Creator

I have a hard time relaxing.  There is always something that I think I should be doing.  I often feel guilty when I'm not doing something that could be construed as "productive" on some level.  And there is never a time when the list of potentially productive things runs out.  One friend told me that marathon runners don't train for a marathon all the time.  Balanced training involves periods of activity and periods of inactivity.  That made sense, until I started drawing lines of comparison.

Nothing in my life right now really looks like a marathon.  I don't have an event for which I am aiming, I don't have a destination, an endpoint.  I have several ongoing projects that are literally open-ended, on-my-own-schedule kind of affairs.  I am creating various things, and I am in the enviable position of having a great deal of time to indulge those creative processes.  But during the moments when I am not immersed in the creative process, I have a tendency to beat myself up a bit.  I call it laziness, but it really isn't.  I think part of me at some point in time got confused about the difference between busyness and meaningful activity.


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I said to a close friend, "I have a feeling that I was supposed to be more important."

My friend's reply was, "I've always had the impression that you didn't care what other people think, as long as you're happy with what you're doing."

It seemed like a kind of non sequitur, but I followed his meaning.  If I don't care what other people think, then who am I expecting to be important to, aside from myself?  Well, the truth of the matter is that I do care what other people think.  I want to be connected to other people.  I want what I do to have a positive impact.  I just don't want to make decisions for my life based on what other people believe.

Over the course of a couple of days following that conversation, a few people unexpectedly sought my counsel about different issues in their lives.  So, at least in some moments, I am important to some people.  I felt flattered and honored in those moments, and yet it wasn't quite the answer part of me wanted.  Part of me was defining "important" as "broadly impactful" or something along those lines.  And I don't believe that defines my life right now.  It's an issue of identity.

I've tried making meaningful contributions as a part of other organizations, places where I could have a broader impact because of an existing framework.  Somehow, I've wound up not having the sort of impact I wanted.  A lot of times it can be chalked up to personality clashes, but I also think that there is something more.  I may be dead wrong here, but I think that many people have a difficult time visualizing what something new will be like until it's created.  Once it's created, they don't have to visualize it, because it's right there in front of them.  But a lot of energy gets spent trying to defend an idea to people who simply can't envision what it will look like.  It's hard to have a positive impact on people who are afraid of what they can't imagine.


The direct end result for me is that people often do not see what I have to offer the way I would like them to, and I am unable to rely on participation in an organization as a means of identity.  The organization does not provide a meaningful purpose for me.  Honestly, I believe that some of my ideas could have profoundly positive transformative impact, but I don't enjoy the often exhausting battle of defending myself and my ideas to people who clearly are not open to those possibilities.  It isn't worth it to me, no matter how "important" I think an idea could be.  When I think about it in those terms, I don't really want to be "important" badly enough to define my life by the process of proving myself.  But I do want a clearly-defined over-arching identity than what I've been allowing myself in the enviably nebulous existence I currently inhabit.

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I think one of the reasons I find it so easy to flagellate myself about perceived laziness is that I don't currently have an endpoint, a goal, a clear and overarching sense of purpose behind everything that I do.  Individual projects may have goals and purposes, but they are nebulous or far into the future. What I have sought through my involvement in other organizations is something I can provide for myself.


In The Artist's Way, Julia Cameron talks about the Creator, and she encourages placing a lot of spiritual value on being both created and creator.  I don't believe in an actual Creator per se, but the poetic example of the act of creation at the very beginning of the Bible has some very valuable tidbits.  Actually, a lot of creation myths do.  They always involve effort on the part of the creator(s), and there is always a process by which that creation takes shape.

I am a creator.  It's what I do.  I create music.  I create sometimes coherent prose.  I use my imagination well.  On a certain level, I think everyone creates, but it isn't everyone's defining characteristic.  That may not make me important to a lot of people.  I'm alright with that, honestly.  What I was couching as a desire for importance was actually a desire for someone else to provide a meaningful identity, and when I am honest about what matters to me, I can do that for myself.  I have done that for myself.

So how does fully claiming my identity as a creator keep me from beating myself up in the times when I am not actively creating?  That's where the creation myths come in handy.  For example, in the biblical myth, God didn't create everything in one fell swoop.  He just did a bit at a time, and then he stood back and acknowledged his work.  And then, as many people have pointed out, he took time to rest.  There are a lot of similar lessons in creation myths from all over the world, and they amount to four basic principles I'm going to be following:

(1) Know what you're creating.  If you don't know what you're making, take a step back and figure that out first.

(2) Be wildly imaginative.  Don't restrain yourself with imaginary judgments and limitations.

(3) Acknowledge what you've created, even mid-process.  Recognize the value of your creation.

(4) Rest.  Rest is not laziness.  Rest is the time when you allow something within you to start creating the things you don't consciously know about yet. 

So, I have had a tendency to want to have an identity handed to me, and I have wrestled with the idea of being important.  I have justified or criticized my existence based on the amount of money I was making, the amount of things I had gotten accomplished, the number of ideas that actually took root somewhere, the number of performances of my music, and on and on. Even when I've realized how ludicrous some of those conclusions are, I have kept going back to them because they are easy judgments.  Now I have one more bit of truth about me, one more turn around the spiral: I am a creator.  I am defined by the fact that I create.  

I know this was a long one.  Hopefully it kept your interest.  I started this blog because I wanted what I see and learn to be able to have a positive impact on other people's lives.  On some level, I wanted to be important.  I assumed that I was not the only person in the process of learning more and creating more in my life, and I still believe that to be the case.  In spite of the value I have gotten from a weekly commitment to write down my thoughts, this will be my last entry for awhile.  I may come back to this venue at some point, in which case it will be tweeted and Facebooked and whatever else technology makes possible for me.  In the meantime, thank you for being along on this leg of the journey.  I hope you have learned as much about yourself as you have about me, and that we will all continue along that path of learning for as far as it carries us.

Farewell for now,
Randy Partain, creator

Expert Opinions

In a recent discussion among a group of professional musicians and artists, I was stuck by the comment, We're all experts at something...  It would probably be an accurate statement in any group, but it's quite different from a phrase often used by one of the leaders in another group with which I worked: None of us here is an expert...  I think these two very different perspectives open up possibilities for very different results.

The word "expert" has actually become suspiciously uninformative.  According to Tim Ferris, you can legitimately call yourself an expert if you've read the three top-selling books on a topic.  Perhaps in some situations that's enough, but it isn't always sufficient for me to trust my knowledge of a subject.  I am much more confident claiming to be an expert in the field of music, because I've been doing that for over 30 years.  I guess from my perspective, experience has something to do with the definition of an expert.  There are a few other niches that I feel qualified to call myself an expert as well, but there are also other people from whom I could learn a thing or two.  Even within the broad field of music, there are areas that I don't consider myself expert, like playing bassoon or crafting a violin.  So whether one is legitimately qualified as an expert sometimes depends on the context as well.

For someone to state, "None of us is an expert here," is intended to open up creative and full participation from everyone present.  If no one is an expert, then everyone's opinion is equally valid.  If no one is an expert, then no one can pass judgment on the ideas that are shared.  But if no one is an expert, then everything shared becomes reduced to opinion and decisions get made based on the most powerful personalities rather than the most accurate data.  If no one is an expert, then it actually devalues the collective experiences of the group. This is a great way to preserve the status quo, but not a great way to move forward and grow.

"We are all experts at something," is equally intended to encourage creative and full participation from everyone present, except with a bit more wisdom and insight thrown into the mix.  It begs the question, "What is my area of expertise?  What do I know more about than most people here?"  It means that everyone has something to offer, but it also means that everyone has something to learn.  You are an expert at something, and everyone else here is an expert at something.  No one is better than anyone else in that case.  Everyone simply has something different to bring to the table.

I'm not trying to hide which perspective I respect more.  The most productive, honest, and healthy situation I can imagine for a group is one in which everyone's expertise is acknowledged and valued.  In assembling a group for a special project, it makes sense to bring together people that have different pockets of expertise that are important to the task.  This is obviously more valuable than just a group of willing people without a clue. 

The trick is recognizing one's own strengths and weaknesses and being willing to bring both forward.  Some people don't want to bring their strengths to the foreground because they want to be modest or humble, or they think that their ideas will be shot down, or they doubt the value of their own experience.  Others live under the impression that they don't actually have any weaknesses, that there is nothing they need to learn and no task that someone else could do better.  Both are equally dysfunctional.  As the philosopher admonished, "Know thyself."  A wise person is willing to fully claim their expertise and fully accept the expertise of others.  And a group of people with that attitude in place could do something truly remarkable.  

The Year in Review

Earlier this week, when I inquired about purchasing some lily essential oil (for a little "aromachology" exercise), the gentleman behind the counter said, "You won't find that here or anywhere else for that matter... genuine lily essential oil is highly poisonous and is absorbed easily through the skin.  You may want some lily fragrance oil instead."  Immediately, I felt very ashamed for not having had that knowledge, and I remember being in classroom situations in which I was expected to arrive with built-in knowledge rather than actually learn.  I quickly realized, however, that the only way to learn something is to admit that you don't already know it.  As someone who values learning, it is something of a gift to realize that there will always be something I don't know.  The humility to admit that I don't know something opens the door for me to keep learning.

That little lesson got me looking back at what I have learned over the past year, and so I share with you now just a few of the things that have stuck with me from my journey of the last several months.  I'll go ahead and start with: It's alright to admit I don't know something.  It bears repeating, for my own sake at least.

Another big one from 2010 is: Money isn't everything.  So many of the paths I have started down over the past year have ultimately been about finances.  I wanted to be a responsible person, I wanted to monetize my passions, I sought guidance from a variety of sources, and ultimately I have come to realize that, for me, it doesn't work for me to focus on a dollar figure.  The things that matter most to me are not things I can purchase, and when I become focused on the financial equation, it's easy to lose focus on the things that matter most to me.  I have learned a lot about money this year, and I have crossed some thresholds in how I think about money.  I know now that it isn't something that I want to pursue.  Money is merely a byproduct.

There are a lot of voices chattering about money, though.  And they chatter about success and freedom and all sorts of other topics.  Testing what people say and observing the results in their own lives is a great way to confirm who to trust.  Sometimes I really want to trust what someone is saying, and sometimes there is something within me that just cringes at a particular idea or individual.  Without any actual data, I'm just going on my own intuition, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but data helps cement my trust of a concept.  The challenge is that sometimes the data goes against someone or something I had really wanted to trust.  As difficult as it may be to admit it, if a hypothesis doesn't hold true in the laboratory of my life, honesty with myself is still the best policy.

I've also come to realize that: Fiefdoms aren't worth the battle.  In different roles, in different organizations, I have encountered people who operate as if they are running their own little kingdom.  While I may have something of value to add to the organization, and while I may get something out of my participation, when it comes down to it, it's a poor use of my energy to challenge someone behaving like a local lord.  It's easy for a person rooted in their beliefs and their pockets of power to develop a closed mind.

This has come up for me in part because I have begun to really understand for the first time that: It's good to play out loud.  As a pianist, I have constantly found myself in places where I am asked to back off on the volume.  Sometimes, as a thinker I have met with similar resistance.  Recently, I have had a few opportunities where I was urged to play out louder as a musician, and it has been a lot of fun.  There is a tremendous amount of freedom when I know I can play loud, and it is immensely satisfying to know that people genuinely want to hear what I have to offer.

Which is why: It's important to find a place where loud is accepted.  After hearing for so long that I need to be a bit softer, it sometimes bleeds into my own personal evaluation of myself.  In my own life at least, I want to encourage my own peak volume.  But there are other places, too, where people want to hear me, as a musician, as a composer, as a thinker.  Finding those places is more satisfying in the long run than screaming in a library.  Especially since, most of all, I believe that what I have to offer has value, and I would prefer to find ways for that value to be what people notice first.

So, that brings me to two last big ones that I have known for a long time, but have only started to really believe.  Focusing on what's most important to me is the best way to live a meaningful life.  Of course, it can be a challenge to know what's really most important, but for me it includes having creative outlets, making music, the connections that I have with other creative people.  It's important for me to respect and tolerate other people's spiritual expression, even as I seek an ideal way to define and live out my own spirituality. 

Lastly, as much as I want to be understood, admired, and respected, as much as I want to be able to use my strengths and capabilities in service to others, my first priority is to live in a way that makes sense to me.  To live in a way that I understand and admire and respect.  To make choices that magnify my strengths and capabilities.  I don't have to justify my life or choices to anyone, but I want to be act with integrity in accordance with who I am at my core.  When I choose things that don't really make sense to me, why would I expect to be understood, admired, or respected by anyone else?  Harmony within hopefully paves the way for harmony without.

It has been a very fruitful and satisfying year, all things considered.  If you stick around on the journey, we'll see how many of these lessons I keep learning further up the spiral...

The Phone Call

I want to tell you about a phone call I had a few days ago, but first I want to give you a brief update of where things stand. I recently signed a 5-year exclusive contract with a publisher for one of my pieces. This is an incredible stepping stone, and I am very excited about the possibilities that can spring from it. It means essentially that I have an advocate for my music who has contacts and connections that I don't. And he has a vested interest in getting my music heard.

The Envision Coaching Solutions site is on track, with a target date of June 7 for the first official newsletter. I've been working on a free download to provide to people who sign up for the newsletter, and I am very pleased with what I have put together. It is very rewarding to be consistently following a realistic plan for this endeavor, and I want to share the whole process with you soon. For now, I'll just say that a big inspiration for the site has been David Wood's book, Get Paid For Who You Are.

So now to the amazing phone call I had last week. Over the past several months, I've been reading a lot of books about entrepreneurial skills, leadership, and success. I really value what I have been learning, but I don't often give the authors of these books much thought beyond assessing the credibility of what they've written. As I was marking my place in one of those books, I noticed the author's bio on the jacket cover and saw that he was local. I decided that, when I finished the book, I would give him a call and let him know how much I enjoyed it.

Well, I made that call just a couple of days ago, and I was completely unprepared for how rewarding it turned out to be. I simply expressed my appreciation for what he had written, and I told him the biggest lesson I had gotten from the book. He commented on that insight. Then he took things a bit further and dug in with me about owning some of my personal advantages. It was one of those conversations that just helps things click into place mentally. Before we hung up, I asked if there was a way to keep posted on local events at which he would be speaking, because I want to let other people know about the opportunity. As a result, I wound up getting invited to an event I would never have known about otherwise.

I walked away from that call ready to embrace my strengths and find more opportunities to connect with people in a meaningful way. At the time, I thought it was a bold move to pick up the phone and call a stranger to say how much I appreciated his book. When I think about it, who wouldn't want to take a call of gratitude from someone? It was still a different behavior for me, so it seemed to be riskier than it actually was. And getting past that perceived risk was incredibly rewarding.

By the way, the author is Garrison Wynn, and the book I was calling him about is The Real Truth About Success. You might have your own set of people to connect with. Expressing sincere gratitude is not as risky as you might think.

Changes in the Weather

The leadership of an organization with which I was once involved recently decided that a keystone to creating their vision was clearer, open communication. I was thrilled for them, and I was a bit surprised. During my time with them, I had spoken often of the need for communication practices that were more in line with their stated purpose and mission, and my words had not been very well received by some key decision makers. Although it would have been rewarding to be acknowledged at the time and to be a part of their growth, I am encouraged that they are addressing some of the issues that have kept them from creating all that they envision. And I am not disappointed with where my own life has led.

I made a recommendation to another group just a short time ago, and I was told, "A few years ago, this wouldn't have been possible, but now the time may be right to start heading in this direction." I don't believe that the idea has any more value now, but the ability or willingness of some decision makers to embrace it has changed. And I may have become a little more skillful at presenting my insights. In fact, these two elements form a powerful dynamic that can determine whether a great idea soars or flops.

One thing I took away from both experiences is that I have great ideas. Not all of them, of course. I have plenty of ideas that miss the mark completely. But I have plenty of insights that are right on the money, too. Either way, my ideas are worth sharing. Feedback from others can help discern the unrealistic from the realistic, the absurd from the inspired. The only way to get that feedback is to share what I'm noticing and what I'm thinking. So, if nothing else, I am encouraged to keep sharing my own discoveries and ideas.

But how I share those ideas is important, too. I am learning to paint as vivid a picture as I can when I communicate my vision to others. I want to be specific enough that other people can see the possibilities I see. And I want to clearly express how they will benefit. Change is threatening to many people, primarily because our minds go crazy with worst case scenarios. And yet, actually creating the lives, relationships, or businesses we want often requires changing something. Otherwise, everybody would be perfectly happy with everything just the way it is. I realize that I can communicate possibilities in a way that helps people see how a proposed change is actually an improvement, and a step toward what they truly want. In the past, I have often taken for granted that people will see that potential for themselves.

And then there are some people who just don't want to see possibilities. No matter how clearly and effectively I communicate, I know that there are some instances in which my ideas won't be well received. In one instance, it was a single individual on a decision-making team who had a personal agenda. I don't know exactly what this person believed, but it was clear that no idea coming from me was going to gain ground. But there were more ears listening than that one closed pair. That individual is no longer on the team directing the organization's practices, and some of the ideas I conveyed are now being considered, even though I am no longer present to communicate them. Sometimes, the timing of an idea is at least as important as creating a vivid expression of its value.

So, what I value from all of these experiences is clarity about what I control and what I don't. How I communicate insights can make the difference in how those insights are received. That part is entirely in my court. And sometimes, for whatever reason, a person may be unwilling to hear what I have to say. I may be able to influence that, but often that piece is out of my hands. Being aware of that can help me to be patient, because one way or another, the weather will eventually change. And if what I want to express is important to me, especially if I see the incredible benefit that it could have for others, I can wait for the tempest to subside and try again.

Personal Cheerleader

My nephew at the zoo.

During time with family this holiday season, I had the distinct pleasure of my four-year-old nephew's enthusiasm as I was introduced to Wii bowling. Although he was not playing the game, he was an utterly engaged observer. Every strike or spare I scored was accompanied by cascades of cheers and accolades from him with sheer abandon.

At first, I was taken aback. For the briefest moment, his excitement seemed like a distraction. That was a short-lived reaction, however, and I began to playfully join in with his applause, more as a way of interacting with him than anything else. A little while into the experience, though, a strange shift began to occur. I found myself appreciating his unwavering delight in my successes as the game went on. Even his laughter when I missed a split completely was light-hearted enjoyment rather than ridicule.

I don't hold on to any illusions that he will remember that experience watching his uncle play a video game; my score surely wasn't an accomplishment that ranks with my proudest moments. And yet, there was something so invigorating and delightful about having a personal cheerleader focused entirely on me for that brief time. It's great motivation to keep letting people know about the things I am creating that really matter to me. I tend to convince myself that other people don't really want to hear about what I'm up to, and I could be cheating myself out of that incredible level of energizing support.

At the same time, as I am connecting with other people, I want to have the same level of enthusiasm and delight that my nephew exhibited. It can sometimes be tempting to think that I have to focus on what I am creating and that I can't let myself be distracted by just being someone else's cheerleader. Honestly, I know that there is plenty of time and energy for both. And I'd be very curious to see what we could all create with a little extra concentrated encouragement on a regular basis!

Truth... but from whose point of view?

A fundamental benefit of brainwashing someone is getting them to accept as truth whatever you want them to believe. Although I have never been brainwashed (to the best of my knowledge), experience has taught me that some people state their opinions as irrefutable facts. Unless one is able to objectively assess reality, truth can seem rather subjective. Incidentally, providing tools for people to determine this for themselves is one of the things I value most about the More To Life organization.

One of the most thought-consuming activities for me over the past month has been weeding through all that I have been hearing from various people's perspectives and getting back to the truth about myself, others, and reality. I am stepping away from a situation in which income was predictable, but my opportunities for leadership and time for creative pursuits were at a minimum. What I am stepping into is in many ways unknown, with no guarantees about income or potential partnerships, but with great freedom regarding creativity. It feels both liberating and scary.

For the past few weeks, many people have been mirrors for me; some of those mirrors were a bit warped, and some were quite magical in the way they eliminated every flaw and blemish. I have received harsh criticism and high praise, and I have purposefully considered how all of these observations line up with what is actually true. If I listen to other people's words without assessing how they match up with reality, I give them tremendous power over my choices and possibilities. And yet, dismissing everyone else's opinion as being valueless could make for a rather lonely and self-centered existence.

From where I stand now, I realize how easy it would be to have someone else tell me what to believe about myself and others, but brainwashing is a costly luxury. I prefer being able to thoughtfully assess what is true and move forward with a strong belief in who I honestly am and what I want to create. There is a little part of me that wishes I were able to do a bit of brainwashing of my own, though. If everyone had faith in their capacity for embodying a noble vision for their life, I believe the world would be a very different place. Bringing it forth in my own life will have to be enough for now.