This is the Too Many Trees newsletter, where I share what I’ve been writing and reading in the realm of leadership and personal development. My coaching practice is centered around the idea that we are more effective in moving towards our goals when we become more conscious and intentional in focusing our time and attention. If you know somebody that could benefit from my perspective, please forward this to them or let them know they can set up a free intro chat with me.
I shared my blog post on Clarity and Focus with a client, and he asked me a great question about whether being “crystal clear on priorities” would mean being less creative, since creative ideas often come during downtime or when intellectually wandering, rather than when we are focused on a goal. I thought I would share my slightly edited response with y’all to get your input and thoughts.
From everything I've read about great artists, they are absolutely fanatical about prioritizing their time to be creative. In Twyla Tharp's book The Creative Habit, she says “being creative is a full-time job with its own daily patterns. [Writers have their own patterns] but the real secret is that they do this every day. In other words, they are disciplined. Over time, as the daily routines become second nature, discipline morphs into habit.” She describes the importance of “rituals of preparation”, which are “as much a part of the creative process as the lightning bolt of inspiration, maybe more.” She talks about her own ritual of laying out her shoes in the morning, so that she gets out of bed and into the taxi to head to the studio where she gets her morning workout in to unleash her body in dance to inspire her choreography.
Stephen King talks about sitting down to write every day and his own ritual for preparation. And pretty much every writer says something similar - you don't write when you feel like it, you write every day, no excuses, sit down in front of the keyboard and write. To me, this sounds like being “crystal clear on priorities”, where the priority is to put creation time first.
In a similar vein, I loved The Great Work of Your Life, by Stephen Cope, a commentary on the lessons of the Bhagavad Gita around finding and filling your dharma. I found it deeply inspiring when I read it a couple years ago, particularly the ideas that you have to commit to your dharma to fulfill it, and let go of your expectations of any results - do the work because it is the work for you to do in the present, regardless of how it turns out. He tells the stories of Robert Frost and Walt Whitman and Corot among others, and how each of them followed their muse to focus on art, and put in the dedicated time to improve e.g. Robert Frost decided at some point to commit his life to poetry, and sold his farm to move to England to focus full-time on writing.
I particularly liked the way Cope described that choice: "The choice itself had unleashed something altogether new. Actions taken in support of dharma change the self. The act of commitment itself calls forth an unseen dharma power." When I read that two years ago, it sent chills up my spine, and was actually part of what convinced me to quit Google to focus on coaching. I felt that by declaring myself a coach, full-stop, rather than a Google guy who does coaching when I had time, I would leap and unleash new potential for myself. And that's what happened.
So maybe the work of being creative is in being crystal clear that creation time is a top priority. What would happen if we blocked off time each week to sit and think and reflect and see what arises, rather than rushing mindlessly from one task to the next? And will we commit to hold that time sacred, and not push it off whenever it comes up because there’s something “urgent” to do? It’s easier said than done (I have not yet managed it for my blogging), but I think that’s what it means to make creativity a focus of your life - it’s not about making the output of creativity a goal, but making the input of creative time a priority.
(This feels like the place to link to this New York Times article on How to Add More Play to Your Grown-Up Life that I’ve been meaning to share for a while.)
And now for the normal personal development content:
LinkedIn: These are ideas or questions that are helping my clients, and that I share via LinkedIn to help a wider audience.
What is leadership? I defined leadership as identifying gaps and mobilizing people to fill them, making leadership an action, not a position. You can lead from anywhere by taking those actions, and if you don’t do those things, you’re not leading, no matter what your title is.
Can mistakes accelerate growth? A mentor once told me “If you’re not making a catastrophic mistake at work at least once or twice a year, you’re not pushing hard enough!” I thought he was crazy at the time, because I thought making mistakes was bad. I’ve since realized that not making mistakes means I’m not pushing anywhere near my growth edge.
How do you choose your actions? I share how I sometimes feel I “have to” do things, and how that feeling can expose the unconscious rules that run my life if I don’t pay attention.
What is your threshold for accepting new work? As you accumulate more responsibility, you have to keep raising the bar for what work is “worth” doing for you, or you will soon get overwhelmed.
Articles and resources I’ve liked:
How meritocracy entrenches inequality - Thought provoking interview by Anand Giridharadas with Michael Sandel on how the Democratic party is wrong to focus on markets and meritocracy. Sandel says: “Meritocracy is not an alternative to inequality. If you think about it, it's a justification for inequality. That's what it's become, and the effect of this has been to generate hubris among the winners and anger, resentment, even humiliation among those left behind. Because it is not only a way of allocating income, wealth, power, prestige, and recognition; it's also a way of justifying it.” Instead, he suggests focusing on the dignity of work, all work, which resonates given our dependence on essential workers. Sandel also has a new book The Tyranny of Merit, which is covered here by the Guardian.
Why female bosses get different reactions than men when they criticize employees - "Results show that both women and men react more negatively to criticism if it comes from a woman." While female leaders can lean in, they are still often judged by whether they confirm to societal expectations of women nurturing and giving praise.
While Mark Manson is profane and not particularly original, I appreciate his packaging of philosophical concepts into a readable and accessible form. I have been appreciating his weekly newsletter Mind F*** Monday where he shares three ideas each week to get your mind going on Monday morning.
Ceiling Breakers is a new effort just getting started, but I love the mission of helping leaders from diverse backgrounds break through to the executive ranks through group coaching and community building.
Thanks for reading. See you in a couple weeks.