Month: September 2008

^{Source: https://player.vimeo.com/}

^{Source: https://www.youtube.com/}

Over the past few weeks, LateralAction.com has been releasing teaser flash video’s of Lou, Jack and Marla. Well now we have text.

I’m interested to see where the blog goes, but so far, it looks very promising for any renaissance soul.

Co-founder Mark McGuinness, also of wishfulthinking.co.uk, takes a hard stance on the necessity for creatives and conceptual thinkers.

creativity isn’t a nice-to-have or a fun-to-do, it’s a matter of economic survival. Complex, challenging creative work is (so far) difficult to automate or outsource cheaply overseas. Creativity is what transforms utilitarian products into distinctive artifacts that are a pleasure to look at and a joy to use. It’s what makes people queue for days to get their hands on an iPhone, ignoring the clever friend who tells them they can get a “technically superior” alternative for half the price.

I’ve been feeling that with me learning to be more diverse in the way I look at things, and think about things. And the more I let myself out of the box, the more I have moments that I have so many things racing, that I just stop everything. So, over the past week I’ve been devouring “Getting Things Done”.

It’s been on my list for several years, and it’s only been recently that it’s raised in priority to the top.

I joke with friends that it’s a catch-22. You put “Getting Things Done” on the list of book to read, but becuase you haven’t read it, how can you get it done?

They sometimes chuckle, and sometimes don’t. It’s a tough crowed.

I was surprise with the tone of the book, and the awareness of creative styles, and creative inputs. No where does David Allen say it “has” to be this way. It’s the philosophy that he’s trying to impart; the “what’s the next action?” philosophy.

It’s going to take some time to get the action down to the specific next action, as I like to generally stay in the upper ionosphere of thought. No more generic tasks like “Figure out my process”, now it’s more directed, like “Read Getting Things Done” or “Do Exercise 1 on ‘Is Your Genius At Work’” Figuring out my process is the project, and the ultimate goal, but these would be my next “physical actions” to figuring it out.

There are loads if “thinking” tasks, and “brainstorming” tasks. A few “look on the web for” tasks. And from what I’ve read, that’s o.k.

Ultimately, it’s not about the structure, but the next task in to get there.

I’ll check back in a month and let you know how it’s going.

Here is a debate to consider. You have several different skills, all of which you are passionate about. You don’t want to focus on just one – hence a Renaissance Soul.

View A – If you look hard enough, you can find an underlying calling, a genius that surrounds all of these things.

View B – They are distinct and separate. Don’t bother putting a pretty bow on them, you aren’t going to find one.

The jury is still out for me, but I’m using Is Your Genius at Work by Dick Richards, to help me find out for sure.

I doubt, by any means that Merlin Mann would label himself. But if you want to see a Renaissance Soul in action:

• 43 Folders
• You Look Nice Today
• Kung Fu Grippe
• 5ives
• 30 Second with Phone Guy
• The Merlin Show

And these are just what he’s got online. Imagine what he’s doing offline?

One of the biggest steps I ever made in my life was admitting “I don’t know what I don’t know”.

I needed help.

Fortunately for me, I found my coach – Dari. (I’ll be talking about her more as we go along )

I’ve been reading Brian Greene’s, “The fabric of the cosmos”. And there is an interesting principle that we are all immersed in a Higgs ocean. It’s like the original idea of the aether. We are all subject to the field. Our mass is a result of friction between it and out particles.

But what sparked me was the analogy used to explain it. A frog in a dish, with food in the middle. Not only did it show the idea of Higgs field, but it also showed one of the principles of “You don’t know what you don’t know”

Take a bowl and put some food in the middle of it.

Take a frog and put it in the bottom of the bowl. ( His analogy has hot water, and the frog jumping all over the place, but that’s because of universal cooling. Although this is very fascinating, not where I’m going with it. So just putting the frog in the bowl will do ).

Now, in his explanation of the Higgs field, the dish is shaped like a tin for making a ring cake. One with a deep trough, and a pillar in the middle – like an island.

The food is in the very middle, at the top of the pillar.

The frog is at rest at the very bottom of the trough. Or even better, let’s say that the trough is so deep that the frog could even jump half way up the dish.

Can the frog see the food? No. But that doesn’t mean it’s not there.

If someone who wasn’t “in it”, could they see the food? Of course they can.

If you are the frog, then who sees the food?