How to Generate Ideas and Not Forget Them
Recently I listened to a fascinating interview with astronaut Dave Wolf, who talked about the importance of “resources” when it comes to spacewalking. To the spacewalker, resources are a life and death matter. Without resources like oxygen and carbon dioxide filtering, the outcome is so grisly Wolf didn’t want to talk about it. With resources, spacewalking is as magical as it sounds. The myth about ideas is that they come from out of nowhere. That’s just not true. Ideas come from the stories and images and insights that we are able to draw upon to generate new ideas. New ideas are all about mashing—taking a bit of this and a bit of that and making something new with it. The problem is we are like astronauts who are running on low resources. We’re trying to do a spacewalk without enough oxygen. Think about the projects in front of you. What resources can you engage that will give you a base from which to draw as you work on your project? Resources come in a vast array of forms: podcasts, books, people to interview, places, trips, experiences, blogs, television programs, movies, magazine articles, pictures, art. The trick is to be intentional, to have a plan about the resources you’re going to engage and then calendar space in which to do the engaging. Todd Henry (@toddhenry) recommends blocking out a half-hour a day for this. I’m not perfect at this, of course, but I try to listen to a lot of audio books and podcasts when I’m driving or flying. I pick the books I read based on the work that’s in front of me. I ask myself, “What can I read that will give me an edge in this project?” I set aside time each week to review my RSS reader. (I use NetVibes.) I’ve also picked up a few ways to avoid forgetting my ideas. The trick is to have some quick way of capturing an idea when it comes. So here are some ideas for how to capture your ideas: Call your voicemail and leave a message for yourself. (I sometimes use this one at the end of the day to remind myself of what I need to focus on first thing the next morning.) Text or email yourself Create an idea document that you’re constantly adding to. Delete ideas that you’ve acted upon, so the list doesn’t get too long and unwieldy. Use a notebook. Keep a pad on your nightstand. Before you nod off, ask, “Did I have any ideas today that I want to record?” This also comes in handy when an idea comes knocking at 3am! Your turn. What do you do to generate ideas and not forget them? P. S. My friend and colleague Erin Bartels published a post about how driving and mindless physical activity help her generate ideas. Check it out.
How to Get Through Hard Times
I hope you won’t mind a more personal post today. I have several friends who are going through tough times right now. Medical issues. Pain. Divorce. Death. And you probably have some friends who are going through the same. You may be going through a tough time yourself . Hard times force me to face this reality: everything’s broken. Our bodies break, our marriages break, our livelihoods break, our families break, our health breaks. This is not pessimism: it is truth. So what do we do with all the brokenness? I don’t know. Honestly sometimes it feels like too much to bear. And then I remember the wood of the altar in my church. I have the honor of reading aloud from Scripture every so often at my church. When it’s my turn I wear special vestments and process with the choir, the acolytes, the other lay reader, the priest. And I sit up there and pray. One recent Sunday I noticed the knots in the wood of the altar. Wood knots are a reminder of death. They come (in most cases) from dead branches that the rest of the tree grows around. They don’t get absorbed into the tree; they stay there, forever. Carpenters have to be mindful of them because they can adversely affect the integrity of the wood. The knots tell us everything is broken. But they also enhance the visual effect of the wood. Carpenters sometimes search high and low for wood with just the right knots. I stared at them in prayer the other day because they were beautiful. Those knots reminded me that, yes, everything is broken, but over time the brokenness can be worked into something larger that is compelling and admirable. This is not something to point out right away with someone who is hurting. The thing to do in those cases is listen and be attentive and simply be there. But sitting here, as I am, with all the death and brokenness, the wood knots comfort me with another truth. Everything is being redeemed. Listen to the knots.
Don’t Go It Alone
It was my son’s first day of kindergarten, and to be honest my wife and I were a wreck. He’s our first child, and while I think we knew deep down he was ready, was he really? Could he do this? Could we? I picked him up, held him. Trying to steady my voice I whispered the best advice I knew to give in that moment: “Remember, bud, the best way to find a friend is to . . .” “be a friend,” he finished my sentence. It was a line we’d rehearsed many times before, and it comes from the book Little Bear Finds a Friend, published by Standard back in the eighties. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to find it on Amazon. I could have said a lot of different things. Listen to your teacher. Be a good boy. Play nice. But the reason I said what I did is because I know how important friends are. It is no exaggeration to say that for me friends have been the difference between a decent life and a complete and utter wreckage of a life. Friends have been my salvation. But not just that. Friends make life fun! I think this is one reason adolescents often pull away from their parents in favor of friends. For the first time they’ve discovered the society of like-minded peers, and it’s intoxicating. But that doesn’t mean friendship is easy. It requires commitment and vulnerability and forgiveness. Close friendships require that we show our dark or ugly side. When I’ve done this it feels like I’m holding up the broken pieces and saying, “Here’s where I am. Here’s me. Can you live with that?” It is a scary place to be. But if your friend can be with the person you really are, you have a precious ally for all that comes your way. And you have the opportunity to be the same for him or her. We can do life in a lot of different ways. We can engage the creative process in many different ways. My advice: Don’t go it alone. But what if you find yourself with a lack of friends? Or what if you feel like the friends you have just bring you down? First, know this: you are not alone. A lot in our culture militates against true friendship. Add to this the difficulty of getting vulnerable, and it’s just true that there are a lot of lonely people in the world. Second, make it a priority. You’re not selfish to want friends for heaven’s sake! You deserve a really close friend or two or more, and others do too. So decide that this is something you are going to take seriously. Third, give it some time and be on the lookout. If you’re a praying person, ask God to bring some potential friends into your life. Fourth, invite the person to coffee or lunch and carve out the time. Figure it out. Don’t let other things crowd this out. It’s too important. Fifth, have fun! Don’t come on too strong, be natural, and let things flow. Sixth, if it doesn’t work out for whatever reason, don’t stress. Go back to step three above. Couple questions I’d love to hear from you on: How have friends helped you in your own life? How have you made the friends you have?
When the Best Thing to Do Is Reject Humility
First, consider your context. Fast food chains promote vigorously, as do soda companies, porn vendors, alcohol labels, and your local casino or lotto. And you’re perplexed about promoting something that might actually help someone? Then consider the amount of work you’ve invested in this thing. Hours, right? Hours upon hours. If you’re going to spend that much time on something, don’t you think it might be worth having a few people read it? I mean, yes, you got it out, and that does serve a purpose, but unless we’re talking about your personal journal, you wrote this for other people to read. That’s the whole point. Don’t waste the effort you invested in creating it by failing to invest at least that much effort in promoting it. And how will you get better if you don’t get feedback from people who read your stuff and tell you what they think? Sure, you should do this before it goes to print, but the more feedback the better. No one is going to do it for you. Your publisher if you have one has a budget that it will use to the very best of its ability. But bestsellers rarely, if ever, become bestsellers because the publisher made it happen. Much more often it’s because the publisher deftly supported an author who hit the ground running and didn’t stop until the world heard what she had to say. Finally, consider the fact that if people read it, you get to keep doing more of this thing. If not, it becomes that much harder for you or your publisher to stay motivated. One of the most anguishing realities in publishing, and I speak for a lot if not all of us on this side of things, is the awesome books we publish that never get much of a hearing. It’s heartbreaking (to say nothing of the financial loss, which just adds insult to injury). So heartbreaking, in fact, that we publishers want to avoid the experience if at all possible. You don’t have to be a skuzzball to promote your stuff. You can have some class. Remember, this isn’t really about you or your ego. This is about helping people, it’s about the fact that you care and you want your readers to leave your book or blog better than they came to it. The great thing is, you don’t have to guess what bloggers you respect are doing. You can visit the twitter feed of Jon Acuff or Michael Hyatt or Rachel Held Evans or Chris Brogan or Mary DeMuth, and you can see exactly how they avoid coming off as used car salesmen. It’s safe to say they don’t because they wouldn’t have the following they have if they did. Get out there. Please, for the world’s sake: Get. Out. There.
3 Things You Simply Must Do to Get Published
In high school, it was the designation we drama nerds longed for: Triple Threat. If you could not only act or sing or dance but do all three, you were that much more likely to get the part. Janey Sommers, our fearless teacher, made it clear that in the real world, if you wanted work, you needed all three. “Triple threat” means something different in the publishing world, but the principle applies. If you want to get published (with a traditional publisher), you need (1) awesome writing, (2) a compelling concept, and (3) a strong platform. Excellent writing. This one goes without saying, and there’s no short cut. While some people have more natural writing talent than others, good writing is for the most part the result of a lot of practice. Here it is in equation form: (B + I + C)2 = AW (Butt in Chair)2 = Awesome Writing! Another crucial part of developing writing skill is some means of receiving feedback from those whose opinions you value. And of course, read, but don’t just read. Notice the devices an author uses. Notice how an author structures an argument, the mix between narrative and didactic material, and so on. For more, see my earlier post: “How to Write Stuff Everyone Wants to Read.” Compelling concept. Compelling concepts come in a lot of different packages. Sometimes a proposed title is so witty or arresting that it alone can raise a publisher’s eyebrows. More often, though, a concept is compelling because it speaks to a real need that readers have. Such needs are sometimes born of the human condition and are therefore universal. Other times they are the product of a person’s stage of life, and sometimes they speak to a cultural or historical moment. Strong Platform. As with good writing, there are no shortcuts to a strong platform. A platform, essentially, is an author’s own ability to bring exposure to her own work, and it takes time and energy. It’s about building relationships and showing up day after day, week after week, so that people begin to think of you as dependable and as someone who has something to say. Where are you in this journey of becoming a triple threat? Which of these three is already in place? How could you take the next step in one of these areas?
The Necessity of Mentors and How to Find One
May I start with the obvious? I don’t know it all, and neither do you. We all could use the help and wisdom of someone who’s further along in life and career. Recently I heard business expert and master networker Peter Strople talk about the importance of having a personal “board of directors,” which is a bold, useful way to think about it. For a long time I resisted the idea of a mentor. Thought it was cheesy. Didn’t want to bother anyone. Thought I could do it all on my own, thank you very much. Eventually I gave in, and I’m so glad I did. I meet quarterly with three different people, people who are older and wiser than I. Their advice and encouragement has been priceless. Here are some ways to get started: Decide you’re worth it. This is likely one of the biggest obstacles. We don’t think we are worth an hour of someone else’s time. But that’s ludicrous. Would you spend an hour with a friend to help him or her out? Of course you would. So give yourself the same kindness you give to others. Come up with a short list of possible mentors. When I first heard about the whole idea of mentoring, I thought, “That’s hokiest thing I’ve ever heard. And besides, I have no idea who I would ask.” But after a few months of mulling, three people came to mind. Think about the different spheres of your life: work, church/spirituality, social circles. Also, think about people you admire but don’t see very often; this is a great way to see more of them. Ask. I wrestled with whether or not to just invite these people to lunch or to actually use the word “mentor” or “life and career consultant” in my invitation. Todd Henry told me it’s best to just come out with it so that expectations are clear right from the get go. Just be honest. “I’m looking for a mentor, somebody who’s further along in life, who cares about my growth as an individual and professional. I’d like the freedom to ask for your advice from time to time, and I hereby give you the freedom to ask me anything you want, whenever you want.” Buy lunch. Your mentor(s) will be that much more inclined to meet with you if you pick up the check! Don’t dive into your life right away. Start by asking how the other person is doing, what’s keeping them engaged at the moment. Then listen! Come with some questions or particular issues you want to talk about. Before you meet with your mentor, ask yourself, “Into what areas of my life do I need someone to speak right now? What advice do I need?” Then make sure you get to these items before the meeting ends. Meet regularly. As I mentioned above, I meet quarterly with my three mentors, which means I see each of them once every three months. That means I’m meeting with a mentor once a month, but hopefully I’m not a burden on anyone’s schedule. Experiment with this. See what works best for you and your mentor(s). Don’t be afraid to switch it up. It’s not mean to stop hosting someone to lunch or coffee. Our lives evolve, and so it makes sense that over time our advisors change. If you have multiple mentors, as a way of saying thanks, consider hosting all of them to dinner or lunch once a year. I haven’t done this, but it occurs to me as a great way to express gratitude. Question: In what areas of your life do you need a mentor right now? What small step could you take toward meeting regularly with a mentor or two?
Four Steps to Conflicts You’ll Be Glad You Had
Conflict is inevitable when people care about themselves and the work they’re doing. In fact, a lack of conflict can be worrisome because it can mean people have grown apathetic or don’t trust others to play fair. But for conflict to actually go somewhere and change things for the better, we need a way to process it intentionally. Conflict produces such a commotion of feelings and impulses that it can be difficult to know the way forward. Some may disagree with me here, but I think it’s a good idea to talk with someone you trust about what happened and what you plan to do before engaging the person with whom you have a conflict. Get a trusted friend’s or coworker’s feedback and vent your feelings, but don’t allow the conversation to spiral into gossip and slander. Be respectful even if someone was disrespectful to you. Here especially, two wrongs don’t make a right. The following four steps, to be employed face to face with a colleague (NOT via email), can bring clarity to the situation and help you progress in a deliberate, ordered way. Facts. Feelings. Perceptions. Wants. Facts: “Yesterday you said this project is worthless.” Feelings: “Honestly, that made me both angry and anxious.” Perceptions: “My perception is that you have written this project off, and you do not intend to give it a chance.” Wants: “I want you to give this project a chance.” After stating your wants, and this is hard, wait silently. Give the other person a chance to respond to what you’ve said. Chances are, things will move in a positive direction. If not, it might be time to ask for a neutral party to help. Obviously the above example is simplified. You may want to expand on any one of the above, but try not to mix the steps. In other words, when you’re stating the facts, don’t mix feelings or perceptions in with them. Just give the data. When you’re talking about your feelings, a crucial step, don’t embed your perceptions. For the fourth step, you may want to make more of a case. For example, “I want you to give this project a chance. I’ve been given the mandate to make this project happen. Why shouldn’t we all give it our best shot?” On the other hand, don’t get carried away. Move through the four steps and hear from the other person. The goal is to make progress, not to give the other person “a piece of your mind.” My experience is that while conflicts are tough, they also can be terribly important. They have a way of deepening relationships and moving members of a team into alignment. And by the way, these steps work in settings other than the workplace too… What have you found most useful in engaging with others in conflict?
Three Questions to Ask When It All Goes South
My week was all planned out. I knew what my priorities were, I had blocked off time for a project that needed sustained attention, and I was feeling pretty good about how mapped out my week was. Then it all went south. An agent offered a phone call with an author, which I accepted. I was blown away by the author. This agent was on a short timeline, so I scheduled a crash session of pub board (our group that makes publishing decisions). I made an offer, we Skyped with the author, and long story short: we got the deal. It was both exhilarating and exhausting. Meanwhile, everything I had planned for the week vaporized. Well, I wish it vaporized. What actually happened is it piled up. My email inbox bulged. The project that needed sustained attention still needed it, but now it was on an even tighter schedule. I had to do the Heisman to three different colleagues who wanted short meetings with me. A week or so later I took a few steps back to think this through, and I’ve come up with three questions to ask when it all goes south: Did it all go south because of a lack of discipline, or because of a great opportunity? If it all went south because of a great opportunity, you should congratulate yourself for your adaptive prowess, your lightning quick reflexes, your ability to drop everything for something more important. If it went south because you lacked discipline, be gentle with yourself, but consider how you can interrupt the downward spiral sooner so you can get back on track that much faster. Peter Bregman, in 18 Minutes, recommends using technology to prompt yourself every hour to ask two questions: “Am I doing what I want to do? Am I being who I want to be?“ How can you tweak your calendar and the expectations of those around you to get caught up? Take the time now to be proactive about what it’s going to take to catch up. Maybe you need a special dispensation from family or colleagues to get some extra time. Don’t do this often! But every now and again I’ve found the people around me are very willing to cut me a break if I need to recuse myself of a meeting or work through an evening to get caught up. What apologies do you need to say? If you had to Heisman anybody like I did, be sure to go back to them, explain what happened, and say you’re sorry. Again, most people are very forgiving. The more I receive such forgiveness, the more willing I am to forgive when things are reversed. My favorite line these days: “I’d be harder on you if I was perfect.” Sometimes our best-laid plans are thrown up in the air, and we are forced to focus on the urgent. That’s just life. In fact, sometimes the best of life comes from these urgencies. But we can also be intentional in the aftermath to smooth things out and move on with confidence. What do you do when it all goes south?
The Part of Your Book You Work on the Least, and Why It Matters Most
Here’s the thing about a table of contents: it’s a marketing device. Yes, it serves the practical function of letting readers know what’s in your book. But it is also one of the first pieces after the cover and back cover that readers peruse before either making a purchase or walking away. That means it’s important, much more important than is often assumed. Your table of contents is like a path leading readers into your book. You want it to be as inviting as possible. So, how do you write an inviting table of contents? Make it sticky. Think of your table of contents as your book’s headlines. The main purpose of a headline is to grab attention. For more on how to do this, I like to point people to a post by Copyblogger. Promise something. Your table of contents is an opportunity to speak directly to the needs of your readers. Make sure you’re offering them something valuable. Check to see if the chapter titles match the content. This might seem obvious, but oftentimes the chapter title is the first thing we give to a chapter, and then the content happens. Go back now and see if the chapter titles you originally gave still sync with the actual content. Consider using both chapter titles and subtitles. This isn’t always necessary, but in many cases I encourage authors to use a “grab ‘em by their throats” chapter title and then follow it up with a descriptive and hopefully still enticing subtitle. Don’t forget the back matter. Think of appendixes, notes, study tools, etc., as bonuses. They are often the most practical pieces of your book, and thus they serve a terrific promotional function. These are important for the same reason the P.S. is important in a fundraising letter. Everyone reads the P.S. first. How do the chapter titles relate to each other? Do they show a progression of thought? Does one lead into the other. Do they suggest an experience or journey that the reader is about to take? And lastly, does the journey they hint at make sense? In other words, this exercise sometimes prompts writers to rearrange their chapters, which is great! It all needs to make sense. Below are three chapter titles: Give It to ‘em Good Why Forgiveness Matters The Spirituality of Jacob Now I’m going to critique each and offer an alternative. “Give It to ‘Em Good.” This title is too vague, and not quite catchy enough. Let’s assume this is a chapter from a book on giving presentations, and the chapter is about maximizing your preparation to wow your audience. An alternative chapter title might be “Wowing Your Crowd: Easy Steps to Prepare for the Talk of Your Life.” “Why Forgiveness Matters.” This is concise and even somewhat descriptive, but it’s also obvious. Of course forgiveness matters! Better: “The Key to Vibrant Relationships: Why Forgiveness Is So Important to Living Well with the People around You” The Spirituality of Jacob: This title is descriptive, but it does nothing to get me interested. And that’s too bad because Jacob was one interesting dude. Try this on for size: “Heavenly Dreams: How to Be a Thief and Still Have a Vision That Would Make Pink Floyd Blush!” Well, that’s a little over the top, perhaps, but you get the idea. Having trouble coming up with snappy titles and subtitles? Throw a pizza party, gather some creative friends, pick up one of those big pads with paper you can stick to the wall, explain what each chapter is about, and brainstorm away! (Pssst: you can always tweak the ideas you get later.) Your table of contents has the potential not only to inform readers but also to get them excited about what’s in your book. Don’t miss the opportunity!
No Joke: Studies Show Laughing Makes Us Smarter
“A sense of humor is just common sense, dancing,” said American psychologist and philosopher William James. Whether you agree or not, research from Northwestern University suggests humor can lead to creative insight. Benedict Carey, a science reporter for The New York Times, profiled the work of Northwestern neuroscientists. “In their humor study,” Carey writes, “Dr. Beeman and Dr. Subramaniam had college students solve word-association puzzles after watching a short video of a stand-up routine by Robin Williams. The students solved more of the puzzles over all, and significantly more by sudden insight, compared with when they’d seen a scary or boring video beforehand.” If that’s not an excuse to watch a funny Robin Williams clip, I don’t know what is. Don’t worry. I’ve scoured countless pages on the World Wide Web to bring you this—Williams goofing on Wall Street corruption with Charlie Rose: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JuFnzNsz3sc (Heads up: Later in the clip Williams roasts George W. Bush.) When our minds relax, they are better able to solve puzzles. This fact points to the larger reality that when we step away, when we retreat, when we allow ourselves to dream and ask “What if?” new possibilities emerge. The taut strings of stress and concentration unravel, and the pieces of our minds are free to fall into place. In many ways William James gets it right: this is just common sense. So why don’t we do it? Why don’t we take more time to laugh and let our minds rest? I can think of several reasons. We are afraid: others will think we are slackers we won’t get all our work done we will lose the trust of those around us we will lose out to our competition we will let others down But why aren’t we afraid of: burning out getting all the wrong work done losing perspective and therefore being unable to lead moving in the wrong direction and losing out to the competition that way failing to set a good example Moreover, why aren’t we afraid of: neglecting our families high blood pressure being a bore being less creative than we can be Suffice to say, I think we have much more to lose in being serious all the time than in letting loose, stepping back, and laughing once in a while. When was last time you had a really good belly laugh? Well, I can’t promise anything, but these links are a good place to start! Enjoy. Funny commercial: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dXGj_-orxw Calvin & Hobbes: http://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/2012/08/19 Louis CK on Conan: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8r1CZTLk-Gk Cosby on dentists: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBqY6cJD3CE&feature=related