Reinvention, Week 3: Seeking the Power Source

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Since continuous "reinvention" has emerged as a hallmark of innovation in the 21st century (and I'm overdue for one), I'm in the process of attempting an actual reinvention. It's Week 3 with a new identity--which I'm calling the Warrior of Aliveness--and I've quickly realized that to think differently and be guided by a real shift of belief from within, I need fuel. I need to plug into some kind of power source befitting a Warrior to keep the process on track.

In my 20s, I remember reading the 20th century spiritual classic Autobiography of a Yogi, which introduced many westerners to eastern enlightenment through the life of Paramahansa Yogananda, the first yoga master of India to take up permanent residence in the West. Maybe, I thought, I needed to revisit Yogananda's wisdom to find a renewable power source.

I started by going to several yoga classes, which have generally revealed that I am pretty fat and lazy, with an unfocused mind that tends to drift and fall into its default, un-warrior-like patterns of distraction and complaints.

So to up the ante, I visited the local Kriya Yoga center here in Chicago to get some inspiration from Swami Kriyananda, the foremost living disciple of Yogananda. I was witness to a live feed via Skype of the old bearded man himself, who has many thousands of followers throughout the world. I listened intently to him for a message that could fuel me or at least steer me in the right direction. The Warrior within awoke as Kriyananda suggested that a life worth living is one in which you discover and pursue a mission worth dying for. You can't let yourself be limited by the "web of words," he said, referring to the cultural mindset around us. "Instead, create your own mantra."

Create my own mantras. Yes.

My inner guidance flickers and changes its message too often. Becoming a warrior is in large part mental, I know, and right now the natural "mantras" of my monkey mind are not empowering me. They change, they doubt. They point out how ridiculous I am. They sabotage with excuses and grievances that sound legitimate but do nothing to improve the quality of my life.

I know that to be equipped to battle for my own aliveness and the aliveness of others, I must think differently and be fueled by a different mindset. But, as Kriyananda reminded me, I have to create it. I have to choose this mindset. I have to rewrite my mental script in such a way that loose wiring becomes hard, and doubt insists on clarity. My power source must, at least in part, come from newly created mantras of my own design.

All right, Warrior, time to create.

Reinvention now!

"In today’s environment of superacceleration, catch-up is a fool’s game. There is no advantage in keeping up. Forget about trying to compete. Instead, leapfrog the competition by redefining anything and everything about your business. Look at what the competition is doing—and do something entirely different." ~Daniel Burris and John David Mann, "The Reinvention Imperative"

Whether you know it or want it, you are in the process of reinventing yourself. The idea of reinvention--not just once but continuously, not just personally but organizationally--is now part of the 21st century conversation on success. It goes like this: we have to keep changing, keep learning and keep innovating in order to be relevant and in demand in the marketplace.

I mostly agree, and as a passionate advocate for more creativity in our lives and our culture, I enjoy taking part in this forward-thinking conversation from upstarts such as Change This, an online content source whose mission is to spread new ideas from original thinkers. Its latest issue includes "The Reinvention Imperative" by Daniel Burrus & John David Mann, which compellingly makes the case that it is now an imperative to reinvent ourselves and our businesses in order to keep up in a world where "change itself has changed":

There are two kinds of change: change from the outside in, and change from the inside out. The first happens to you. The second is an initiative that you take through conscious intention. Today there is an urgent need to anticipate and take the initiative to change from the inside out, even as all these transformations are coming at us from the outside in.

Burrus and Mann make the point that we have to be both proactive and extraordinary, and that real reinvention means getting closer to our own core, our own unique gifts. "The reinvention imperative," they write, "puts each of us on a quest to be the best me we can be."

Okay. But let's stop here. Talk of reinvention sounds cool. And it fits with my blog articles of these past few years and with my creativity competency principles:

>Fluency: Consider all of my possible options and identities

>Flexibility: Shift some things around and see things with fresh eyes

>Originality: Truly embrace my best and most unique self and offer it to the world.

But how do we really reinvent ourselves so that change is not just temporary and the results are real and different? If I'm going to reinvent myself--which I happen to be in the process of doing quite actively--what does that really mean? Does it mean that I have to change my insides first (umm, how?) or that I have to just embrace the core me and put it out in the world more effectively (oh, is that all)?

I think for personal reinvention to occur there must be a powerful mindset shift, a real change in belief about ourselves. Reinvention must be powered by a belief shift and real differences in behavior that comes from an alternative belief frame.

The truth is, this blogger needs a reinvention, a real one, not just one written on paper or that sounds good. It's time for me to put the creativity principles and rabble-rousing I've recorded here--yes, this blog holds more than 130 articles that can keep you busy reading and linking and viewing for days--to action.

Time to take the advice of the "Reinvention" authors: to stop trying to keep up and do the same as others and instead do something entirely different.

Time to embrace a belief and identity that forces reinvention and risk-taking.

Time to play by different rules.

Time for a new identity and new belief system that befits a warrior of aliveness.

New Year, New Call: for United States of Innovation

As we start a new year (and, some would say, a new decade) as an already reeling country now reeling even more from the shooting of a Congresswoman, I'm grappling with the state of the United States. There is no question that we are poorer than we were when I grew up, and there is much evidence that we are more divided and pessimistic than we've ever been. We need something (as opposed to "someone," which hasn't seemed to work) to rally behind. And I'm going to vote, once again, for "Innovation." Hear me out.

If there is anything that we've learned as Americans in this past decade it's that there are many versions of "America," and plenty of other Americans who don't see it the way you do. Red state-Blue state-Tea Party-Who's-the-smarty?-Obama-Drama, Hey! Our politics and media--which feed our sense of country and confidence--are so far out of wack that we don't know what is true or what to believe. We do know that from healthcare to housing, we've lost a lot of our wealth lately, and that as a culture and as individuals, we have more challenges than ever before. Some say that we are seeing the irrevocable fall of the American empire. Some say technology can save us, empowering us to write blogs like this that lead to less alienation than in previous years. Not all of us believe that though. What can really unite us?


It's "Innovation." I put it in quotes because we still need to collectively define what that means and to better understand creativity, the engine of innovation. But right now the political left and right, the CEOs and the artists, miraculously agree that innovation is needed, and that our future is dependent on leveraging our innovation capacity. I've called this the Innovation Imperative--that we need creativity and innovation more than ever, for economic, cultural and personal reasons.

Economic: America, with its diversity of ideas, free enterprise, university research and available capital, still has the raw materials for economic innovation. The Obama administration had been more quiet about "innovation" in 2010 than it had been the year before and, as I've discussed before, certain measures of innovation seem to be on the decline. But both political sides, as well as leaders everywhere, know that "innovation" is the key to us getting out of our economic hole. The "United States of Innovation" is the best rallying cry for getting us aligned and talking (!) under one unified banner.

Cultural: For economic success, we need an innovative culture in our cities, communities, schools and organizations. We have really difficult challenges now--from our healthcare to the environment to under-educated kids, that require a new mindset of innovation that can lead to real breakthroughs and better solutions. This blog has been dedicated to offering tools for an innovative mindset and culture, which include openness to new ideas, diverse perspectives coming together in new combinations, and the fostering of the "4Cs" of creativity, critical thinking, communication and collaboration.

Personal: We live in a world without long-term job security, and that means we have to be more creative individually, able to learn constantly as adults and re-invent ourselves as needed. The world is asking us to truly leverage our unique talents in ways that provide value to others, and to do that we have to be aware of and build our competencies of creativity, which I've described throughout this blog. Perhaps the most important is flexibility--which is our ability to see things differently, seek out new perspectives, challenge our assumptions and embrace change.

Despite our current malaise, the United States is still a young country and a small shift of mindset, perhaps an inner rather than outer revolution, could lead to needed change much quicker than we think. What do you think? Can we get people to rally behind innovation? What else can unify us? Here's to a 2011 where more Americans embrace their own creativity and where we're more of a united state of innovation and collaboration.

Scary to be an American? Part 2

My previous blog made the point that pessimism and fear--currently irrationally amplified by our divisive politics and media--is incompatible with creativity and change. Our midterm election may be over, but the belief that it's scary to be an American right now persists. And the truth is, wherever you might plug into the American conversation, even if you tap the more reasonable, harder-to-hear-amidst-the-shouting sources of information, it's hard not to be scared, which closes down our individual and collective creative solution-making ability.

For some hope, I had turned to Time magazine's cover story last week--the positive-sounding "How to Restore the American Dream"--but found myself again shaken by the dark "realities" it outlined. Fareed Zakaria, one of the more intelligent and solution-focused media voices today, primarily made the case that our mood is bad for good reason, with many accompanying graphs "charting the decline" of what was once the land of opportunity. The rational media may not scream fear but they do supply a torrent of facts about the economy and American decline that are just as scary.

Zakaria captures this troubling reality well in this video (below)--while at the same time making clear that we need to think differently in order to restore the American Dream. This is the great challenge for us as individuals and for American organizations of all stripes: To find a new reality, a different mindset--a more optimistic belief in being, as Zakaria says, masters of our own destiny. While we may not be able to escape the current cultural narrative (though unplugging from media would help), we have to realize it's not as true as it seems. Yes, unemployment is higher and it's harder to sell my condo, but most people I know have kept their jobs and are only "sour" when they tune into our public conversation.

When it comes to offering ideas and different thinking, one could argue, especially of late, that Republicans are the main political obstacle. This from this month's Esquire: Republicans "haven't had a new idea this century. Unless you count teabags and fear, which we don't." But it definitely takes creativity to cut the budget, and, amazingly, both Democrats and Republicans find common ground on innovation. Yes, perhaps more than any other policy point, both political sides join leading commentators like Zakaria in support of "Innovation" again and again. So the great news is that we as a nation have a real opportunity to come together to support creative ideas and investment in innovation right now.

But to have some room to do that, we can't let fear and extremism rule our airwaves and infect us individually. Last weekend's Rally to Restore Sanity made an attempt to change the conversation, and Jon Stewart's "Moment of Sincerity" is well worth viewing (below). Stewart makes the point that "we live in hard times, not end times," and rightly highlights the media distortion: "If we amplify everything, we hear nothing...the press is our immune system--if it overacts to everything we actually get sicker." "The 24-hour politico pundit perpetual panic conflictonator," he explains, is not reality: "The image of Americans that is reflected back to us by our political and media process is false. It's us through a funhouse mirror."

The truth, Stewart says, is that we work together to get things done every day. We do. But real innovation--taking the time and effort to create something new and then actually implement it--is not easy. As Congressman Jared Polis of Colorado says, "It's easier to stop bad things than to pass good things." Our challenge is to shift our mindset from fear-mongering noise to another even-more-valid reality of possibility. Most often real creativity and change come after crisis, or as new California Governor Jerry Brown just said in his acceptance speech, "Breakdown paves the way for a breakthrough." How might we help each other break through?

Happy Halloween: Is it scary to be an American?

There is nothing quite like waking up in one city, flying hundreds of miles, and then walking the streets of another later that day. The wild Chicago winds delayed but did not cancel my early Boston-bound flight so I found myself at Faneuil Hall Tuesday afternoon, surrounded by stunning fall foliage, curving streets and history everywhere around me. This new reality stimulated new insights, old college memories and hopeful thoughts for me, confirming that travel is indeed a creativity lubricant. During my few-day trip I facilitated a teambuilding program with an enthusiastic company, visited with old friends, and was a guest on a cable TV program called "Wake up your Magic." I buzzed with ideas and schemes.

But by doing a little reading, eavesdropping and now TV-watching back in Chicago, I am once again reminded of another pervasive reality--which is not optimistic, not conducive to new ideas. Just turn on your TV now in the week before an election and here is the voice of that reality: "Happy Halloween: It's scary to be an American." Here's one political ad example:

Now, creative thinkers are particularly adept at shifting among different realities, enabling them to see from different perspectives, flexibly consider possibilities, and shift their mindset to come up with new solutions. But the current "reality" that for too long has infected the American discourse and media--that these are scary times, and that extreme and often irrational views trump rational ones--blocks our creativity and squelches innovation and change. That's because fear and creativity are not compatible. The more afraid you are, the less ability you have to open to divergent ideas, consider new options and access your heart--all creative keystones.

We (meaning our predominant cultural conversation) appear to be stuck so deep--and constantly reinforced by media--in this particular "reality" of pessimism and fear that we can't honor other valid realities, like my time in Boston, which was great. It can be as scary to read rational commentary (I'll discuss the Time Magazine cover story on restoring the American Dream next time) as it is to watch Democrats and Republicans hurl fear-bombs in the current political campaigns on everyone's television. I wanted some relief so I read though my old college newspaper when I was on campus and found the same partisan and fear-inducing views parroted there. So it's everywhere. Right? America is in decline and we all should be afraid, right? Preachers are burning Korans and Obamacare is taking over our freedom.

Are we insane to ignore these threats or are we insane to listen to them?

This is the question that Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert (click on banners for more info) are addressing in this weekend's rally in D.C. Usually I'm on the side of crazy, as creativity is not possible without coming up with way-out-there ideas that some will call crazy. I am an advocate of letting our freak flags fly, engaging our individual and original passions as a birthright to being human. But right now we need more sanity. We need to stop reinforcing extreme views and irrational arguments--and subscribing to the "reality" that creative solutions are impossible in America right now. Stewart and Colbert will try their own creative take on shifting this reality, and I'm curious to see how they will attempt to pull it off.

I want to encourage you to take this Halloween opportunity to explore a different reality, to try on another identity for a little while --perhaps someone less crazy than our current politics is--to see where it leads.

A New Season for No-Mind

As summer blurs into autumn today, I am returning from my blog-break to once again rabble-rouse for innovation to reign and your creativity to blossom throughout this new season and beyond.

I'll remember this summer as one where I worked less on business but more on my mind--specifically, on trying to detach from the addictions of mind. Creativity is the nimble dance between mind and heart, but so many of us get caught in a stranglehold of mind so that we are blocked from expressing ourselves, taking risks, seeing differently and feeling free to create (not to mention just feeling good). The mind is a powerful instrument, but, as Eckhart Tolle in his classic The Power of Now explains, "about 80 to 90 percent of most people's thinking is not only repetitive and useless, but because of its dysfunctional and often negative nature, much of it is harmful." Too much of our thinking--especially in this Information Overload-Great Recession-Multi-Tasking world of ours--is spent stuck on shoulds, fears, anxiety about the future and replays of the past.

I know mine was. So I consciously broke from my normal routine, both physically and mentally, and shifted my mindset. I was lucky to spend more time than I ever have on Lake Michigan, thanks to my friend Joe and his sailboat (above). I truly was able to incubate--a key part of the creative process--in water and for more prolonged periods than I have before. I was able to leave my scolding mind with the buildings of the city and embrace the great creative principle of "Not Knowing"--seeing with fresh eyes, giving up being right and smart and an expert. My mind stopped being king, and frankly I feel much better and more ready to imagine and create a future that works for me.

In an enlightened state, according to Tolle, you still use your thinking mind when needed but otherwise there is an inner stillness. To come up with creative solutions, he explains, "you oscillate every few minutes or so between thought and stillness, between mind and no-mind...only in that way is it possible to think creatively." You need "no-mind"--consciousness without thought--to tap into your real power. Here's more:

The mind is essentially a survival machine. Attack and defense against other minds, gathering, storing, and analyzing information--that is what it is good at, but it is not at all creative. All true artists, whether they know it or not, create from a place of no-mind, from inner stillness. The mind then gives form to the creative impulse or insight. Even the great scientists have reported that their creative breakthroughs came at a time of mental quietude.
~from The Power of Now, p. 19-20

I know I was extremely lucky to be able to take a partial break this summer, and that it's hard to find the time for "mental quietude." But you can find a way to reduce your "predominance of mind," as Tolle would call it, both for your own sanity and to be more creative. Read The Power of Now. Learn to Meditate. Swim, run, practice Tai Chi, paint or lose yourself in a creative pursuit that gets you out of your thoughts. The key is to be aware of--and to be less enslaved by--your involuntary internal dialogue, especially the nasty, needless thoughts that create stress but little else of value.

"Conformity Reigns but Exceptions Rule"

"Difference is a commitment to the unprecedented…a commitment to letting go.” Youngme Moon

I love Harvard professor Youngme Moon's sub-subtitle of her new book, Different: Escaping the Competitive Herd: "Succeeding in a World where Conformity Reigns but Exceptions Rule." In her book, she makes the case that true innovation--and success--comes when a business offers something meaningfully different.

As much as we Americans often claim the mantle of individuality and freedom to be different, most of us rarely are. From what we wear to what we talk about, from the party at the bar to the big wedding we attend, conformity reigns and rains and, as my poor friends here in Chicago have heard too much from me lately, I'm feeling all wet.

Moon makes the case that almost every success story of the past couple decades has been the exception to the rule, the outlier that has rejected orthodoxy, the difference-maker that did not simply compete in the same game as others. "Differentiation is not a tactic," she says. "It's not a flashy advertising campaign; it's not a sparkling new feature set. It's not a laminated frequent-buyer card or a money-back guarantee. Differentiation is a way of thinking. It's a mindset. It's a commitment. A commitment to be different, not in a superficial, I'm-going-to-offer-a-couple-of-features-my-competitor-doesn't-offer kind of way, but in a way that is fundamental and near impossible to replicate.”

Now I happen to be allergic to too much conformity, but I realize that it's often easier, and even satisfying, to conform. But creativity--which we need more than ever in our organizations and for our own personal success--requires deviance, a willingness to be different. A willingness and a mindset and a drive to be the one who doesn't do it that way, who draws outside the lines or creates meaningful new lines, who risks the stares and comments (and there will be many) from the conforming majority.

Moon's wonderful Anti-Creativity Checklist video (above) shares her top 14 ways to keep your place in the conforming majority and ensure that you won't be a difference-maker in your organization.

On Blindspots, Shift and Change

I woke up antsy again this morning, a common occurrence for me of late, sensing that I need a shift in life but not sure what to do or where to focus. So I write this with no conclusion planned, no lesson about creativity already identified. I am seeking a personal breakthrough, a change of perspective, right here, right now, fingertips on laptop.

I'm trying to turn toward my peripheral vision to uncover my blindspot(s)--where an answer lies--but what I see and hear instead is this constant barrage from my mind: Get to your 14 things to do, go through those 4 different pending email folders, make those calls, strategize then plan then do then act then go, go, go or you are in trouble. To escape this noise, I click on an email and suddenly find myself reading Will Marre's blog, where he is addressing something similar in his post "Take Back Your Life." He describes the increase of stress in our personal work worlds, and this part speaks to me:

Those who have decided to work for themselves as consultants or starting a new enterprise have so much pressure to outperform that the velocity of our warship has to always be moving at “warp.” If we slow down the immense gravity of our death-star economy will crush us. Whew.

That's it. The pressure I too often feel has put some kind of neck brace on me. I can't turn my head toward a very real force that is trying to get my attention. This is why I'm so antsy. I need to shift but the immense gravity weighs on me and I can't move.

So now I'm trying to access a different part of my being through the less rigid, right side of my brain. I rifle through some writing and find a poem of mine that recalls a long-ago moment in Napa, CA. Yes, this is close to the feeling I'm having.

...I cool against this tree trunk
with the wood-wind in my hair

and the sound of motors

in my mind

I remember the need I felt then to dip my head into some different kind of water:

Right now I crave water that has the texture of birth

and I would dip my head in it to show

what can be replaced

My hair would not turn gold
like the boy from the story

but I would find alloys from this strange land

in the puddle near the drain

of the bin I wash in

to start my day

I just took a shower. I was consciously trying to wash out the "alloys" from my hair in order to feel different, to emerge with a new mindset that would enable me to see what I needed to do in a way I couldn't before. But I discovered that nothing washed out of my hair. The alloys, if anything, were now a more permanent part of me--the gray in my hair. Which I realize I can cover or hide but can never replace.