That idea in the back of your mind that delights (and, for now, freezes) you? Take bold action toward it; you’ll be making an impact in no time.
Play is training for the unexpected.
Take Bold Action
I used to dream of having the courage to take bold action.
I craved being free from my never-ending fear of being judged no matter how excellent the quality of my ideas and their implementation. My brain routinely cranked out blurts that I wasn’t making an impact. That I wasn’t ever going to be enough. That I didn’t have what it took.
And worse, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t escape the icky feeling that regardless of my achievements, I’d never feel a sense of self-worth or value.
I thought the answer was to double down on more work. Perhaps I just needed to focus more. Go all in and withhold fun, rest, and pleasure.
I was exhausted, unable to hear myself think. Every day felt like I was walking the plank, and I would only narrowly survive being swallowed up by the sea of my relentless shame and guilt.
On a sunny Saturday in 2005, everything changed.
When the Room Went Dark
I was seated in a classroom in my Innovation & Creativity class on the UNC-A campus. My fellow Masters of Entrepreneurship classmates and I were excited to soak up the brilliance of our professors and dig into what was sure to be inspiring content.
I describe the experience in my book, BUOYANT:
“We sat in a large ‘U’ facing a screen in front of the blackboards. After a brief introduction to the video we were about to see, one of my professors switched off the lights. The moment the room went dark marked the end of one version of me.
The ABC News Nightline episode with Ted Koppel began with a series of black-and-white images portraying straitlaced employees performing hyper-organized work in corporate offices. In places like these, people always defer to the boss. But, asked the voice of David Kelley, founder of Palo Alto design firm IDEO, was the boss always going to have the best ideas? Not likely.
Then the camera cut to an employee shooting a ball through a toy hoop in the fun and colorful IDEO office space. With a smile, Kelley introduced the space as ‘where the crazies lived,’ and, importantly, ‘where they did their work.’
Watching, I wriggled in my seat and felt my heart flutter. I smelled and felt the electricity in the air and knew something was about to happen, the way you can tell a summer storm is upon you before you see or hear it.
For a little under half an hour, the episode featured the IDEO design process as they redesigned an ordinary shopping cart, revealing a highly creative organization with a culture that clearly embraced the creative process:
- No idea was judged or deemed bad; instead, they encouraged ‘wild ideas.’
- Everyone had the freedom to express themselves fully.
- There was a joyfulness, a playfulness in working in a diverse community of ‘T-shaped’ people (those with broad backgrounds as well as deep knowledge in a particular field).
- They took an anthropological, ethnographic approach to market research, and infused it into their design-thinking process.
I felt as if I were dreaming with my eyes open as I watched. Then one of the design leads in the video said: ‘Enlightened trial and error succeeds over the planning of the lone genius.’
The top of my head came off.
Concrete, formed around the soul of me, my authentic self, over the course of thirty-nine years, cracked in racing fissures. Chunks of limiting beliefs, small and fearful thinking, accumulated during a lifetime of listening to how others thought I should live, calved from my core and hit the floor.
His comment perfectly captured what excited me about how IDEO worked and created. You don’t have work under the knives of judgment. You don’t have to go it alone. You can experiment and play in a group of innovative, fun people and solve things together. The way to creativity is to be wild, bold. Unapologetically yourself. Your voice and vision matter. You can positively impact the world, one idea, one person at a time.”
Being Bold & Making an Impact
Do you crave the courage to be more bold? Do you have an exciting vision for positively making an impact on the world, but feel trapped by your fear and/or lack of energy?
We can change the world when we let ourselves playfully experiment and explore ideas. But first, we have to claw back what we long ago handed over: Our authentic selves.
We reclaim who we truly are when we remember what it is we used to love to do. The things we did with zest and zeal before life got busy.
To get started on making an impact, grab a piece of paper and a pen and take five minutes to write down what sounds like sheer delight to you. Perhaps you want to go on a hike, ride a bike through the park, attend a concert or play, stroll through an art museum, nose around a used bookstore, get out your favorite culinary gear and whip up a sublime recipe, book a spa experience, or explore ideas for a fun travel adventure.
Or, maybe you crave someone else doing the laundry, tidying the house, and stocking your fridge with prepared meals while you take a long nap.
What sounds most delicious to you right now?
Choose at least one action. Next, decide to commit to doing it. A firm commitment is an absolute must as our brains will pelt us with all kinds of limiting thoughts about how this play stuff and rest and fun is a bunch of nonsense.
Be prepared so that when those thoughts come, you can ignore them.
Instead, get out your planner and book your adventure of choice. Right now.
Our levels of energy drive all of our results—including how willing and able we are to take a stand for our own happiness. No one changes the world from a state of misery, sadness, or shame.
Instead, let’s go all in on gifting ourselves long stretches of time doing what it is that brings us alive – what’s making an impact. Once our souls and bodies are restored, there is absolutely nothing we cannot do.
