Lessons to Remember

Our neighborhood squirrels inspired this lesson to remember about grit, that insatiable drive created by a core belief that failure is not a permanent condition.

When you're on a train running at 100mph, momentum is far more valuable than perfection. This lesson to remember is about resetting expectations when you create, focusing less on the time-sucking perfect iteration of an idea and more on the fast-pace of getting to the right iteration that will carve out just enough edge to strengthen momentum. And it's a lesson I don't want to forget.

You're preparing for a big leap… You've done all the prep work to get ready and you're standing at the edge. I want to talk about the moments after you leave the ground because, with the leap I took to leave my job, those moments after the leap have been filled with lessons I don't want to forget.

“How can we take an initial bit of creative inspiration and turn it into a real solution that makes a real impact?” This Lesson to Remember is about process thinking—how we use it and how it can help us create meaningful solutions.

“How do we create things that resonate with others?” Sympathetic vibrations is a phenomenon found in stringed instruments, and it's the catalyst for this Lesson to Remember.

“How deep should a change go?” If you're like me and you've hit your threshold of change this year, and you're struggling with feeling a misalignment that you can't quite pinpoint, maybe examine your process for evaluating the depth of a change. Is it from the outside in or the inside out?

“How do I know our solution actually solves our problem in the best way possible?” There's a lot that goes into the professional process of understanding and answering the questions we face. This Lesson to Remember shares how making everything an experiment can give us freedom and permission to find the best solutions possible, instead of settling for the first ones that work.

“How do I find the inspiration to create something that matters?” Answering this question became so much more difficult while battling the challenges of a pandemic in the last year. But in that fight, I found a source of creative inspiration that has held steady. It's a lesson I don't want to forget.

Fear is a part of every creative process. But if you don't keep it in check, it can take over. This Lesson to Remember is about how to notice when fear has your creativity stalled and what you can do about it.

How do you innovate when your resources are limited, when your people are tired, and when your future is unknown? We found a way to do it and it's a lesson I don't want to forget.

Why is change so hard? This year has taught a lot of lessons about the pain of change and how to process it.

COVID has been teaching every organization about the facade of control. If you have a long history of being good at what you do, it can be easy to believe that your good work is what controls the outcomes. But when COVID hit, a lot of that good work didn't matter anymore and it become obvious how much trust we put into that facade of control. For our organization, it left us questioning whether we give up or find a way forward with this new revelation.

If you want a revelation or an idea to stick, find ways to share it with others. That's what “Lessons to Remember” is for. This space is dedicated to hard-earned lessons about creativity and leadership that I don't want to forget.