Remarkable. Creative. Successful. Upmarket businesses push the envelope -- does yours?
My mind used to race with new ideas. New thoughts. New dreams. I was constantly inspired to produce. But where once inspiration flowed, my mind’s creativity has been replaced by fear, doubt, worry. Where I once heard a muse, I now hear the mocking laughter of pain and anxiety.
You can’t consume unhealthy television shows without becoming mentally unhealthy. You can’t avoid learning and expect to make good decisions. You can’t read only one side of an argument and not become hateful toward the other side.
Humans have always fought against habituation. I’m sure after the first caveman invented fire, someone came along and said, “Yeah I saw that last week.” This can creep into our work, whether we find ourselves becoming bored with our work, or thinking there’s nothing “new” we can learn. We simply get used to what we already know.
Without experience and feedback, it’s hard to know if you’re doing your work right. If you have what it takes to succeed. You feel clumsy and ill-suited to the business side of self-employment. You feel out of your depth. But you could be mistaken.
For the last few weeks we’ve been running special series called Cultivate Creativity, inspired by Nolan Bushnell’s latest book. We ran four wonderful pieces from existing contributors, and if you missed them, you’ll want to check them out now…
You may have created your own definition of success. Yet you may still be subject to and struggling against the definition that prevails in the culture around you. When that happens, your definition of success and the culture’s definition fight each other-and your heart, mind, and business are battlefields.
Extreme obstacle course race events are held around the country and world offering varying levels of difficulty, length, and competitiveness. This type of racing is a relatively new phenomenon that has exploded onto the fitness scene. Tough Mudder was first on the scene, propelling the craze and mushrooming into a $70 million business in little more than two years.
Walking a labyrinth, like any transformational experience, means being willing to experience sudden shifts in perspective as we move toward our goal. Sometimes that means the goal itself will change. And that’s where a simplistic approach to affirmations breaks down, because sometimes affirmations that made sense last year or last week aren’t relevant today.
The best company names the ones that are simple, are meaningful to customers, and conjure up a lot of mental imagery. Names that lend themselves to word play are easy to remember and “have legs,” meaning they cane be parlayed into peripheral products, extra revenue sources, and extra buzz.
What do you do when the economics of your industry is disrupted? According to Eric Barrett, it all goes back to hiring the right people.
