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Refame: Those who know better than to do every day, teach
Everyone has heard that snarky line “those who can’t, teach.” The updated version is said with even more venom: “those who can’t, coach.”
I have no use for the throwaway cruelty that lies at the heart of both phrases. Such statements either come from self-loathing or the petty judgement of those standing outside the arena. “Not good enough” never serves anyone and never gets anything done.
And think about it for a moment - this whole idea has a flip side: “those who can, must.”
Whether you’re teaching or doing, “can’t” and “must” are limiting and damaging
My 2016 project, #365StrongStories, has taught me a great deal about what it means to do something every day just because you can. It very quickly becomes a dangerous "should."
I’m a born writer. It’s what I do for work and for fun. But when writing becomes a massive obligation - I must because I can, I must because I committed, I must because I am not good enough if I don't… Then you run the risk of making every word a punishing, impossible chore.
In the process of all this doing, all this daily writing, I remembered why I took up teaching and coaching storytellers and writers. It wasn’t because I couldn’t do the writing myself but because it doesn’t make sense for me to do that full time. My creative resources won’t stretch that far. And I do not think they are supposed to.
Remember the value in teaching and coaching others
When Melvin Varghese of Selling the Couch interviewed me, I had a chance to share my insights into why storytelling is important to clinicians in private practice and how to use it to connect to clients. I also talk about making a sane, compassionate commitment to your writing practice.
As I listened back on our conversation, I was struck by the value that lies not just in doing but in supporting the process of those who are trying to find their own way. Humbly and gratefully, I fell just a little bit more in love with the work I get to do.
Save your resources for the stories that matter. Support your creative process by guiding others. When all else fails, support your creative process by pulling out the earbuds and going for a walk as you listen to someone else discuss her craft.
How to mistreat your creativity & drain your well of inspiration
Have you ever heard about the frogs placed in a pot of water? If the temperature rises slowly enough, it’s said they don’t noticed they’re being boiled into an early froggy grave.
It’s not a pretty experiment. Apparently the 19th century German researchers who did this - they were on a quest to locate the soul - didn’t think much of our amphibious friends' ability to feel pain.
And it’s not a particularly flattering metaphor either. It has been applied to humans who don’t take action in the face of all sorts of worsening circumstances from the Cold War to climate change to civil rights abuses.
I have no desire to equate myself with our friends from the swamp, so let’s prettify and domesticate the image, shall we?
If you slowly drain the creative waters out of a bathtub and just keep turning up the heat in the steamy room, it seems that a writer won’t notice she’s no longer bathing in inspiration.
When I began #365StrongStories, I made a declaration: I would walk my talk and demonstrate that it’s possible to consistently turn little moments of life and brief flashes of inspiration into stories. Ruthlessly, I named the project, pointed to the calendar, and embarked upon my mission.
I certainly do not have the temperament to be a scientist, but I realize I would have been better served to call this an “experiment” and talking about my "hypothesis" instead. That way, skipping a day or two of writing and publishing wouldn't have felt like a failure. A day of silence would have been a data point on the living graph that tracks the ebb and flow of creative energy, time to devote to the page, and the patience it takes to select just the right font and image.
When the creative waters dry up
I didn’t plan to take a long weekend away from my stories. We weren’t occupied by a special occasion or some family trauma. The creative tub had simply run dry. Ordinarily, I would have put off sleep or couch time with my husband to pull something together for the blog. Over the last few days, however, I just poured a glass of wine and said “let’s watch one more Outlander. ”
I couldn't even muster the energy to feel guilty or fret over the promises I had made to my audience.
Three days away from writing and generally refusing to show up gave me the space to notice how emptied out I am. I’ve let my most vital resources - my creativity and my inspiration - dry up in the name of some personal mission that was conceived with all too little self-compassion.
What happens after "failure"?
The stories will continue to flow when there’s enough in my reserves to share.
At this point, I am using what creative juices I have left to look at “365” in a new way. I promised a year of stories. Well, who said they all have to appear in 2016?
Today is the 137th day of the year and I believe this is the 132nd story I have written or curated since January 1. That realization alone and seeing how much I have created and held? That begins to fill the cisterns immediately.
This experience is teaching me to become a student of compassionate creative limits. Let’s learn from one another! Please let me know how you manage to keep the tub of inspiration filled and how you might have let your resources run dry.
The Martyrville Messenger by Guest Storyteller Lois Kelly
emnk@aol.com was listed on the top of “People You May Know” in my LinkedIn update this morning. Just the email address, no photo. I clicked the "invite" button, went for walk, and checked back after eating breakfast. emnk@aol.com was still at the top of the list and hadn’t accepted my invitation to connect.
I ran across the kitchen to grab my phone to take a screenshot of the LinkedIn reminder. My sisters wouldn’t believe this. When I got back to my laptop, emnk@aol.com was gone.
I searched the email on LinkedIn. No record of any such person. I typed in the name of the person but she has no LinkedIn profile.
emnk@aol.com was my mother’s email. She died seven years ago this month.
“Do you think she was sending me a message?” I texted my sisters.
“Of course,” they each replied. One sister is about to become a grandmother any moment, another has breast cancer, and the third is kind of psychic and appreciates a random message like this.
But they don’t know the real reason my mother dropped in this morning.
I’ve been hanging around Martyrville too much, which is everything that Jimmy Buffet’s Margaritaville is not. Martyrville poisons you with self-pity and loneliness and sucks optimism and resiliency out of you. Worse of all, it robs you of your innate power to choose to see the good in life.
Summer vacation plans triggered my detour into this lousy little town. As couples extol their upcoming trips and ask us about ours, I say we’ll be enjoying our backyard. My husband has an incurable degenerative disease and can no longer go out to dinner, never mind on a trip. I hate these vacation conversations. (Oh-oh, cue the violins. The mayor of Martyrville is ready to play the self-pity theme song. )
This morning, emnk@aol.com was telling me to snap out of it. Life dishes out uncertainty, loss, and pain. It also gives us wondrous surprises if we remain open to possibilities -- and stay the hell out of Martyrville.
I will continue to obey my wise and loving mother and check my social media accounts for new signs. You never know...
Lois Kelly is the author of Rebels at Work, Naked Hearted, and Beyond Buzz. Learn more about Lois's work at www.foghound.com
Sometimes, you'd prefer a soapbox in the town square
An ideal client becomes a match made in entrepreneurial heaven when she meets a tech mishap with "well, it is Mercury Retrograde..."
If you're not familiar with that concept, you and I can still be great friends, of course. And if you're wondering, Mercury Retrograde happens three or four times a year. The planet seems to move backwards for about three and a half weeks. During that time, things here on earth seem to go a bit haywire. Communications are garbled. Travel is difficult. Technology refuses to cooperate.
Standard astrological advice has it that you should avoid signing contracts and launching new endeavors. And every stargazer since the dawn of time recommends that you absolutely, never ever ever offer any webinars.
Today's Story Triangle webinar was a tech dis-AAAAA-ster. (But that's ok.)
I can't guarantee that 20 minutes of tech hiccups at the start of today's webinar will teach me to heed the ancients and stick to contemplatively "taking stock" during Retrograde. Nope, I'll just mutter about why everything seems so hard and retroactively check the calendar over at MysticMamma like I always have.
No, what I learned was that when you consistently deliver value to the people who need it, they trust you. And they'll stick with you when you frantically enter in the chat box "please bear with us, we're working on it!"
I am deeply grateful to the members of my community who reminded me to breathe and stuck around and told me "Thank you Marisa!
But I do fantasize about that soapbox
Once upon a time, when you had something to say, the only technology you needed was a loud voice. If you wanted to get all fancy, you borrowed a soap box so the crowd could see and it could become a "multimedia" presentation.
But, since you probably aren't going to be able to make it to Main Street in New Paltz, NY for the next Story Triangle session, I guess I'll stick to the internet.
I checked the calendar, and Mercury Retrograde ends on May 22. Let's do this thing again (perhaps with a more reliable webinar platform). Join me on May 24, will you?
The best writing advice you'll ever want to ignore
“Close the door. Write with no one looking over your shoulder. Don't try to figure out what other people want to hear from you; figure out what you have to say. It's the one and only thing you have to offer.” - Barbara Kingsolver
This is some of my favorite writing advice. Some of the time.
Kingsolver is right. Writing for the marketplace and trying to please the masses every time you tell a story sets you on the path toward mediocrity and misery. There's no guarantee that anything will sell or that anyone will care. If you don't at least write for yourself, you're writing for no one at all.
And yet... Kingsolver is not talking to bloggers, to those of us who are writing to build a business and connect with the people whose lives will be changed by the programs you offer and the services you provide.
For us, there must be a time for diving deep and figuring out the message. You need time to look within in find the Sovereign Story that you must share with your community.
But then, it's necessary to open the doors and the windows and the browser and the Facebook feed. You need to look to what people are worried about and longing for and use your writing to connect your personal stories with the stories they need to hear.
I've created a class called the Story Triangle that gives you insight into how to honor your audience, your story, and yourself when you sit down to create online content. It will change the way you look at blogging and connecting to your clients.