Truth Or Dare

January 13, 2013 by Leda Karabela - Leave your comment

 

I was not familiar with the work of Neil Gaiman.

Wildly interesting hues of creative fire shooting in all directions – that’s how I’d describe his work. His commencement speech teases the free artist in all of us – kids, executives, entrepreneurs or kings. How does it matter how you label yourself – as long as you simply do whatever it is you are supposed to be doing / want to be doing.

(If you want to skip the video, just read his 10 “commandments” below).

Truth or Dare. Really…

  1. Accept that you don’t always know what you’re doing. And don’t listen to anyone who says there are rules and limits.
  2. If you know your calling, go there. Stay on track. Keep moving towards it, even if the process takes time and requires sacrifice.
  3. Learn to accept failure. Know that things will go wrong. Then, when things go right, you’ll probably feel like a fraud. It’s normal.
  4. Make mistakes, glorious and fantastic ones. It means that you’re out there doing and trying things.
  5. When life gets hard, as it inevitably will, make good art. Just make good art.
  6. Make your own art, meaning the art that reflects your individuality and personal vision.
  7. Now a practical tip. You get freelance work if your work is good, if you’re easy to get along with, and if you’re on deadline. Actually you don’t need all three. Just two.
  8. Enjoy the ride, don’t fret the whole way. Stephen King gave that piece of advice to Neil years ago.
  9.  If you have problems getting started, pretend you’re someone who is wise, who can get things done. It will help you along.
  10. Leave the world more interesting than it was before.
PS: I first discovered Gailman through Open Culture. It’s a fabulous portal. Highly recommend it.

 

Anti-Fragile 2013

January 3, 2013 by Leda Karabela - Leave your comment

“…Just as human bones get stronger when subjected to stress and tension, and rumors or riots intensify when someone tries to repress them, many things in life benefit from stress, disorder, volatility, and turmoil…” Nicholas Taleb, Antifragile

As I am reading this, I can’t help wonder. When? When will all this stress and tension finally pay off and I will get to star in my own “Phoenix Rising?”

2012 has been a hell of a year. This was the year that changed my life and the lives of my family. Fragility of life, the “moment” the serendipity of blows unforeseen and irreversible, unwanted and unavoidable change, pain, fatigue and the occasional, unavoidable despair about the uncertainty of the status quo.

I acknowledge all that. I know that the depth of this emotional turmoil is going to end up making me stronger, resistant, less vulnerable and in the end, as Taleb admonishes “antifragile.” It’s damn hard while the fog has not yet lifted and the clarity of the picture of life is still unclear. Yet, I know that all of us have this “protean” gene. As I wrote in an older post “…People change when the pain of the status quo becomes greater than the fear of making the change…”

And while good intentions don’t often survive a head crush with reality, moving beyond the intention sounds like a New Year Resolution – and how many of those have you checked off during your personal year-end inventory? Regardless of inventories, check lists and promises why not stick to the lessons learned instead, the trust earned, the moments that mattered, the connections that worked. We all  have the stuff that anchor us to the ground under our two feet. My recipe is going back to those, bowing and paying tribute to the people who support me through time, hardship and pain.

So, here is to all of you, my invaluable friends – may 2013 pay off in kindness, contentment and less hesitation.

Only If

December 26, 2012 by Leda Karabela - Leave your comment
I don’t think of my father often.Yet, I grew up hearing him rehearse Kipling’s “If” as the greatest life mantra. And even though I was a fragile four year old girl playing with my Barbie dolls at the time – and not the son the poet is addressing – the poem stuck and till today represents not only my dreamer father but a stance for stoicism and resistance to adversity.

Freudian and feminist commentary aside – I always wondered why he chose this particular poem – its emotional effect still reminds me of my first childhood life lessons. No, it did not matter I was not the son; it was the same being a daughter. Is it a great poem and would Gloria Steinem think it the right one to teach to a four year old girl? And better yet, would I teach it to my own daughter today?

T. S. Eliot insisted it was not, describing it instead as ‘great verse’ and Orwell called it a ‘good bad’ poem when he was describing Kipling as a prophet of British imperialism. Are such old-fashioned virtues of tenacity, grit, courage and purpose as articulated in If still relevant?

Sometimes it’s OK to forget modernity and simply go back inside the seemingly simplistic, primordial and slightly out-of-date. The lessons learned go beyond the historic – occasionally at a deeper core.

So, here’s to you, dad, wherever you are…Your granddaughter is listening.

If …

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream – and not make dreams your master;
If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build ‘em up with worn out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings – nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run –
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And – which is more – you’ll be a Man my son!

Who Cares?

December 1, 2012 by Leda Karabela - Leave your comment

Do you care?

If yes, how much?

If not, why not?

And, what are you going to do about it?

In the end, that’s what it comes down to.

The interesting part is finding those who care about similar things, values, ideas, causes. You start with those – and then, maybe if you care enough to try to shift others, you go on the expedition to try influencing those who don’t care.

Heroes, rebels, misfits, contrarian innovators and all those who are bold enough to try and fight trying (or often try fighting) are the ones with the fire in the belly – who care enough to change the status quo. And where would the world be without them?

“The epic battle of our generation is between the status quo of mass and the never ceasing tide of weird,” wrote Seth Godin in We Are All Weird.

So, here’s to all of those who care enough to do something about it.  Do you?

PS: Lists of some of those who changed the world are as diverse as human opinions. What matters is the difference we all make in other people’s lives and in extension in our own. Our actions speak so much louder than our words –  some care and others simply don’t.

Innovation Chief of Clowns

November 9, 2012 by Leda Karabela - Leave your comment

Innovation is a “seriously serious” and deliberate matter. Tons has been written, discussed, and debated on how to excite, tickle and grow that thirst for inside out creative and different kind of thinking.

But while Fast Company’s Innovation Uncensored event is taking place in San Francisco, the provocative, the unexpected and the meaningful are dancing a crazy dance with our imaginarium playpen.

So, how do you create innovation?

Daniel Lamarre, the president of Cirque du Soleil, once had someone hire a full-time clown to make sure he wasn’t getting too serious. “I’m the chief of clowns,” he said. “And I’m so happy.” And, come on now: Cirque du Soleil is the mother of all creative forces.

Here are some ways Lamarre tantalizes innovation: “You have to create an environment where people are stimulated. Sometimes in an organization, we try to be nice to each other, and there’s a lot of politics. We don’t like that. We like to create debates. It doesn’t matter if the idea comes from you or me, as long as the best idea prevails.”

Easier said than done? Think needs and wants. What you need is so much different than what you want. As Gallup Chairman Jim Clifton in his book, The Coming Jobs War says,  everybody’s been talking about Steve Jobs. But Steve Jobs wasn’t meeting needs; his company never met a need. Steve Jobs and his company created a need. Nobody knew they needed an iPhone. The same thing was true with the transistor and flight and Henry Ford’s mass production of cars. And looking back from the vantage point of today’s reality, all of these guys must have sounded like fools while sticking it out, acting like clowns while their ideas lit up the fire.

In the field of emotional economy or behavioral economics, it is acknowledged that human beings are not entirely rational. Best estimates are that approximately 70 percent of economic decision making is emotional, and 30 percent is rational. And what better way to go back to the circus, laugh and play with your inner clown and let the power of your ideas take over?..

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