Think of your life.  Think of all the moments in your life where the work of others humans would be helpful.I lost count. Did you?Humans want to help one another. We are biologically wired to do that. Though pre-programmed to be helpful, we don’t always do that. And what gets in the way is not always our will; it’s attention.  Attention is the gift that we give one another. A choice we make that says, “I - David - am choosing to enroll in your story, learn about where you were, understand where you’re going, and do my part to help you get there.”  You give me the gift of your attention when you choose to read what I write. You help me with your comments and your desire to read the next thing.  Your customers/clients/audiences give you the gift of their attention when they choose to take your call, show up to your gig, renew their contract, or hear your pitch. When they choose you.  The real challenge in making things happen is the gift of attention. The choice to show up, suspend judgment, listen, be empathetic, enroll in the journey of another to help them get where they’re going, and expect nothing in return.

To honor means “to hold in high regard.” And failure means “to make a mistake, learn, and advance forward.” If you accept both definitions, why wouldn’t you honor your mistakes and failures?  Failure is only failure if you choose not to learn. And choosing to learn is a decision that ought to be held in higher regard.  How many times today will you honor that decision to advance forward? To lean into possibility, embrace what didn’t work, and emerge as a better version of yourself.  If you are like me, not enough.Honor your errors. A trick will only work for a while, until everybody else is doing it. To advance… requires a new game. But the process of going outside the conventional method… is indistinguishable from error… Evolution that be thought of as systematic error management.” - Kevin Kelly, Out of Control: The Rise of Neo-Biological Civilization

One time, a musician came up to me and said, “I am going to be the best bass player in the world.”  At first, I thought, “Get in line, kid.”  But now, I wonder if that’s possible?  How to be the best? Now, create and ship your most excellent and effective work to those who depend on you.   How to be the most excellent? Execute your acquired skills to the best of your ability - consistently.  How to be the most effective? Make sure your actions are producing the results you intend.  Do both consistently, every day, and you will be the best. But what about the world?Being the best in the world assumes you want to be better than everybody else. Here’s the thing, we falsely assume the world means everybody else. What if the world just meant, “to those who care about the work I do”? What if the world meant, “my coworkers”?  What if the world could be the smallest viable audience that needs us to show up for them?  With that perspective, I believe it’s easy to be the best in the world. You just need to decide to do it. Now.  Change is that simple.

My new work challenges me to rethink and rethink my thoughts on work, creativity, and our blog. I am in a new industry, working with new types of information and thinking less about creativity and effectiveness. Now, I spend more time figuring out how I will understand how a team I lead helps people succeed with some software.  I don’t find my end-users business creative or passion-rousing. But what if that’s the point? What if the end-product/end-user is not what matters, but instead our role in showing up for that person?  My mom would tell me that if I didn’t do well in school, I could find myself flipping burgers at George Webb’s. Sometimes, it’s easy to feel like the work I do now is nothing more than flipping burgers. I am sure you feel the same way from time to time. I counter that feeling by taking a step back and saying: It’s not about flipping burgers. It’s about showing up and being the best burger flipper because someone depends on me to make their day - they care.  Who cares about how you show up to work? And, are you showing up to be the best in the world for that person?

What if every decision we ever made was really just one small test that’s part of a larger experiment? And how might we use that question to approach life better?I recently learned that I become hyper-focused. I probably already knew this, but I accepted it about myself earlier this week. When I become extreme in my focus, I lose sight of my other work. I asked myself a few questions to help me focus but not lose sight of work:Why does increasing my focus in one area cause me to fail in others?What if I could what I learn from overextending myself and revise that approach? How might I do that?And, in this failure, what did I do right?Think back to your last “bad decision,” and revisit that decision through the curious lens of the questions I wrote down.  What did you discover?

The problem with having lots of ideas is figuring out what to do with them. That’s why I am struggling at work.

In music, we say that silence between the notes gives the piece a chance to breathe. And in that space—i argue—is art. In visual arts they call that negative space.

I struggle with creating more negative space in my head and on paper. Lots of ideas, lots of ways to connect ideas, and not enough negative space.

Would you like to better at building something from nothing?Creatives are often misdiagnosed as people who seem to have endless ideas - they come out of thin air. But I argue that creativity is quite the opposite.  To be creative, you must look at what’s around you for inspiration - you make something from “already.”  If you’re a musician, you use the available notes on your instrument combined with the music.If you’re a carpenter, it’s a piece of wood.If you’re a parent, it’s your children’s interests.Our neighbor brought us shrimp last night. We didn’t eat it. Instead, I decided to fry it up with butter and garlic to serve over eggs. As I was thinking about how it might taste, I noticed I had chipotle seasoning in the cupboard.  What if I added chipotle seasoning to the shrimp and garlic?Get better at making shrimp and eggs by noticing your spice cabinet a bit more. And get better at being creative by learning to stop, notice, take from what’s around you, and then start imagining what might be better.

Have you ever wondered what it’s like to live with bipolar disorder?  

I was describing the feeling to a friend of mine the other day.  

• It can feel like an intense desire to do more and believe yourself capable of doing everything.
• It can feel like extreme focus - where even the slightest disturbance becomes a universal problem.
• It can feel out-of-body - having a war of thoughts inside your head, but totally blank outside.

I lost the rest of the thought for this blog post… it’s gone. There’s someone in the other room speaking - it’s consuming my thoughts.  

In March, I will be music directing the music, Cinderella, for the University of Wisconsin-Parkside theater department. Today, while learning the show, I realized a few things.To learn a musical:Start by playing what you can and make all the mistakes possible.Take a step back and learn every singer’s part note-by-note. Think about the story they are trying to tell and why.Re-play your part, but this time play it slowly and tap into what the singers are trying to communicate.Play your part again at the correct tempo.The other day I wrote about playing the gig; here’s another way to think about doing life better.Start by making mistakes: asking questions, learning, failing, getting up, and doing it again.Take a step back - listen, see who’s in the room, try to understand where they’re going and how you help them.Try again, this time mindful of the space you hold, your role, and what you’re all trying to do.Wash, rinse, and repeat.It’s a different kind of Cinderella story, but it works.

I chose to spend New Year’s Eve doing nothing - zip, zilch, nada. And I loved it! Honestly, I could not recommend the experience of doing nothing enough. I love the rush of ideas that come into my head when I hit that bored state. I get new ideas about what to do in the next minutes, days, weeks, months, and years. And, I get to write those ideas down to make room for new ideas. I imagine many people move into new stages of life with hopes and dreams - read expectations. I am trying to start a new year with nothing but questions and ideas.