimble.
Hu Chocolate - this stuff is amazing. Out of NYC and run by a friend, I am a huge proponent of their ethos and products. Try the Orange Dream and Raspberry Jelly. Oooiiieeee!
Instapot - this thing is the bees knees. Make a meal that should take all day in 40 minutes. We make everything from hard boiled eggs to pot roasts and curries in this thing. It’s a very worthwhile kitchen gadget.
Slack - the chat client that most businesses are using so that email doesn’t take over. Works great on a laptop or your phone and helps keep teams connected and efficient.
Loba Pastry - an awesome bakery and coffee shop on Lincoln Ave (Chicago) doing some of the most creative pastries around. Serving Madcap Coffee, a super cute location, and awesome ownership.
Hewn Bakery - a lovely sourdough starter bakery on Main St. in Evanston, IL. Croissants, kouign-amann’s, brioches, and country loaves.
Green Bean Battery - heads up to any hybrid owners out there and some FYI to the rest of ya… you know how everyone always talks about the boogie man of needing to replace the main battery in a Prius or other hybrid vehicle? Sure, the dealer wants $3600, but Green Bean Battery will come install a reconditioned battery in your hybrid and give you a 5 year warranty for $1600. Our car has never run better.
The list goes on … but maybe we can do this again.
Be good and take care!
The case for optimism /
Despite all the crazy shit that’s happening in the world, most of us are really optimistic.
The majority of people we come across are looking for a proof of the brighter side, the more favorable result, the good, the positive. This is even true for those of us who present as cynical or jaded (we just don’t mention it as much).
The true upside is all the ways we can support one another’s bias toward positivity.
Little bumps to our optimism can go a really long way because they encourage others to see the silver lining. To assume it CAN be done. To try.
If tiny bumps to our optimism make real people even more inclined to favor potential, we’re sure to build more great solutions.
And we’re sure to have been a part of it.
Unwavering UX + reduce the sauce /
The IPaintMyMind website has been down as we motor toward a new version of the site, and it’s been funny to look at the conversion rate of the email sign up that still lingers at the top of the page.
Despite no content loading on the rest of the page, we’ve been getting more newsletter sign ups than ever before.
Why?
Because the only thing you can do on the page is enter your email address.
It’s not fancy, it’s not even good. It’s functional, and the UX, or user experience, is unwavering. It dictates where you go and what you do. Clearly.
While I’d rather our brand new site be up now, I found this unintended UX test yielding a lot of perspective…
We have to be clear, concise, and direct. There are times for details and commas, but if we want our ideas to stick, we probably need to reduce the sauce a little bit.