You know that moment when you ask for something really big? Big enough that it makes you nervous and makes the person you’re asking nervous?
Your empathy will scream out for you to rescue the person – and you – from the discomfort you just created.
Don’t do it.
Sit there.
Let the seconds tick by.
Now the best way for that discomfort to go away is to have the person you’ve just made a big ask of say “Yes.”
Each time someone says that to me (emails it to me, comments it to me), my first reaction is to be a little surprised and, if I’m really honest, just a tiny bit hurt. (“I can’t believe someone unsubscribed from my blog!” or “Really, they didn’t find that David Brooks piece compelling?!”)
But then I remind myself: if no one’s vehemently disagreeing, then no one’s vehemently agreeing.
“Vehement” is the point.
Conversations are the point.
I’m not advocating for being controversial just for its own sake, but do have something to say and say it….if you do that, some people will beg to differ.
And that’s more than OK, it’s great.
Pushing, prodding, exploring, tripping, falling, and getting up again…that’s what it’s all about. Otherwise, you’re just standing there, not doing much of anything.
Here’s a good way to overcome the resistance and execute on the big ideas that terrify you: tell others about your grandiose plans.
You can decide how “public” you want your “public” announcements to be – if you want to go big, you can tell thousands of your loyal readers; or you can just talk to the people you’d dream of collaborating with, your colleagues, your spouse, maybe your boss.
Saying it over and over again has two effects: it makes the big idea more real to you; and you can replace your fear of getting started with how silly you’ll feel having talked about something to people you care about and having not followed through.
(The catch, of course, is that then you have to execute, otherwise you’re just a big talker. But I know – and you know – that you can execute. What’s holding you back is the fear of starting.)
Sarah Kay, spoken-word poet and founder of project V.O.I.C.E. (and all of 22 years old), rocked the house at TED last night. Sarah’s powerful poems are open, honest, vulnerable and beautiful…and man I wish I’d had her wisdom and creative guts when I was 22 years old.
When she’s not on stage, Sarah works with young kids to find their own voice through spoken word poetry. She’s helped countless kids find their voice when they thought, over and over again, that they had nothing to say.
Reflecting on the path of finding her voice (a path she began walking at the tender age of 14), Sarah shared three excruciatingly simple steps (that I’ve paraphrased) that everyone can learn from:
STEP 1: “I can.”
STEP 2: “I will.”
STEP 3: “I will write about what I know to be true, and write so that I can understand things that I do not yet understand.”
All three of these steps are decisions that Sarah made and that you can make too. What’s stopping you?
One other reflection:
Step 1 and Step 2 are point in time decisions. Step 3 goes on forever – it is the process of discovery, the process of continuing to explore the boundaries of what you know and what you hope to understand. It is the daily re-commitment to do the work, to practice your art, to move forward, to find the cusp of what you do and don’t know.
Step 3 is the hard part, the part with a dip, the part that slowly, over time, transforms you and transforms how you interact with the world.
(This video of Sarah is from Def Poetry Jam in 2007…and she keeps getting better. Look out for the post of her talk coming soon on TED.com)
UPDATE: her TED talk posted below. Rocked my world.
What I was taught in school and in the early days of my career:
analyze – plan – budget – convene – write fancy document – present – get approvals – get buy-in – hold some more meetings – adjust budget – communicate and roll out the plan.
How it really works:
sense – dare – dream – share your dream with a few people you trust – get the resources – ask for permission later
The challenge is, you can’t get good at the second approach if you’re spending all your time working on the first one.
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