August 31st, 2007 Aliya Comes Home

This is Aliya’s last day of work – My grandson is due October 1 or so.

I’ve had great feedback from leading Jack Canfield’s Success Principles workshop.  It has inspired me to change how I offer coaching to people.  Like most (all?) coaches, I have always given my first session free.  Why not give this 6-session course as my ‘first session’?  Makes much sense… And I fully support Jack’s purpose (he “envisions a world where all people are empowered to believe in themselves and their abilities and are empowered to reach their full potential and realize all their dreams.”)  Personally I include living in harmony with Earth – and I’m sure he fully supports that, so he’s part of my harmony.

August 30th, 2007 Create Creating

We all create all the time.  Even repetition is never actually the same. I know wonderfully creative people who are certain they can’t create.  They confuse creation with excelling in the arts or having patents.

Really, all you have to do is say, “I am creative.” – It’s like getting rid of writer’s block.  All you have to do is write.  Maybe some of it will be nonsense , but you improve to your own tastes.  Very, very few of us don’t need practice or ‘editing.’.  Very, very few authors publish first drafts (I only know of Rex Stout [Nero Wolf] – my wife tells me Nora Roberts, too)

Get a coach for creativity (me, for instance)

August 29th, 2007 – Two Years

I used to be a political junkie.  And I’ve slowed down considerably – I’ve actually given up newspapers – the environment trumped the news and I get my sudoko on-line.  Of course no one can escape the news or really would want to – I just don’t fill my thoughts and emotions with it any more. 

But today is the two year anniversary of Katrina.  I was only a horrified spectator and only gave money and heart to it.  And I am ashamed that I had disgusting secret smiles for the abject failure of Bushies – him playing guitar and  doing fund raising, Rice watching Spamalot and buying shoes, the racist insensitivity– the complete absence of caring, of common sense…  No creativity.

August 28th, 2007 – Creating Yourself

This is a simple, but not easy process.  Decide who you want to be.  Then let the people who — know that’s who you are.  They will have you be that.

What do I mean by “the people who…?”  The people who tell the people who would need to know; the people who matter in that arena; the connectors and the mavens…  People who can boost you up the ladder… 

Every comica will tell you their audience makes them funny – you need to have some of “the people who” in that audience..  For me, I’ve decided – I’m a coach and an author I need “the people who” as clients and readers.  Ultimately, it’s community. 

August 27th, 2007 Take Your Medicine Mindset

I am a strong believer in alternative health – I see a holistic chiropractor and have been doing that for close to 40 years.  But I recently saw that I’m still hooked, still doing what I say I don’t believe in. 

I found out that I have cataracts in my left eye.  I’ve known that but chose not to do anything about it because I have wet macular degeneration in that eye anyhow.  But when I went to get my eyes checked, the doctor said that if I had the surgery to remove the cataract, there’s new medicine that might then help fight the other.  And I said yes.

And then I found out that there are non-surgical ways of dealing with cataracts.  And I haven’t done them.

The question for me is habit vs conviction – where else am I a slave to conditioning?
How does this affect (limit, constrain) my creativity?

August 26th, 2007 No Restrictions

It’s ironic.  The more I think about creativity, the more I see the restrictions I’ve put on myself – the habits I’ve developed (like writing this!) I have an assumption that I am creative….

It’s an old habit that shows up again and again– like ‘I’m smart’ or, more insidiously, ‘I know.’  Nothing prevents learning and growth more than that.  I’m much smarter when I realize I know nothing.

August 24th, 2007 When the Wind Dies Down

I used to keep a cartoon on my wall – unfortunately I lost it and can’t remember the attribution.  It’s a drawing of a man on a high wire carrying a large balancing pole.  He looks balefully at us and says, “it’s not so bad when the wind dies down.”

I took a lunch break and heard about Chicago’s windy night.  It distracted me because I wasn’t thinking about the weather – But the worst drought and heat wave in Georgia; the floods next door throughout the midwest and on and on. I guess we can’t not talk about the weather any more.

But I was talking about our lives.  I’d say the wind is blowing and we dance on the edge.  You interpret that for yourself.  For me, I’m always creating tomorrow – and mostly the wind blows and I have to be agile.

August 23rd, 2007 Baseball

I’ve been a baseball fan since 1941, when I was 4.  My aunt used to sit me in front of our radio and she’d make me say, “Let’s go Dodgers.”  And it stuck (though the Dodgers didn’t)  When they left Brooklyn it was a sad, sad time.

Tonight I’m taking my granddaughter Diamond to see the Somerset Patriots play.  Minor league ball has a lovely appeal.  It’s very involved with the fans; much community.

So I’ve watched Baseball for 65 years. And this is the amazing thing – In virtually every game I will see something that I never saw before – Imagine that – a hit, a catch , a slide, an error– a kind of fight with an umpire— something brand new.  Ongoing Creativity
 

Augusat 22nd 2007 Keeping it Simple

I was trapped by Harry Potter, but gnawed off my leg and escaped today…finished the tome.  The only magic I want is seeing Nancy every day.  I do applaud Ms Rowling.  She actually managed to complete every plot strand.  What minimizes the fiction I’ve written is that I am very poor on plot lines.  It seems easy to write what I think, because I think all the time, sensibly or not – but I have a hard time making things up.

Given that this is a creativity journal, I probably shouldn’t confess like that…but truth has never been my short suit… So today has been a truly wasted day.

August 21st, 2007 – It’s Raining

I keep writing about the weather.  Seems like summer stopped on Sunday.  My daughter’s wedding was Saturday – miraculous weather – “a day in June” weather; planned and held outdoors – cloudless, mid 70s – scripted weather.  Since then – rain, cold.  I finish this and go out — wearing a jacket!  And I know there’s a force 4+ hurricane, droughts, fires, probably snowstorms in SA.  Chaotic weather everywhere.

Mark Twain said, “Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.”  Now there’s a subject for creativity, because, it seems at last we’re trying.