What do you do when no one is looking?

I want to look at another angle of the story of Charles Perrault’s life and late literary success. Charles is the author of Cinderella and I am inspired by Daniel Pink's take on the subject of finding passion (you can check out the full article here).

In my post on legacy I summarized Charles’s story:

Charles was born in 1628 in Paris and worked as a civil servant in King Louis' Ministry of Finance. He lost his position there at the age of 67 and devoted the rest of his life to writing children's fairy tales. According to Wikipedia he published Tales and Stories of the Past with Morals in 1697 and "its publication made him suddenly widely-known beyond his own circles and marked the beginnings of a new literary genre, the fairy tale." Apart from Cinderella, his well known stories included Sleeping Beauty, Little Red Riding Hood and Puss in Boots. Charles died in Paris at the age of 75, and enjoyed his fame for the last 8 years of his life.

Daniel Pink openly shares his attitude to the question of finding passion, and emphasises the role of looking at what one is already drawn to and does out of interest, for free, in spare time. It was also his personal experience in the beginning of his career, which started in politics:

“I wrote magazine articles about business and work, and formulated ideas for books. At one level, it was foolish. I lost sleep, sacrificed leisure, and probably distracted myself from my paid employment.”

Emma Jones, founder of Enterprise Nation, who is quoted by Pink, sees more people going down that path:

"I'm seeing quite an increase in the number of people turning a hobby into a business," she says. "You start innocently by making cakes or taking photos in your spare time. Friends and family admire the results and recommend you to others. Before you know it, you are your own boss and making a living from what you do."

Finding and acting on one's passion might be a very frustrating process. As an Executive Coach I can testify to that sentiment - it is a subject of many a conversation with my clients. Not for their lack of passion though, but either an inability to look in the right direction or fear of unknown, letting go of what's familiar and comfortable. Stakes might be high sometimes.

In the case of Charles Perrault, I wonder why and when he first started putting his stories on paper.  Was it out of necessity at the end of his life, or was it his life-long passion, pursued quietly in his spare time. I can only guess that the latter is most probable. But if he were living today and followed Dan Pink's blog, he would  probably have realized the need to look more seriously at the activities he did when no one was looking - and do so much earlier in his life.

What are the things that you do when no one is looking?

ELLE DECOR

What is Your Creative Outlet?

Mia Wasikowska is a young actress who plays in the newest adaptation of Jane Eyre, but whom you might also know from Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland or from The Kids Are All Right. She is profiled in the current edition of Time Magazine in a piece by Mary Pols. I was intrigued when I read that:

"While filming Jane Eyre, she picked up one of her mother's old cameras (her parents are fine-art photographers) and started chronicling life on set." The pictures she takes "feel like a portal to a secret world, the strange land Wasikowska has chosen as her home." (...) "If there is one piece of advice I'd give to young actors, it is to have another thing that you can do that you can control and that is your own creative outlet," Wasikowska says. "Acting is creative, but there is so much of it that isn't up to you."

Mia's example speaks for itself: even successful, creative people find themselves drawn to things outside of their day-to-day work environment. It has something to do with ownership, being in control, and being able to truly express yourself. For those who tend to work on long term projects, it might also be about immediate gratification, accomplishing something short term. Finally, it is a great stress reliever. Needless to say, we all need one from time to time.

The subject of having a creative outlet is important to me, and, being an Executive Coach, one that I encourage my clients to discover and embrace. Like Mia, I personally use many different creative outlets. In my case it is mainly photography - I usually have a camera glued to my hand. But at other times I make art with my kids and take time to analyze it afterwards, or I do a Vision Board Session (I have a specially designed process that makes it a creative experience, repeated once a quarter), or I just do some journaling and now blogging, which allows me to channel all the reading I do. Another big passion of mine is interior design.

That is why I decided to frequently blog about creativity. I don't know yet where this is going to take me, but I'm sure it will be interesting.  Please stay tuned.

To read more on the subject of creativity, the need to embrace it, and ways to find some specific ideas for nurturing your inner artist, please check out A Whole New Mind by Daniel Pink.   

ELLE DECOR

Daniel Pink on Education

“In elementary school we assess children’s IQ’s. Later on, we measure their skill in reading and math – then plot their scores against children from the rest of the state, the country and the world. 

By the time the kids arrive in high school, they’re preparing for the SAT (...). 

According to the latest research IQ accounts for between 4-10% of career success. 

IQ can influence the profession one enters. Within a profession, mastery of L-Directed Thinking matters relatively little. More important are qualities that are tougher to quantify (...), imagination, joyfulness, social dexterity.” 

Daniel Pink, A Whole New Mind

About This Blog

I am an avid reader, and although it’s generally seen as a solitary pursuit, I have also always taken a lot of pleasure from sharing ideas that I’ve found between the pages of great books.  Professionally, I have done this through coaching conversations with my clients, relaying knowledge and resources that I felt could help them with specific needs or challenges.  More recently, however, I found myself journaling, sometimes daily, just to keep up with the flow of insights and ideas that brimmed out of me in reaction to what I’d been reading. This is the genesis of this blog:  looking at my journal, I’ve decided that it is time to share the knowledge, ideas and resources I’ve been discovering with a wider audience.  I’m buoyed to do this by the enthusiastic reaction of my coaching clients.  

This blog therefore features books that are about or at least somehow related to the world of work – its interesting trends, inspiring ideas and the changing knowledge one needs to thrive.

 

Trends

Today’s workplace demands more creativity, flexibility and management skills than we’ve ever needed before, no matter what our role. Whether we like it or not, we are all now in the business of sales and marketing in addition to whatever else we might be doing. Uh oh, we’re also in the business of human resources, sustainability and design. Oh! And in the business of art, of course.  If that was not enough, as a coach, I just have to point out that we are all in the business of coaching, and I strongly believe that we should all be in the business of philanthropy. It is a mouthful, isn’t it? And it can be overwhelming.

If the downside is needing to stay abreast of thinking across multiple areas and risking information overload, the upside is that we can acquire a broad set of skills that can be also applied to strengthen other aspects of our life - as parents, spouses, partners, friends and others - we can use them daily.

 

Knowledge

To be most effective, those skills should be part of the fabric of who we are - a philosophy, a way of looking at things, even a lifestyle, rather than learned tricks and tactics. The good news is that with the right amount of deliberate practice, reflection and, ideally a great, dedicated coach, knowledge can become a muscle over time. 

Ideas

With learning at its core, this is a blog that is going to be appreciated by Life-Long Learners. But to take this further, it is also for those who recognize that the future lies in the hands of workers who are able to bring together a broad spectrum of ideas and thoughts, and use them in a fresh, innovative, out of the box way. I mean, in other words, Conceptual Workers, what Daniel Pink calls the new breed – the meaning makers, pattern recognizers, dot connecters, synthesizers. In essence, those who support traditional L-Directed Thinking with high concept (“ability to create artistic and emotional beauty, detect patterns and opportunities, craft a satisfying narrative, combine seemingly unrelated ideas into a novel invention”) and high touch abilities (“ability to empathize, understand the subtleties of human interaction, to find joy in one’s self and to elicit it in others”).

 

And since I am an Executive Coach and coaching happens through conversations, this is really what this blog aspires to be with time – a conversation with the readers on the subjects concerning the future of the world of work and how to shape it.