Welcome back from the holiday break!

Today’s article is a special guest post by classically trained musician, talented life coach and creativity expert, Valerie Kampmeier.  It’s been a long-time vision of mine to share the brilliant ideas and action-provoking writings of friends and colleagues in my inner circle of coaches. It’s an honor to share Valerie’s wisdom with all of you as the inaugural guest post for Peake Productivity. Enjoy!

- Lisa Peake

What does it mean to be free to create?

by Valerie Kampmeier, M.A., B. Mus. Hons.

“If you bring forth that which is within you, that which is within you will save you. If you do not bring forth that which is within you, that which is within you will destroy you.”

–Essene Gospel of Thomas

You teach what you most need to learn

A friend and I have a running joke about business names. She once worked for a company whose name highlighted the word “trust”, where nobody trusted each other. Since then we often swap stories of similar ironies.  And so when Lisa asked me to write a blog post on the subject, “What does it mean to be free to create?”, I realized that I should admit up front that just because I chose Free2Create for my company name, that doesn’t mean I always find easy to be creative.

Me as a kid

As a child, I had a lot of creative energy. I used to write stories (one even had twelve chapters), concoct endless role-playing games with my friends, devise imaginary family trees, dance like a mini maelstrom to ballet music in the living room, improvise pieces on the piano, and create houses between two chairs or in the cupboard under the stairs. As a teenager I sang in two choirs, played cello in the school orchestra, was a member of the dance club and was desperate to become an actress. And besides this I was training to become a professional concert pianist.

I look back now and I wonder: Where did it go? What happened?

Creativity goes underground

One reason I think my creativity went underground was that I reached that adolescent stage of self-consciousness where we “put away childish things” and become influenced by peer pressure and popular culture. Another is that I began to adopt the attitude that I only had the right to engage in a creative pursuit if I were going to become a professional in that art form.  The piano therefore took center stage, and other activities were neglected or ignored. I felt that I needed to be pragmatic and only invest in that which was to make me a living. I couldn’t afford to be an amateur, however talented.

After many years as a professional pianist, I realized that I could embrace a much broader definition of what it meant to be creative. I began to improvise on the piano, I joined a dance group again, and even gave performances where I danced and improvised.  I joined a creative writing group, I let myself draw and paint in an amateurish fashion. I remembered that the word ‘amateur’ means one who loves.

Dare to be fully yourself

Creativity is generativity. It is health. Self-expression is natural and vital. We ignore it at our peril. Creativity means allowing yourself to be yourself fully. Despite resistance, conditioning, insecurity, self-doubt, or concern about what others will think. Despite the desire for recognition/fame/approval/posterity.

There are some great tools available that I have found extremely useful. One of the best is the book, “The Artist’s Way” by Julia Cameron– a classic text with great exercises that allow for creative play, and greater understanding of what impedes the expression of our creativity.

Experiment

One tool that is working really well for me is to tell myself (and to encourage my clients to tell themselves), “I’m experimenting.”  I’ve realized that what impedes me in being creative is the idea that I can’t afford to make mistakes, and that I should know the right way to do things, and that I will be really hard on myself if something doesn’t work out.

I’ve realized that I often don’t know how things are going to work out, and neither does anyone else. So why not let ourselves treat the process as an experiment? Not only the process of creativity, but of life itself. The other vital part of this is to forgive myself and anyone else involved if it doesn’t work out the way I expected. I’m experiencing much more freedom and less stress this way.

How do you express your creativity?

Do you feel free to create? Do you label yourself as “creative” or “not creative”? What does it mean to you to be creative?  What kind of activities do you label as “creative” or “not creative”? Does gardening count? How about arranging flowers in a vase?  Arranging cushions on a sofa, or shells on a bathroom windowsill?  How about food on a plate?

This is such a rich topic that it would require much more than a blog post to cover it, so I will simply end by quoting Martha Graham, who says what needs to be said better than I can:

 ”There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep yourself open and aware to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open.”

About Valerie Kampmeier

Visit Valerie’s website: http://www.free2create.com/

Jose Mujica: The world’s ‘poorest’ president

Today I woke up to this BBC article about the President of Uruguay, described as the poorest leader in the world. (Thanks to Graham Allcott for sharing it.) After reading the direct quotes from Mr. Mujica, I’d call him one of the richest politicians in the world.  Here’s why:

• He always has enough for himself and his family. He lives on his wife’s small farm just outside the capital, foregoing the usual presidential mansion.
• He lacks the stress and over-responsibility that come with trying to maintain a personal empire
• He gives abundantly – 90% of his income goes to charity. This puts him on par with his constituents.
• He is in his role to give, not to get. It has been said that service is the highest form of consciousness on the planet.

If you think this is true wealth, I’ve got news for you.

So what does an abundance mindset have to do with being more productive?

Everything.

I see it show up with myself and my clients on a regular basis. When we belief that we are enough, we act from our creative spirit. When we forget and fall into the trap of lack, we act out of a desperate desire to prove our worth. This leads to over-work, over-responsibility, over-commitment. And those things lead to broken promises, failed integrity and physical exhaustion, at best.

Did you hear that?

At best you’re going to be exhausted when operating from such a fundamental misunderstanding. The mindset shift is a simple (but not always easy) one:

This is the shift from trying to see what you can “get” to looking at life as an infinite choose-your-own-ending book where you explore all the ways that you can “give”. Giving of the overflow feels great and produces energy and momentum (e.g. you will get more done!). Giving from depletion produces poor quality outputs and broken-down relationships.

Giving, or getting?

You are only as productive as you are free. And you are only free when you practice self-mastery. Part of self-mastery is cultivating attitudes and beliefs that make up an abundance mindset.

True abundance is knowing your worth and acting on it. True abundance is a set of beliefs that give you the freedom to create meaning and purpose in your life.

ABUNDANCE

“Abundance is not something we acquire. It is something we tune into.” – Wayne Dyer

SELF-MASTERY

“The truly free individual is free only to the extent of his own self-mastery. While those who will not govern themselves are condemned to find masters to govern over them.” – Steven Pressfield, The War of Art

MINDSET

“I keep the telephone of my mind open to peace, harmony, health, love and abundance. Then whenever doubt, anxiety, or fear try to call me, they keep getting a busy signal and soon they’ll forget my number.” – Edith Armstrong

Expect EVERYTHING and NOTHING all at once:

1. Expect everything. Know that you are worthy of receiving anything you want. This doesn’t guarantee you’ll receive any of it. But know in the core of your being that you are worthy, regardless of what shows up.
2. Expect nothing. Be pleasantly surprised with whatever you get.
3. Surrender. Ask for “this or something better for the highest good of all concerned”. Stay open to something better than what you imagined.
4. Reflect on how much you want each aspect of your ideal scene: Must Have’s, Really Would Like, and Nice Touches.
5. Revise your prayers constantly. God is in the details.
6. Act. Take small steps in the direction of your dream, every. single. day.

This is my recipe for a delicious life, co-created with Spirit.

Q: How do I get my spouse to handle her agreements to a standard that works for me? She’s got an overflowing inbox, bills past due, and we’re both confused about the kid’s schedules and our social events coming up. I really want her to get more productive, but I don’t know where to start.

A: The first key is to remember that your job is to love your partner, not to change them. In my experience, it simply doesn’t work to try to “get” (hear under this: force, manipulate or change) your partner to meet your expectations about how they should handle the business of life.

“You must give up the life you planned in order to have the life that is waiting for you.” – Joseph Campbell

“Tenderness and kindness are not signs of weakness and despair, but manifestations of strength and resolution.” – Kahlil Gibran

All agreements are created through a conversation

Once you’ve shifted into greater acceptance of your partner, yourself and how things are now, the two of you could sit down and come up with new agreements about how being productive together will look.

Here are some seeds to help you begin the conversation:

• What I appreciate about you is…
• What I appreciate about myself is…
• I know I’m at my best when I…
• When I’m at my worst, I want you to help me by…
• 3 things that we’re already doing well as a team are…
• I would like to help you by…
• Would you be willing to…?
• If there were an easier way to handle ______ (bills, soccer practice, my inbox, etc.) it might involve…
• If I brought 3% more consciousness to how productive I am at home, I would… (each of you fill in the blank 10 times)

If talking about being more productive at home feels tough, I recommend Difficult Conversations, which emerged from a decade of research at the Harvard Negotiation Project. It’s my go-to book on how to communicate in a kinder, more effective way.

“Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success.” – Henry Ford quotes

How do we roll?

When you’re ready to take the conversation a little deeper, setup a time to talk about the principles that guide your family. This one is especially fun to do with the kids. See if you can come up with your own version of this writing on the wall:

With Your Family:

• In this house, we do…
• What I love about our family is…
• What makes us unique is…
• What makes us real is…

When you do this exercise, you’re coming up with The Enterprise Commitment for your family unit (two or more people who take care of each other). You can read more about The Enterprise Commitment for organizations in this book.

“Individual commitment to a group effort — that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work.” – Vince Lombardi

]]> http://peakeproductivity.com/how-do-i-get-my-spouse-to-be-more-productive/feed/ 0 http://peakeproductivity.com/what-backgammon-taught-me-about-business/ http://peakeproductivity.com/what-backgammon-taught-me-about-business/#comments Wed, 07 Nov 2012 16:23:59 +0000 Lisa Peake http://peakeproductivity.com/?p=1459 Three months ago, I didn’t know the rules of backgammon. In fact, I don’t think I’d ever seen a backgammon game board in my life. It looks like this when you start play:

Backgammon is one of the oldest board games for two players. The playing pieces are moved according to the roll of dice, and players win by removing all of their pieces from the board. – Wikipedia

When I started playing, I lost hard and repeatedly. How was this possible? You roll the dice, and take the moves given to you. It was hard for me to reconcile that in a game of luck I was loosing more than 50% of the time. Well, it turns out, like life, backgammon isn’t just a game of luck.

Although luck is involved and factors into the outcome, strategy plays a more important role in the long run. – Wikipedia

The Mindset of a Loser

Some strategies work better than others, and my strategies were not working very well. Having recently read Mindset (2006), I was open to the possibility that a growth mindset about backgammon could help me dig myself out of this shameful hole. I started paying attention to my mindset: the collection of thoughts and attitudes I was holding throughout the play. As I did that, I noticed a few things:

1. My mindset was a mess. When I was advancing across the board, I had thoughts like: “This is so easy. I’m definitely going to win. How can I really clobber my opponent?” And when I had setbacks, my mind turned to the worst kind of self-defeating victimhood: “Why’d you screw it up again, Lisa?” “I suck at this” and, “This is so unfair.”
2. Every time, I made a single fatal move that gave my opponent opportunities to “bump” my pieces off the board, sending them all the way back to the beginning. I always made this reckless move, like a sacrificial offering to the god of low self-esteem, about half way through the game.
3. My fatal move looked like “a bold risk” which allowed me to think thoughts like, “I’m so creative,” and “I bet he didn’t see that one coming!” These moves were done to feed a false sense of identity, not because they put me in the best position to win the game. I was shocked when I noticed that I was doing this over and over, expecting a different result. Really?!

Then Everything Changed

Once I realized how I was contributing to my fate, something quite amazing happened. I remember the exact moment in the exact game when my mindset shifted.

I said to myself, what if I didn’t take that bold, risky move this time? Instead, what if I try to play just like my opponent? I’ll be cautious and calculating and I’ll start counting ahead to see what rolls of the dice I can use (up until then I laughed at my opponent for counting the distances between pieces). It was an experiment, born from the mindset of a child having fun. I had lost so many times that I had no pride left to lose.

The experiment worked. Not only did I win that turning-point game, I won many subsequent games and got on a fast-track to becoming my (much more experienced) opponent’s equal.

So here’s what I learned about business (and life) from going from total novice to competent player:

• There’s no shame in playing it safe. I must choose calculated risks and balance them with consistent small steps towards my goal.
• It’s not a race. Sometimes “running” for the finish line is suicidal.
• It’s an open game where both players see the whole board. Know both your own strategy (as it changes) and your opponent’s strategy (as it changes). Don’t make the mistake of watching only one half of the board.
• Everything you do (and don’t do) in a competitive game is interpreted as either a promise, or a threat (as in game theory). When you refrain from aggression, you invite your opponent to do the same. When you setup a trap, you put your opponent on high alert. Both techniques can work if you know how you influence your opponent’s play.
• How I play backgammon at any given moment tells me exactly what my mindset is. Mindset is a bit like the weather: sunny with a hint of optimism, or cloudy with a chance of defeatist self-talk. I usually know going into a game where I am on the ladder of human consciousness.

This is what the board looks like when I win and “backgammon” my opponent: