You have to get comfortable with the idea that you just might be in the center of the action. While often true, don’t worry about everyone watching you. The fact is, they’re generally not. You’re not the subject; the thing you’re photographing is likely the thing that’s holding everyone’s attention. When you’re learning, just move in and try to have a sense of humor about it. Once you get it, it will become second nature and you’ll move because you’re motivated to capture something.
Read MoreDECEPTIVE HIERARCHIES
For creative people there's a compelling moment to consider when approaching complex projects. Ask yourself if the organizational structure of your idea and your organization simply exists because you understand it. Ask yourself if the hierarchy is fundamentally sound for the particular project. If it exists because that’s the way things have always been done, you might want to start over.
Read MoreVISITING PLACES YOU WOULDN’T CHOOSE TO VISIT
You wouldn’t have signed up for the experience if you had a choice. Choice is the great luxury, the downy pillow beneath a tired head in a private sleeping car on a long journey. Reality is a seat in steerage on a wooden bench, with inadequate ventilation and a colicky baby in the row behind you.
Read MoreCHANGE OVER TIME (second of a two part series)
Change comes from a willingness to try something that doesn’t match what’s come before. When an iceberg calves from a glacier we see sudden transformation as tons of ice crash into the sea. But what we don’t necessarily see is the inexorable, relentless push of the glacier down to the sea, the long-term, root cause of the calving front. The thunderous change we observe is the sudden visibility of what’s really a deeper, longer, richer process.
Read MoreYOU'RE READY, ALREADY!
There’s no excuse that makes sense if answers always point back to you trying to leave the starting line. External forces holding you back? That’s a little different. That’s a hard, painful situation—legit if it’s legit—and as one creative to another I sincerely feel for you. But fidgeting and fussing over non-sensical distractions is only an indication that your desire to see this thing through ’til the end—whatever it — is not as strong as your urge to resist doing the work.
Read MoreSTORY
Story means everything, even if everything doesn’t look like a story. How we think about what we do is the essential architecture of all stories, and the onus is always on storytellers to make them sing.
Read MoreREMEMBERING THE BIG PICTURE BY FORGETTING IT
Expertise in discrete tasks, even ones that get changed and exchanged, becomes the reason to perform. Rather than becoming tedious burdens to bear, the atomized elements of a larger whole take on deep value for those performing the jobs.
Read MoreSELF-CONTAINED WORLD
Days lived away from your daily life are not the same as you daily life. Take those changes from routine as an opportunity to simplify certain aspects of your day, even as you open your senses to opportunities for expansion.
Read MoreTHE HARD JOB
Somebody has to either remove these bricks or build something with them. If the job comes to you for one reason or another, you need to figure out how you're going to handle the challenge.
Read MoreGOING ALONG, GETTING ALONG
It’s one thing to tolerate other people. It’s entirely another thing to listen.
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