ideation

Glancing in the rear-view mirror

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rear-view-mirror-1182330-640x480Welp.

It’s going to be a lot harder than I thought to recover my blogging rhythm, but I need to start somewhere. It’s time to admit I may not be able to research, write, polish and photo edit like I am used to doing.

But one thing I can do is share what I’m learning along this new path – the path to gratitude for full-time work again. It couldn’t be a nicer arrangement with more rewarding opportunity. I’m pretty excited to start the new gig next week.

I hate to say good things come to those who wait, but waiting can really bring about the right thing, at the right time.

I do have to say, I’m really thankful for the season leading up to this, which I was so sure was empty and purposeless. (Yeah, I know – oh ye of little faith. Don’t tell me you haven’t been there, too.)

But God planned this time for teaching me some of the most important lessons of my life. Here are a few:

  • “Stuff” doesn’t matter. People matter.
  • We can get by on much less than we think. Anything besides the basics are wants, not needs. We confuse them a lot.
  • Learning can happen in any environment. We just have to want it.
  • Family is everything.
  • Kindness: Friends, we’re going to have to try a lot harder at being kind to one another. This world and all its challenges and distractions fool us into believing we’re that different from one another to be able to love each other — when in reality, we’re so much alike. Let’s focus on that.
  • Oh. It’s not about me.

Corners

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house-appartement-corner-pmg

Corners are meant for one thing – for getting around to another side. They’re made for turning.

I’ve encountered lots of corners lately, and I’ve been trying to make sense of them the last few weeks.Here are a few of them and what I’ve learned.

  • Cooking: On a limited budget, you get better at a lot of DIY things. My experience making meals from food we grow has been so great. I’m so glad we know what it’s like to know the benefits of fresh, garden-to-table food. Even for meals that don’t come from the garden, I’ve found cooking to be incredibly relaxing.
  • Sewing/Making: Something I never thought I’d take on, especially since I’m building on skills I first gained in, oh, 7th grade. Time to quilt is getting slimmer, but I am promising myself that I’ll make it work. I plan to keep that promise.
  • Writing/Blogging: One of my best experiences in recent years. For all the hiccups that can cause someone to come to a full stop when blogging, my activity has slowed a lot lately (more about why in a minute), but I have no intention of stopping. I just hope Poor Mexican Gone will keep being about learning, discovery and connecting dots.
  • Employment : You may know I’ve been freelancing for the better part of the last handful of years – something that followed me more than I pursued it. Still, I took it as a smile from God during a season of intense questioning of my identity.

Which leads me to this: I start a new job at the end of the month. As good as freelancing has been for my freedom, healing and, heck, my tennis game, I’ve truly missed the social interaction that comes with being part of a team. So I’m joining one.

It’s not just one corner that led me to this. It’s more like a long series of four corners. You might even call it a full circle.

After a busy freelance season this summer that included shotgun international travel, it’s time to settle into a job offered to me on that trip. I couldn’t be more pleased, humbled and grateful.

I fully expect to pivot around a few more corners in my lifetime, but for now, this one is a great turn at a great time and, I hope, with the potential for great impact in the lives of others.

Taming squirrels

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Parque Zoológico Santa Fe - Medellín - Colombia - Suramerica

Photo by memoossa

Feels like so long since I’ve blogged.

The silence has been less for lack of something to say than for lack of ability to focus on something to say (hence the squirrel). Lots of transition swirling about, and I’m having to be much more intentional about how I process and manage a few moving targets. Basically, I’m having to become my own project manager.

It’s times like these that I feel less intuitive about what to do next, so I basically need a roadmap of my life – not just to-do lists – to get me to the next step and beyond.

I’m toying with tools old and new to keep things straight:

For a right-brainer like me, living strictly by lists can take the joy out of things. So using tools I love helps me get things done, even as they pile up. And as long as there’s margin for the creative, it’s all good.

Here’s to planning for crazy.

Real dreams never die

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leap-of-faith

So there’s this thing. I’ve had it for quite sometime.

It’s a dream that I – we – started as an experiment. A product to see if there was a market for it. A business started out of a felt need.

Question was, did anyone else feel the need like we did?

No market research existed for our target market. Heck, even today there is great debate over market findings.

But we did it. We dove into the “experiment,” knowing we could be throwing money in a black hole, likely with no return.

We were wrong.

We did break even. It took three or four years, but it happened. Our experiment had worked, better than we could have imagined.

So why didn’t we keep going? Right about then, one of us ran out of time, the other out of money. We kind of got stuck. For an experiment, though, it wasn’t bad.

Still, it was hard to shutter the business. Looking back, we were going against the grain – way against the grain. Market awareness wasn’t yet there. We couldn’t get shelf space where we needed it. Besides, there were no distribution channels – yet.

Now, nearly 20 years later, all that has changed. Funny thing is, the market is still there. In fact, it’s bigger – much bigger. Could the demand still follow?

I think it’s time to see if there’s still life in that dream. I’ve been exploring how to revive it, and I think it can be done.

We’ll have to wedge it back in via the margins – the way most small businesses start. And we may have to bootstrap it – again.

It was successful before in a less promising environment. It could be successful now, right?

There’s only one way to find out.

Coming out: The Maverick Leader

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Embed from Getty Images

Not that anyone needs another assessment. But if you know me, you know I am quite fond of them.

I’ve taken a bunch of assessments over the years, but the ones that stick with me are Myers Briggs and StrengthsFinder, which show how you respond to or interact with the world.

But one that, until last year was unknown to me, the Fascination Report, tells how others perceive and respond to you — how you uniquely fascinate them. I got my report while job-hunting, a season that challenged my sense of self, in hopes of getting a good idea of how I come across to others.

The results of my report: I’m a Maverick Leader. (Kind of feels like I should go out panning for gold and stake my land claim.)

In most ways, it nailed me. Unconventional thinker, pioneering, irreverent, entrepreneurial. While I ideate in non-linear ways, I then use a linear approach to implement my ideas.

By the way, it’s not lost on me that assessments – heck, comparison with others – is an all-out American sport, one that can doom us to not ever become what we were designed to be, if we’re not careful.

And granted, assessments like Myers Briggs, StrengthsFinder and others are not always spot on. Worse, they can be used as weapons in the workplace. On the upside, however, they are helpful in identifying our strengths and weaknesses – enough to inform where and how we do our best work, what arrangements make us happiest, etc. That’s what I look for, anyway.

Does it run in the genes?
So I was reading up again on my family, namely my dad’s father, the career grocer and occasional bootlegger.

One aunt tells me he had a little bit of a wild streak in him, shutting down his and my grandmother’s businesses so they could move north to work in the fields.

Picking up and moving like that was typically a necessity for most Mexican families in the U.S. during 1930s and 1940s, not an option. But he needed to get out and see other places,and this was his way to wander — with the entire family, 13 kids in tow.

I’ve always wondered where I get my nonconformist gene. Maybe I’m onto something by looking at my family’s history. Maybe I’ve found it.

Is this where I get a mulligan?

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Golf ball on green

Photo by Andy Steele at sxc.hu

I’m not a golfer, but I do love to borrow one of its best words, “mulligan.” It’s golfian for “do over.”

Today was one of those days when nothing on my to-do list got done – and it wasn’t even a hard to-do list.

  • My nearly finished quilt project went a wee bit sideways (although it’s fixable);
  • My family research resources exploded (a good thing, actually; a different post about a whole new list of to-dos);
  • My next project is about to come in; and
  • It was 80°F today.

Needless to say:

  • The to-do list has a very small dent in it.
  • I figured out a fix to my quilt problem but it didn’t make sense to move the sewing machine outside, so it didn’t get done.

It’ll be 30 degrees colder tomorrow. Do over!

Hunting for story

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I’m on a mission.

I have a very special friend, Kris, who is lovely and complicated and talented – all in the best possible ways. We met at work over 10 years ago and still share similar – not identical by any means – but similar interests and passions.

One is a love of things creative. I’m definitely more of an observer and Kris is more of a Maker – in the truest sense. Some people sew (I try), knit or crochet.

Well, she does all of the above (and way more), often using her own exotic fibers and textiles and tools she procures from all over the world. It’s not the exotic that makes her talented. It’s what she does with her God-given abilities, powered by the tools, that is so spectacular. And she is so open to sharing and teaching. (Check out this great project she’s involved with that is empowering women in Uganda to generate their own income and support their families.)

unyunga-journals

Just a few of my friend Kris’s handmade journal gifts. I usually have at least one journal with me, wherever I go. If the occasion is special enough, I use one of hers.

A few of my favorite things

While I don’t know what the heck she is talking about half the time, I simply LOVE hearing her dream about and brainstorm her projects. It certainly doesn’t hurt that she shares – pretty liberally, I might add – her incredible handiwork. Kris has gifted me with some of my favorite writing instruments, beautiful handmade scarves and so many gorgeous journals, I can hardly count them.

Lord knows, as a paper-and-pulp lover, I hate to violate these pieces of artwork, but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do. Like many I know, I love to write by hand, but it is getting harder and harder to write as fast as I’m thinking these days. Such is the plight of a straddling generation – one foot in the analog, the other, digital.

Had paper, did travel

Anyway, Kris, who did much of her growing up in West Africa, challenged me sometime ago to blog about my own international experience and travels.

Thing is, many of those memories are locked up in my travel journals…somewhere. I’m getting warmer in my search, but so far, those little pocket-sized Moleskines are eluding me.

To be honest, I’m kind of nervous about finding and unbundling them and rediscovering what I first learned on my first trip to Haiti in 2003 and one of my last trips to Dominican Republic. So I pray again for courage as that wall of memory comes down.

I guess que será será.

When the fog clears, you can see forever

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golden-gate-bridge-fog

I miss our frequent visits to the Bay Area for conferences. I seriously could stare at this view. All. Day. Long. (Image: Axel Anta)

Or at least, what lies just ahead.

Work (or anything, really) can be like a fog, occupying our minds and keeping our lives busy, too full to accommodate one more idea or commitment. Certainly no room for dreaming.

After months on a fairly sizable freelance project, I’m taking off for a few weeks.

On this first day off, there was no pile of work to plow through. No emails to answer or meetings to attend.

Free to think, breathe and generally just chill, I found clarity like I hadn’t had in sometime. Oh, the peace. 

Jeremiah 29:11

Mind mapping your way to clarity

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Welcome to my #Day6 post for the #YourTurnChallenge.

You’ve got a Big Idea. Maybe it’s for a new business or product. Perhaps a response to a disaster half a world away. Or, it could be an update to your resume.

Whatever it is, you’ve got to figure out how to get it out of your head and into some kind of document. It needs to make sense.

Who knows? You may need to show it to someone at some point, either for approval to get the budget for it, or a recruiter if you’re job hunting. Eventually, it’ll need to make sense to someone else.

Only, how do you get started? Where do you start? Sometimes there’s a clear beginning, but in most cases, there isn’t. It’s just an idea that needs clarity.

How I get clarity on a new idea – fast
When I have a complex idea I need to make sense of, I start with a mind map. It’s like white boarding but on your computer. Or slapping up a whole mess of Post-Its on a wall, only for them to get unsettled and lose their sticky identity.

Unlike most white boards and Post-It-based brainstorming, a mind map is easy to share, edit and collaborate on over and over again, even as the Big Idea matures and evolves.

what-mind-mapping-looks-like

This map was a brainstorm after a job layoff. I wasn’t quite at the point of taking a “skills inventory” yet, but I did know a few things I wanted in my life going forward.

How to get started mind mapping
I can’t live without mind mapping when I have a new idea, something to build or organize. It’s where I dump all related information, in no particular order. Just slap it up there, like this.

Let’s say you have a new product to brainstorm:

  • How did you come up with the idea – what’s the rationale for it?
  • What problem does it solve?
  • What does the competitive landscape look like?
  • What do its users look like? How do they interact with media?
  • What might its go-to-market strategy look like?
  • Etc.

You get the gist. The ideas are related, but their relationships may not be simple or linear.

Still, you might not know that until you lay them out next to each other, fleshing them out more fully. In fact, only once you’ve done that are you likely to see new relationships you may not have considered before.

Turning ideas ’round and ’round
One of the best parts of mind-mapping is turning your idea on its side, its back or completely turning it upside down. It forces you to look at in different ways. Most mind mapping tools let you move around the chunks of text, regroup them, whatever.

When you do this, I believe chances go way up that an even better idea will come out of this experience, because the rearrangement of your thoughts only challenges your initial thinking. It’s worth the time to play with your information and see what it looks like when you move it around.

By the way, I’ve had more than a few “aha” moments this way. But one thing you really learn: How much work or resources your Big Idea requires.

For example, one content development project I worked on required mapping out web pages and related copy needs for the project. Once we mapped it out, it was clear the job was bigger than I’d thought. Good to know ahead of time, right?

For the product launch example above, it might be the timing is such that certain key questions can’t be answered yet. Maybe the product isn’t ready for development under current conditions.

Mind mapping tools for budgets big, small or none at all
There are a bunch of tools out there – many of which I’ve tried at one point or another – that will help you document your Big Idea and put all its parts and pieces in order. Or reorder.

That’s the beauty of mind mapping – how much you want it to stretch your thinking is entirely up to you.

Here are some fairly current lists of mind-mapping tools – one general, the other with a design focus. I hope they help you find clarity as you pursue your own big ideas.