How many crayons do you need to make a masterpiece?

If you are judging by how many they give you with the kid’s menu at a restaurant, apparently the answer is often…two.

Back in the day, a box of 64 Crayola crayons — complete with a sharpener in the back — was as valuable as anything on earth. It contained every color known to mankind (who even knew there was such a color as periwinkle?!), including silver and gold, which I’m convinced was made with real bits of the precious metals.

A box of 64 crayons turned anyone into an artist. Everything was possible; there was nothing you couldn’t draw.

Even though we are no longer turning out drawings to be hung on the fridge, we still assume the role of artist, so to speak. We are now tasked with creating better communities, businesses, and teams. And we often yearn for a bigger budget, less red tape, or more cooperation from colleagues, upper management, and politicians. We could use more training, more structure, more resources.

How we long for the unlimited possibilities that box of 64 crayons represented! If only I had brick red! Can you imagine what I’d do with periwinkle? We could make a real difference with silver and gold in our crayon box!

You may want the big box of 64 crayons, but there is never a time when you’ll have everything you wish you had. Most of the time, it feels like you’re a few crayons short of filling the humble box of 8.

Short of the resources that would make your work significantly easier or more effective, it’s easy to feel paralyzed and tempted to throw your hands up in resignation.

But here’s an important truth to keep in mind. The best painters in the world can create a masterpiece with only four colors: red, yellow, blue, and white. 

Almost any color can be created with these humble hues.

Even though art supply stores feature walls of paint tubes in a dizzying array of colors, the master teachers implore their students to proactively limit their palette to a handful of colors to ensure a harmonious, pleasing result.

True creativity thrives when constrained by limitations. During the Renaissance period, blue was a very expensive pigment. But when you are using a lot of warm earth tones, as those painters did, a neutral made from black and white can take on a blue tone by comparison.

Having access to all the colors does not make one an artist. It’s about knowing how to use the ones you have.

Whether you are an educator, a healthcare professional, an entrepreneur, or a parent trying to raise great kids, I understand that you wish you had more time, more resources, and more freedom to do the important work that needs to be done.

Unfortunately, that may never be the case. It rarely is in the real world.

But that’s ok.

You are simply called to do the best you can with what you have.

Don’t let your limitations hold you back, dear artist.

You may not have the box of 64 crayons, but you have everything you need to make a masterpiece.

Imagine sitting at your kitchen table with a thousand puzzle pieces scattered before you.

A small island of interconnected pieces has taken shape. They were easy—the only face in the whole scene. You reach for a piece that looks like it could be part of the person’s hair. After rotating it and testing the fit a few times, you confirm it’s not the right one.

Then, angered that it didn’t work, you toss the entire table over in a furious rage. With pieces flying in every direction, you swear off jigsaw puzzles forever, convince yourself you stink at them, and remind yourself that you always knew this was how it would go. Then you slide into depression and inhale an entire can of Pringles, beating yourself up for not choosing the right piece.

Woah, you’re probably thinking, That’s not me, but whoever it is sounds like they have some serious anger management issues.

I know, it’s silly to think about getting so worked up over a simple jigsaw puzzle. Most people don’t descend into a shame spiral and immediately quit if one piece doesn’t fit. Most people just put it down and look for another one to try.

But what if the endeavor felt a little more…important?

In real life, how often do we beat ourselves up for making a wrong move? How often do we quit after the first setback? How often do we even hesitate to begin something new because we’re convinced it is beyond our capabilities, worried the journey is too arduous, or that we’ll look foolish to others if we struggle?

Maybe you’re engaged with a different kind of puzzle right now…

• Perhaps you’re trying to get a business idea off the ground
• Helping a child deal with a newly diagnosed health issue.
• Struggling to keep morale up amongst your team.
• Or maybe you’re adjusting to an overwhelmingly different work routine or environment.

Like a sea of puzzle pieces laid across your kitchen table, it probably feels pretty overwhelming. But what if you reframed your current challenge to be more like the approach you’d take in putting it together?

You know in advance what the end picture (aka “success”) is supposed to look like. 

You know that every piece you pick up isn’t going to fit perfectly the first time.

You’re not sure how long it will take, but you know that if you keep trying pieces that look like they could work, you’ll eventually complete the puzzle.

And, most importantly, you know that you are not an idiot or a terrible person simply because one thing you tried didn’t work. Especially if it’s a puzzle you’ve never encountered before.

Sure, the stakes for your challenge are higher than those surrounding the assembly of a silly jigsaw puzzle.

However.

The strategies for solving it are exactly the same.

Anger and anxiety are not going to help one bit.

That’s why I always praise the benefits of tinkering.

Tinkering—and its delightfully playful connotation—helps lower the anxiety level so we can think more clearly. It reframes our mistakes so they are not so devastating, preventing anger and shame from getting a foothold.

Tinkering is a great tool that’s a lot like putting together a jigsaw puzzle.

You try a piece that looks like it might fit. If it doesn’t, you simply look for and try another one, and another one, until you find the one that does. Then you keep going, celebrating the little wins along the way. (There’s something gratifying about the feeling when a piece clicks into place, isn’t there?)

Oh, and you don’t toss the table in a fit of rage when something doesn’t work.

So, you know that dilemma you’re mired in right now? The one that’s got you filled with frustration and self-doubt?

Yes, it’s more important than a simple jigsaw puzzle.

But treating it more like one might be the missing piece you need to solve it.

🤔 I wonder…what current challenge in your life might benefit from being looked at more like a jigsaw puzzle?

I recently did a presentation on innovation. In preparation, I asked attendees to rate themselves on a scale of 1 to 10 on how creative or innovative they considered themselves. Then, for those who didn’t rate themselves a 10 (there was only one who did), I asked them what obstacle was in their way.

A number of people judged themselves to be too practical or admitted to getting hung up analyzing the practicality of an idea.

Ah, practicality: The enemy of awesome ideas.

Many a brainstorming session has come to a screeching halt when someone suggests an idea deemed “impractical.” Progress dies as a debate emerges around whether or not an idea is practical, logical, feasible, sensible, or affordable. No more ideas are generated and everyone leaves the meeting thinking it was a giant waste of time.

Meanwhile, Adultitis takes a victory lap.

Because practical, logical, feasible, sensible, and affordable are five of Adultitis’ favorite words.

Have you ever met a five-year-old with a big idea concerned with it being practical, logical, feasible, sensible, or affordable?

Imagine a meeting in which the stakeholders of a restaurant were trying to figure out the best way to stand out in a competitive tourist market. It’s a Swedish restaurant, and the meatballs and pancakes are already top-notch. Now imagine someone raising their hand and saying, “I have an idea…why don’t we plant some grass on the roof and throw some goats up there?” 

Crickets. 🦗

Except that’s exactly what Al Johnson’s in Door County, Wisconsin did. It’s quite the sight when you see the bright green roof driving down the street. People regularly gather on the sidewalk to gawk and take pictures of the goats (even though there are probably fenced-in goat paddocks less than a mile away, sans the tourists). It’s one of the top three things people share with others after their Door County vacation. And the place is always packed.

But I’m certain it didn’t come about via a staff-wide brainstorming session on a Monday morning. Because it never would have passed muster as practical, logical, feasible, sensible, or affordable.

The best ideas rarely are…at first.

Why bother building a horseless carriage that runs on gasoline when there is nowhere to drive it and no such thing as gas stations?

What idiot would suggest color as a way to sell more computers, when it has absolutely no impact on more important qualities like speed, power, storage capacity, or price?

Or consider the feedback a Yale University professor gave to Fred Smith on a paper he wrote proposing a reliable overnight delivery service: “The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn better than a ‘C,’ the idea must be feasible.” 

Hmm, there’s one of Adultitis’ favorite words again: Feasible.

Unfeasibly, Fred Smith went on to found Federal Express.

Here’s an interesting point: The professor was right. In order for FedEx to succeed as an actual business, it did have to be feasible. The professor just didn’t have the capacity to see how it could be. Fred did and eventually figured out a way to make it so.

Steve Jobs used color to make the original iMac computers look like fun, candy-coated objects of desire, and their great success turned the tide from Apple as a failing brand to a global behemoth.

Time and time again, success comes to those who embrace counter-intuitive ideas, exploit the blindspots of experts, and break rules that don’t exist. When the crazy idea works, it suddenly looks like a foregone conclusion in hindsight.

I assure you that grass and goats didn’t seem like an obvious move at the time.

And that first horseless carriage, later known as a car, wasn’t anything close to practical, logical, feasible, sensible, or affordable…at first.

These qualities are important, eventually. Practicality and logic are superpowers. But they should not be dictators. Please don’t let them kill your ideas before they’ve had a chance to get off the ground.

And maybe even onto the roof. 🐐

“Inflation is real. And I’m broke.”

This was shared with me by a woman in an organization for which I was preparing to speak. Although many people have struggled to keep up with the rising cost of goods, she wasn’t referring to money.

Over the past few years, some of the most important jobs in our society have grown more emotionally expensive, thanks to the pandemic and other factors. They are harder to do and there are fewer people willing to do them, yet we need them more than ever.

Let’s consider nurses as one example. They are carrying unsustainable patient loads and burning out in the process. If one quits to save herself, what happens to the ones left behind

But is she expected to sacrifice her own health, sanity, and relationships for the sake of everyone else? And exactly how useful is a burned-out, mistake-prone nurse with compassion fatigue?

You could replace “nurse” with “teacher” or “social worker” or “airline pilot” or “police officer,” and on and on…

Inflation is real.

And with emotional costs rising, many people are finding themselves broke.

So what do we do?

Well, it depends.

Self-help gurus promise easy answers because they are easy to sell. Unfortunately, complicated scenarios rarely have simple solutions. Each industry—each individual—has its own unique factors and challenges.

A problem like this requires thoughtfulness and self-awareness. I must fight the temptation to boil it down to a one-size-fits-all answer that saves the day in one fell swoop. Instead, let me share some truths that may shed light on what makes sense for your situation.

Truth #1: Life is hard. And that is normal. 
We are consistently lured into pursuing a life of ease and comfort, conditioned to believe that something’s wrong if we experience anything otherwise. We humans put too much stock in what’s happening right this moment, falsely assuming the good times will always roll or this hard stretch will last forever. This is called recency bias. But it’s always been true that to everything there is a season. It could be that you are in a season of challenge that is extremely difficult, but also temporary. If so, take courage! Persist! Facing down difficulties will make you better, stronger, and believe it or not, happier in the long run.

Truth #2: It’s not your job to save the world.
This is a hard one to swallow, especially if you’re like me and suffer from a bit of a savior complex. First of all, it feels good to help others. And wanting to help as many people as possible provides a sense of purpose, which is also good. Things go sideways if we develop an outsized expectation of the role we’re called to play. Yes, there may be few people who can do what you do as well as you can, but the fact is you could get hit by a bus tomorrow, and believe it or not, the world will find a way to go on. (Why always a bus? Why not a VW Beetle packed with clowns? Or a Door Dash driver on a unicycle? But I digress.) Perhaps you just need to shift your perspective, take yourself a little less seriously, and give yourself permission to do the best you can and the grace to acknowledge it’ll never be enough. Why? Because it’s not your job to save the world.

Truth #3: It’s hard to help people when you’re dead.
Speaking of getting hit by a VW Beetle packed with clowns, bad things happen when you push yourself to the brink. You need time to rest and fill your cup. If you keep your foot on the gas, eventually your body will hit the brakes for you. To restate the obvious, it’s awfully hard to help others when you’re laid up in a hospital bed, or, you know, dead.

Truth #4: It’s not all or nothing.
When we feel overwhelmed and depleted, we commonly default to extremes. Your options are not limited to “quit this job immediately” or “stick with it forever until it kills me.” You could also give it another month, pray, re-evaluate things, and then decide to quit, stay, or…give it another month. You don’t have to resign yourself to your current situation, either. Maybe you can go half time. Maybe you can transfer to a different department. Maybe you just need a little vacation. (Or a long one!) Perhaps your first priority should be to give yourself a little space to identify all your options because there are probably more than you realize.

So…if you find yourself having a hard time keeping up with the rising emotional costs of your particular situation, what should you do?

I don’t know.

But I expect that you might, especially if you felt one or two of these truths ping your soul.

Thank you for caring. Thank you for your hard work. Thank you for making a difference.

I wish you clarity and peace of mind as you discern what’s next.

And the agility to avoid any clown-stuffed vehicles that cross your path.

Sometimes people look at successes I’ve had and say, “Must be nice,” as if they happened by magic.

What they don’t often see is the framework that helped enable that success. Fortunately, it’s a framework anyone can develop.

We often assume that in order to be successful, we need to be great at one thing. That can work—see LeBron James, for example—but that path is extremely difficult and unlikely. The truth is you only need to be pretty good at a handful of ordinary skills.

You just need to build a talent stack.

Scott Adams, the creator of the comic strip Dilbert, popularized this concept which states that you can ensure success by assembling a “stack” of two or more complementary skills and be in the top 25 percent or so in each. Do that and you’ll be unstoppable. 

In his case, he readily admits he’s not the best artist, the most skilled writer, or the savviest business expert. But his unique combination of those skill sets has contributed to his success as a cartoonist.

My own talent stack began with a few crayons. “Artist” was my first and is my longest-lasting identity. I’ve always enjoyed it, and I got praised for it, so I’m sure that made me want to keep doing it.

In high school, I had a chance to take a creative writing class, which I enjoyed exponentially more than my math classes. I kept honing that skill, which eventually became an indispensable part of my talent stack.

In college, I gave a talk as a leader on a retreat and received great reviews. Even though I am naturally shy, I enjoyed the process of crafting stories in spoken form. It was like creative writing but delivered out loud. 

To the surprise of me, my parents, and the high school speech teacher who gave me a “C,” public speaking emerged as the primary driver of our business. I went from giving cartooning workshops in schools to speaking at churches to keynoting conferences for associations and corporations all over the place. 

Now it took me a few years to realize that these three talents—art, writing, and speaking—were not separate skills that operated independently, but part of a talent stack, that when used in harmony became even more powerful. I am not the best artist in the world, or the best writer or speaker. But I’m pretty good at all three, and that combination has been the secret sauce of my success. Once I was introduced to talent stacking, I eagerly looked for complementary skills to add. By devouring hundreds of marketing books and through the school of trial and error, I’ve achieved the equivalent of an MBA in marketing. Am I the best marketer in the world? No, but I easily fall into the top 25 percent.

Kim and I went on several organized retreats in college. That background gave us a foundation to build on when we started hosting our own events. After putting on numerous meetups, workshops, book tours, fundraising galas, and Escape Adulthood Summits over the past two decades, we’ve gotten pretty good at managing logistics and creating experiences that move people.

Most recently, we used the pandemic as an opportunity to get good at livestreaming, which added a whole new dimension to our business.

Drip by drip, these new skills made the other skills even more valuable and ushered in greater success.

Of course, your talent stack will look different from mine, but the premise is the same. Start with natural strengths and abilities and work to make them better. Think about how they can work together in unexpected ways, even if they seem unrelated. 

Everyone in your industry probably competes on many of the same skills. What do you have that’s different? Oftentimes the magic lies in a skill or interest that seems to come out of left field. For instance, many professional speakers are also writers. But my artistic gifts and whimsical, childlike perspective allow me to offer something extraordinary.

This isn’t just about what you were born with. Look for other skills you can attain that complement and enrich the others. That might involve a traditional degree or certification, but it can also be done by reading books, listening to podcasts, taking courses online or at your local community college, or practicing, in public, every day, as we did with our pandemic project of livestreaming.

If you’re stuck, here are some evergreen choices that will help:

• Presentation skills
• Technology skills
• Foreign language skills
• Sales or marketing skills
• Writing skills
• Business management skills
• Nunchuck skills

Remember, you don’t have to turn yourself into the foremost expert on any of these skills. Just be in the top 25 percent. Said another way, in a world of around eight billion people, you only need to be among the top two billion. If one hundred thousand people live in your city, you just have to be in the top twenty-five thousand. 

In other words, pretty good is good enough.

Keep in mind that this is a lifelong project. If you’re doing it right—meaning you stay curious and keep growing—your talent stack will continue to evolve and strengthen throughout your career and life. One last word of warning, however…

When you have a decent stack of three to five skills going, you can bank on someone, somewhere observing what you’ve been able to accomplish and saying, “Must be nice.”

How do I eat my cereal?

The regular way.

I pour cereal into a bowl. Then I pour milk over the cereal. Then I eat the cereal, savoring the first bites before said cereal is ruined with sogginess.

My wife does it differently. She pours cereal into a bowl. Then she adds the milk. Then she goes on a two-week vacation. 

Then she eats the cereal.

Somehow, we’ve been married for almost twenty-three years.

I recently learned of yet another way to approach this breakfast staple that might be even weirder. I actually met a person who pours the milk in first, before the cereal. She doesn’t drink the milk at the end (which is obviously the best part), so if she has milk left over, she keeps adding more cereal until the milk is gone. 

There was a lengthy discussion about the reasoning behind this, of which I followed none of, but apparently, it was logically thought through. And get this: there were four other people in the group of about sixty that subscribed to this method.  

I guess the regular way isn’t really the regular way for everyone.

I have been reminded of this as my family has been watching our way through Gordon Ramsay’s Uncharted. In this National Geographic production, the world-class chef travels the world to learn about local cuisine and compete in a cook-off against a renowned culinary expert from the region.

We’ve marveled at some of the weird things he’s sampled. We’ve seen him eat ground-up ants in India, fermented fish in Norway, stinky fruit in Malaysia, giant rodents in Louisiana, and a tarantula as a snack in the Amazon jungle. No doubt these dishes were selected for their outrageousness in the eyes of the intended audience, but the thing is, for the local resident, there was nothing outrageous about the cuisine in question.

It wasn’t weird, it was regular. 

I recall a question I posed years ago to readers of my comic strip. I asked them to share the food that most reminds them of childhood. One woman shared an Indian dish I’d ever heard of, but the way she described it was exactly how I’d describe a bowl of homemade mac & cheese.

Heck, when I was a kid, sleeping over at a friend’s house always offered an education. We lived in the same small town of ten thousand, but seeing the customs, rituals, and different ways other families did things somehow felt exotic.

This is a simple but powerful reminder of the value in our differences. That diversity of ideas, experiences, and perspectives is where the magic is. 

Why? In the grand scheme of things, we’re all on the same team. Best practices are good, but if we want our organizations and communities to be better—and I think we do—we need to strive to find better practices. You could define better however you’d like: healthier, safer, friendlier, more affordable, more profitable, etc. But uncovering better practices requires new ways of seeing and thinking. Ways that are invisible if everyone shares the same regular way of seeing and doing things.

I know, I know, the regular kind is safe. It’s comfortable. And here’s the tricky (and dangerous) part: because it is those things, it also feels right. 

But in most cases, we’re not talking about morality. The truth is, it’s merely different.

And if you want to get someplace different (i.e. better) than you are now, a new perspective can help. If you want a better company, church, or neighborhood, figure out a way to invite more people into the mix whose idea of regular is different than yours. 

Maybe you could start with people who pour the milk in first.

How many Froot Loops can you stack on top of one another before they topple over?

How tall would someone’s tower have to be for you to find yourself impressed?

We often relish the opportunity to declare how many activities we’re balancing. Like a status symbol, our busyness signals our importance. We could pretend the pink ones are work responsibilities, the yellow ones are family and household chores, maybe the orange ones are volunteer commitments, and the green ones are hobbies…All hail the one with the highest stack of Froot Loops! 

I am always in awe of people who seem to be able to operate smoothly amidst a schedule bursting at the seams. My personality type is such that I easily get overwhelmed when I’m trying to stack more than a handful of Froot Loops at a time.

I recently added something new to my morning prayer routine. After looking back on the previous day and reflecting on what went well and what I could have done better, I try to identify the most important thing to accomplish in the day ahead. 

And let me tell you, it’s bloody hard.

I mean, it’s a simple question. And sometimes it’s easy because there’s a specific, obvious task that needs to be completed: Deliver this speech. Finish the manuscript for editing. Paint the ceiling. 

But most days, it’s not so obvious. 

Answering this question goes against my inherent desire to cram my day like a Volkswagon Beetle stuffed with seventy-six circus clowns. When I survey the day before me, I usually see a smorgasbord of Very Important Things, all seemingly equal in significance. If I happen to settle on something like “spend time in the studio,” I have to fight the urge to also write “andfinishthisandworkonthatanddontforgettotakeoutthegarbage.”

I’m not alone, am I?

The science is clear. We get a tiny yet thrilling dopamine hit every time we check something off our almighty to-do list – regardless of how essential the chore actually was – which encourages us to rush headlong into the abyss of productivity.

I have to remind myself that the question “What is today’s most important thing?” is not asking for the ONLY thing I need to do that day. Or asking me to only do ONE good or worthwhile thing all day. 

It’s merely asking me to declare the most important one.

Because, unfortunately, despite my desire to bend reality and make my home in the multiverse, there can only be one most important thing. (See this reflection on how we magically changed the meaning of the word “priority.”)

I have found that oftentimes in this process, my most important thing is to “be open,” because the most important thing hasn’t yet revealed itself at six-thirty in the morning. But that awareness is vital because it makes me more likely to notice it when it comes. 

I encourage you to try this, especially if you’re having a hard time balancing all the Froot Loops. Its power comes in forcing you to pause, nudging you to slow down, reflect, and be intentional.

Why does this matter? 

This matters because when I don’t identify the most important thing for the day, I’m liable to rush off and accomplish a whole hell of a lot of things. Which seems good and feels great. But if the sheer volume of activity crowds out what was actually the most important thing I needed to do, my life slowly veers off track.

It doesn’t matter how many Froot Loops you can balance if you were supposed to be paying attention to the Cheerio.

QUESTION: Is it possible to create a working Volkswagon Beetle out of rice cereal treats and fondant?

I don’t think so, but I wouldn’t be surprised to fire up Netflix one day and see it happen. I am awed by the mind-bending confections people create on those baking competition shows. It’s entertaining television. But watching them make their beautiful creations don’t teach us as much as the ugly stuff we create ourselves.

A few years ago, I led an unusual workshop. Instead of whiteboards, charts, and slides, we rolled out frosting, sprinkles, and sugar cookies. There was only one objective: decorate your cookie to be as ugly as possible, Martha Stewart’s disapproving scowl be damned.

There were about eighty people, each of whom successfully accomplished the objective.

Eighty correct answers, and yet every cookie was different.

In life, as opposed to what we learned in school, there’s often more than one right answer. There are many ways to solve a problem and our unique perspective and talents aid us and flavor our solution.

As I interviewed participants about their creations afterward, one guy said, “I started out making mine, and someone commented that it looked like a spaceship. So I added licorice as exhaust to make it look more like one.”

I asked him, “Were you offended by their suggestion?”

“No, of course not, ” he replied.

Which makes me wonder why we are so defensive when someone suggests a way for us to improve something? Maybe it was the seriousness – or lack thereof  – of the situation? Or the intent of the messenger? Perhaps the shared spirit around the task at hand set the tone for teamwork over competition.

QUESTION: What would happen if we decided to take ALL advice with gracious open-mindedness, regardless of the intent or tone of the messenger?

This related to another thing I witnessed: the power of plussing. People at each table contributed small ideas to up the ugly factor. One guy had the idea of incorporating items from the breakfast spread to add diversity to the available materials. Others followed suit, then added their own tweaks. Each minor “improvement” worked together to achieve a wide array of remarkable results. 

This “yes, and” approach popularized by the art of improvisational comedy engenders a supportive environment for risk-taking, by making the process a shared one. It also makes innovation more accessible by encouraging small, doable experiments that build on one another.

QUESTION: What would our organizations – and families!? – look like if we supported risk-taking rather than stifling it by punishing failure?

As I acknowledged the unusual results brought forth by another group, they shared, “We started out trying to make them ugly, but then they didn’t look so ugly, so we settled on calling them odd.”

I loved their willingness to pivot. We can’t always think or theorize our way to progress. It’s not always possible to know every step before we begin. Sometimes we just have to tinker our way there. 

And sometimes we end up in a much different place on an undertaking than we thought we would when we began. It’s easy to grow frustrated and discouraged as we struggle to force our current circumstances to match our initial vision. But a careful review of the situation might reveal that we’re in a better place than we originally envisioned. 

QUESTION: What if we embraced the potential and beauty of where we are now instead of comparing it to where we thought we’d be instead?

The mission was accomplished that day. Complete culinary ugliness was achieved. The only thing delicious that came from this lighthearted activity was the life-changing questions that emerged. Beautiful questions I offer to you, today. They might take some time to unpack, but I encourage you to do so and guarantee it’s worth the effort.

Which is more than I can say about trying to make an edible automobile out of cereal and sugar.

But then again, don’t underestimate the insight that can be gained in seemingly trivial pursuits.

Going alone is usually faster.
 
But it’s rarely better.

Last week, I talked about my family’s trek up the Lanikai Pillbox Trail and the pep talk I gave them beforehand. I mentioned how I initially took a solo scouting mission to make sure it wouldn’t be more than our littlest ones could handle.

It was faster, but probably too fast. The problem is, I rushed it. I wanted to reach the summit as quickly as possible in order to attain the information I craved. So instead of taking the clear path, I looked for shortcuts. I kept a brisk pace, pushing myself to make record time.

I knew what I wanted, and I wanted it NOW. I made it to the top all right, but ended up sore, winded, and worn out, putting a damper on the rest of my day with the fam. 

In life, as we chase our dreams, it’s tempting to search for shortcuts and move things along before their time. We are leery of get-rich-quick schemes and lose-weight-with-little-effort plans, but that doesn’t prevent us from trying them more often than we should.

In the history of our company, we’ve tried to force a lot of things. The only thing it ever accomplished was to leave us worn out and frustrated. 

Accomplishing anything worthwhile can be incredibly hard. But forcing them to happen more quickly usually only makes the journey harder.

Fortunately, I had the wisdom to grasp that expecting the family hike to go as quickly as my solo effort would only make it miserable for all of us. The hike was doable, but success was not guaranteed. As the only one who had been to the summit, I owned my role as the leader. I made up my mind to be ok with a slower pace. 

There is an African proverb which states, “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far go together.”

The pep talk I gave helped set the tone with the kids, but the real work was getting in the trenches and on their level. I was attentive to my children’s individual needs. I weighed their strengths and weaknesses and carefully considered what each would require in order for us to have a successful round trip. I was mindful of when it was best to implore them to grab my hand versus encouraging them to do it themselves. I was patient, which is not always my default mode. 

It’s easy to forget we are all leaders, whether or not we have an official title. Our families, organizations, and communities will all get to a better place if we take time to think about the needs of others before ourselves.

It starts with patience and humility. It’s easy to say, “Everyone needs to understand where the other side is coming from” even though we really mean, “Everyone needs to understand where I am coming from and agree with me.”

Your community has Republicans and Democrats, people who have been vaccinated and those who haven’t, even – gasp! – people who like marshmallow Peeps and those who think they’re hot garbage. Over the last few decades, we’ve been conditioned by the media and politicians to fear and demonize the other side, to see them as the reason for all our problems, and the primary obstacle holding us back from our idealized version of the world.

That’s an easy route to take, but I hope it’s easy to see how unproductive that has been.

Real life is messier than a melted marshmallow. Human beings are complicated. We are a sticky bundle of hopes and fears, a patchwork of diverse lived experiences.

I think we can all agree we are a long way from where we’d like our country and world to be. But the only way to get to a better place is with real leadership.

Let’s stop waiting for better leaders to show up, because they are already here. 

They are you and they are me. 

Real leadership happens when we take the time to ask questions and have real conversations, not the pretend kind where we’re really just waiting for an opportunity to convince the other person they’re wrong. 

Real leadership is not declaring you know the way and then turning your back, forcing everyone else to keep up.

Real leadership is not scolding people for slowing you down.

The hike with my family took longer than my first trip. Did that make it a failure?

No. It was actually more enjoyable. Not only did I end up way less tired, but we all got to enjoy the view together.

Where is your opportunity to lead today?

Remember, real leaders don’t need a title to do real things that make a real impact.

Real leaders have humility, empathy, and patience.

Most of all, real leaders know if you want to go far, you have to go together. 

Even if it does take a little longer.

I remember the painting critiques back in art school. After spending several weeks working on our masterpieces, we’d all sit in a circle and explain what our paintings were about. Someone would inevitably say their piece was a postmodern reaction to the phycological impact of the industrial revolution that caused existential dread. To me it looked like a canvas with some paint sloppily applied. It did seem like the students who were better at making “serious” art got better grades. (Or perhaps they were just better at explaining why their art was serious.)

Perhaps this is why, after making this painting of Stonehenge, constructed with ice cream sandwiches, I feel obliged to explain why.

There are many theories about what Stonehenge is, who built it, when it was built, and what purpose it served. Many theories, but nobody knows for sure.

Of course, someone put them there. Someone had a reason for it.

Most theories assume it served some sort of “serious” purpose concerning astrological events or burial rituals. But maybe it was simply a good challenge that helped pass the time because nobody had invented cable yet. Maybe it was a primitive tourist attraction. Maybe it was just for fun.

People flock to Stonehenge not because they know what purpose it served, but because of the mystery. And mystery is fun. Plus it looks cool. Which is also fun.

Whimsy and fun are often seen as extra, nonessential. But fun is its own reason for being.

Imagine having the opportunity to jump into a pool of noodles. No child would ever wait until they could answer the question, “But what purpose does this serve?”

People with Adultitis need data and statistics before they justify why having fun is important. They can be found, but if you ask me, most of them are common sense.

Employees that are having fun are happier and do better work.

Customers that are having fun spend more money.

Leaders that are having fun attract more followers.

These are theories that explain why we should take having fun seriously. Why not have fun simply because… it’s fun?

We are constantly in the pursuit of happiness. I don’t know about you, but I’ve never seen someone having fun who is unhappy. Do we really need data to prove that a life filled with fun is better than one that isn’t?

Why did those ancient people build Stonehenge? I don’t know.

Why did I paint Stonehenge made out of ice cream sandwiches? Because I thought it would be fun.

Sometimes, that’s the only reason you need.

Somehow, the television show Saturday Night Live took a lowly old cowbell and turned it into a pop culture phenomenon.

The famous skit imagines a studio session with the band Blue Oyster Cult recording their hit song “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper.” Christopher Walken, as “rock legend” Bruce Dickinson (“the cock of the walk, baby!”), singles out the little-used percussion instrument, played by Will Ferrell. Hilarity ensues as Dickinson urges the band to highlight the cowbell in the song.

Now the script was funny, and Walken and the other actors nailed their performances. But what is most interesting to me is that Ferrell and playwright Donnell Campbell, who co-wrote the sketch, first had to notice the cowbell in the original song by Blue Oyster Cult.

They noticed something most people didn’t and saw an opportunity.

During a family vacation in Mexico, we bought a coconut drink from a roadside vendor for about $2. We enjoyed the drink and threw out the shell. (What else would we do with it?) Then I recalled some of the restaurants we visited where frozen drinks were served in coconut shells with tiny umbrellas. Undoubtedly, those drinks sold for a higher price than the same one served in a boring old glass.

A “useless” coconut shell was transformed into something of value. Enterprising business owners had literally turned garbage into money.

Of course, flea markets and thrift stores do the exact same thing. And people who buy and flip fixer-uppers? Where most people see a dilapidated lost cause, they see a tidy profit and a future feature in a glossy magazine.

The most successful people see opportunities that others miss.

I’d argue that it’s not a talent; it’s a habit. In the middle of the Panic of 1873, a six-year recession, Thomas Edison invented the incandescent light bulb. In 1876, he established GE (General Electric Co.), which is now the third-largest company in the world.

In the late 1970s, the United States experienced an energy crisis, and inflation ballooned out of control, causing a major recession which lasted for thirty months.

In the midst of this economic storm, Applebee’s, Ben & Jerry’s, Olive Garden, and Fuddruckers were founded. In fact, all of the following entities were formed during a recession: Burger King, The Jim Henson Company, FedEx, CNN, Hewlett-Packard, MTV, Hyatt Hotels, Trader Joe’s, Sports Illustrated, and Wikipedia.

The first Apple Store opened in the recession of 2001 and was declared dead on arrival. Which, of course, it wasn’t; it was so successful that in the recession of 2008, many people considered Apple Stores to be recession-proof.

And according to Forbes, the COVID crisis was a catapult for launching over 4 million new small business ventures, the largest eruption in the history of our country.

I remember talking to an elderly real estate tycoon during that economic nosedive of 2008. He grumbled about how all everyone seemed to do was complain about the bad economy. All he could see was an abundance of opportunities, and he lamented that he didn’t have enough years left to take advantage of them all.

Most of the time, the difference between success and failure is determined by what we decide to see.

Indeed, the best time to buy stock is when the market is down.

The best time to start a business is when the economy is bad.

The best business ideas solve real problems.

We need you to look at the world as a child would, with big dreams, boundless optimism, and a vision of what’s possible.

We need you to see through new eyes and find the opportunity that is right under your nose.

We need more cowbell.

Wash your hands. Wear a mask. (Better make that two!) Keep your distance. Sanitize everything that moves (and everything that doesn’t) every sixteen seconds. Stay home for two weeks two months a year to flatten the curve.

Sometimes you have to laugh at your circumstances to keep yourself from crying.

We’ve had a rough year, but I am optimistic that the war against this unwelcome virus is nearing an end. I am especially encouraged by the leaders who know we don’t live in a one-variable world and have been looking at the whole picture.

During a pandemic, when it comes to public safety, it’s better to be overly cautious than lackadaisical (but what a fun word!). However, we can get so focused on following protocols to prevent the spread of COVID-19, it’s easy to forget about the indirect side effects we’ve experienced from the last twelve months of trauma.

Like the deterioration of our mental health. 

One such leader is my friend Patrick who has been at the forefront of helping to lead his college through the pandemic. Besides transforming the on-campus experience, and adding testing, contact tracing, and safety protocols, he told me about the challenge of addressing the morale of the students who returned to campus in the dead of winter while the virus was surging:

“We wrapped every light pole on campus with Christmas lights. We built an ice rink in the middle of campus. We had fun food pop-ups on frigid nights (e.g., hot chocolate, chili, chicken wings). And, so far (fingers crossed) we are succeeding!!”

Some people may look at these efforts as extraneous. Those people would be wrong.

Human beings are complicated creatures. They cannot be easily managed by spreadsheets or treated by one-size-fits-all solutions. Unlike robots, they come equipped with a diverse range of feelings and emotions. And contrary to popular belief, they rarely behave rationally. 

Christmas lights and impromptu ice rinks and hot chocolate with tiny marshmallows have not been proven to slow the spread of COVID-19, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t essential in this fight.

They are pretty good at slowing the spread of depression, despair, and Adultitis.

Of course, none of this is new news. I was at a conference a few years ago that featured a session on employee retention. The speaker noted the research found that compensation was the absolute lowest factor for people when it came to job satisfaction and engagement. She said you pretty much just have to be average in that department. 

Do you know what was way higher on the chart? Relationship to the supervisor and relationships with co-workers. Simply put, if you think your boss is an a-hole or your colleagues are jerks, it’s pretty likely your antenna is up for an opportunity to jump ship. 

I don’t need to drum up a bunch of statistics to explain how expensive turnover is or why having more fun can save you money. All I need is a bit of common sense. It seems fairly obvious to me that turnover problems plummet if your organization is a fun place to work and the people enjoy being around each other.

Simply put, fun is good for the soul, but it makes good financial sense, too.

To make it through the challenges we face each day, whether it’s a global pandemic or a government audit, or the height of your organization’s busy season, we have to take care of one another.

That requires a variety of approaches. Safe protocols, of course. But we also need to provide empathy, hope, optimism, and yes, even fun.

A hot beverage with some tiny marshmallows couldn’t hurt, either.

My Grandma on my mom’s side used to tell us stories about her childhood. I remember a tale about her shoes. When the soles wore out, instead of buying new shoes, her father would re-sole them with rubber from old tires. She and her sister were mortified to kneel down at the communion rail at church for fear that their classmates would be able to read Goodyear on the bottom of their shoes.

(I can’t help but think how much the bottoms of modern-day sneakers look like tire treads, with brand logos stamped upon them. Perhaps my grandmother and her sister were just ahead of their time?)

I can certainly appreciate the thriftiness of my great grandfather, but I share this story because of the times we persist in trying to make something old work when we’d be better off letting it go.

Like a routine that served you well for years. 
Or perhaps a client relationship that used to be fruitful.
Or maybe it’s a mindset that led to many beneficial decisions.

Just because something served you well in the past doesn’t mean it’s serving you well now.

Seasons change. The world does, too. And as we age and collect new experiences, we gain new knowledge and grow in wisdom. Hanging on to an old routine, relationship, or mindset may actually be a barrier to growth and future success.

In the olden times, they used to store wine in animal skins. As the alcohol fermented, the skins would naturally expand. A problem occurred if you tried to put new wine into old wineskins. Already brittle and stretched to the limit from the process, the old wineskins would burst when the new wine fermented.

Resulting in a ruined wineskin. And even worse: bye-bye, wine.

It’s worth considering that the original wineskin – the one now stretched and brittle – was good for its original use. It served its purpose splendidly. Opting for a new wineskin for this new batch of wine is not a condemnation of its performance. It simply won’t work for preparing new wine.

It helps to get in the habit of asking yourself one of the most useful questions ever: WHY do I do it this way?

Answering that question, honestly and accurately, is a terrific way to determine whether or not that old way of doing things is still serving you.

With our family moving into a new home in a new city, I have taken it as an opportunity to re-think my old standard operating procedures. Everything from my work schedule to our family routines, and even where we put things in our kitchen, is up for reconsideration.

I’ve been asking “why?” a lot.

When we moved in, we reflexively put our oven mitts and dish towels in the same drawer, just like we’ve always done. It didn’t take long to get frustrated with how inconvenient it was to fetch a towel from the drawer when washing dishes. Upon further review – aka asking “why?” – we determined the reason for storing the two things together in the old house was that we had limited space, and the oven and sink were right next to each other. With more drawer space and the oven and sink further apart in the new house, this arrangement no longer made sense.

It’s a simple example that applies to every area of life.

We recently booked our first in-person speaking program since last March. After almost a year of doing virtual programs, it’s a prime opportunity to re-evaluate my on-stage presentation by asking a lot of WHY questions. Of course, it would be easier to resume doing what I’ve done in the past, but that would be like putting new wine into old wineskins.

Or, going back to the metaphor of the recycled shoes, I could certainly take the new things I’ve learned doing virtual presentations and slap them on to the old way I’ve always done in-person programs. Instead, I’m planning to re-channel all this experience into a brand new thing, which I suspect will be even better. There will be some heavy lifting involved, but I’m excited about the possibilities.

What area of your life could benefit from a new way of operating?

Indeed, sometimes we keep things as is because change is hard and the status quo is more comfortable. Sometimes we’re just too busy to consider anything else. And sometimes we just haven’t been mindful enough to stop and ask, “Why?”

I’m a pretty nostalgic guy. And I’m all for upcycling whenever possible.

But sometimes you just need to spring for a new pair of shoes.

It seems we are all yearning for a return to normal. I know what people mean when they say it – I say it myself, and what we have, right now, is not normal. But in truth, I really don’t want to return to normal.

As we inch slowly closer to a resolution of this crisis, it might be worth asking a question that was posed when the shelter-in-place guidelines began:

What is essential?

We’ve been given a gift. This pause has been an unprecedented (anyone up for making that the official word of 2020?) opportunity to examine our lives and our society with a new perspective.

For example, are all of those in-person meetings we’d been having really essential?

Are all of the regulations we eased up on in order to make our systems work better in an emergency really essential? 

Is it really true that the liquor store is essential but the pottery studio isn’t?

Is watching any of the major news networks really an essential way of staying informed?

Our packed calendars got cleared pretty quickly when the dominoes of this crisis started to fall. As things open back up and we can add those agenda items back in, are they all essential?

Most of us have probably spent a lot less money on things during this period of sheltering at home. I can’t wait to go out to eat again and travel somewhere awesome that’s more than five miles away, but how many of the things we would have spent our money on were really that essential?

On the other hand, this experience also helped us to discover new things that are essential we didn’t even realize. Like relationships we took for granted. The healing power of nature. Or the ability of a home-cooked meal to bond us together.

Many of us got to dust off our faith, and realized just how essential it is to our souls. 

I’ve enjoyed seeing mothers and daughters, fathers and sons, and even full families – with teenagers! – going on walks together. Maybe they’ve accidentally stumbled upon an essential routine and will choose to keep it going.

I hope we realize that art and music and theater – those subjects schools often deem as non-essential – are the very things that helped us get through this dark time. I can’t imagine what it would have been like without the musicians doing living room concerts, the movies we watched to give us an escape, the children’s book authors who read us their stories, the meme makers who made us laugh, and the artists who encouraged us with their inspiring paintings and funny drawings. 

I hope we’ve learned that it is possible to work together for the common good with people who have different political views. It’s essential that to make this world better than it was before, we need to spend more time working together instead of tearing each other down. 

Know what else has been essential? You. You, doing your part – big or small – by sharing your time, talents, and treasure to help the cause in some way. By making masks, sharing a laugh, bringing some light to someone in darkness, or easing the burden of loneliness of someone nearby.

As we move forward together, let’s promise to not settle for normal.

Let’s aim for better.

Tina Oldham is the Principal of Cowden-Herrick Elementary School in Illinois. After attending a program I did for educators earlier this year, in which I talked about the beauty of ugly cakes, Tina’s teachers were inspired to create this Boss’s Day cake for her.

Nice work huh? (I like the toothbrush, which I imagine came in handy after finishing said cake.)

And I especially liked the quote in Tina’s email signature:

“Show Up, Work Hard, Be Kind.”

A good strategy for whatever you do in life!

I believe the mark of an effective presenter is the level of impact that lingers long after the speech is over. Although I love creating a funny, inspiring and insightful experience, I am most delighted to hear the ways people and organizations keep the message alive years after my presentation. 

One of the ways I do this is by providing sticky concepts and unique terminology that anchor the principles I share in people’s minds.

Perhaps the clearest example of this is my introduction of Adultitis, which represents a bully that is eager to facilitate burnout, sow discord, and stifle innovation. Establishing a common enemy allows a team to rally together in a fun and effective way, rather than pointing fingers of blame at one another.

I also encourage people to accomplish big things by being mindful of celebrating the little wins along the way. Recently, an organization I spoke to several years ago reached out to share some ways they continue to keep Adultitis at bay by utilizing our Celebrate Everything Calendar — which features a real holiday on every day — to foster team building and incorporate a spirit of fun.  Here’s what Janet Mincks had to say:

This year one of my New Year’s resolutions was to incorporate the calendar of days into our work environment. In January we started with “Lost Penny Day.” Another co-worker and I hid over 100 pennies throughout the workspaces of the offices and at individual desk. All had a great time finding pennies: under their computer mouse’s, coffee cups, desk draws and on phone receivers. The copier also was able to hide a few.

In February we did “Share a Memory Day.” Many shared an event where they got in trouble either with the parent, or at school. This certainly created a deeper conversation with one another.

In April we did “Scrabble Day.” I brought in my deluxe board, and we had everyone pick 6 tiles, and as they created words, they could write it down and get points.

In May as we celebrated “Scavenger Hunt Day.” We put items around the office and outside that they had to look for.

In June we celebrated “Recess at Work Day.” We had a salad lunch and sat outside on the picnic table and brought outside games to play. Several of the staff got into the hoola hoop activity and hopscotch as well as just mingling outside.

In July we did paperback book day. The staff who wished to participate brought in a book wrapped in brown paper and everyone picked a book without knowing who it was from or what it was. Many found the love of books they never heard of. We laughed so hard as we opened our brown bag surprise!

I also invite teams to hide a small fun object around the office. (My original example involved a bendable Pokey figure my wife and I used to hide on each other, but we switched to a tiny penguin named Marty when my book Penguins Can’t Fly came out a few years back.) Janet also shared some fun photos from her team’s hijinks.

Far from this being the productivity stealer as some Adultitis-ridden leaders may fear, it is actually a simple but effective way to build connections and provide an opportunity to blow off steam in a healthy way, especially in high-stress environments. As good leaders understand, we can (and should) take our work seriously, without taking ourselves seriously. 

Get in touch with Kim to learn more about how we can work together to create an experience your people will never forget and results that deliver for years to come!

Things got pretty ugly at one of my recent speaking programs. 

I was invited to help the staff at one of Madison’s most treasured landmarks adopt a mindset of creativity and innovation. As part of the workshop, the attendees got an opportunity to decorate cookies together. But the goal wasn’t to make Martha Stewart jealous. The goal was to make them as ugly as possible, as a callback to a story I often tell.

Mission accomplished.

Underneath this seemingly innocuous activity, a number of powerful elements were at play.

Chief among them was, well, play. It’s not every day that you come to work and get to decorate cookies. (Unless you work in a bakery, that is!) That alone gets people’s attention, and draws them into the activity more than any predictable ice breaker activity ever could. 

This level of engagement helped them to connect quickly with their co-workers, breaking down silos, as many of them work in different departments. It also drew them deeper into a follow-up discussion afterwards, where we unpacked the numerous lessons learned about that nature of innovation. 

For example, the way a group can have an exponential effect on progress by building on the small ideas each person brings to the table. Or the insight that creativity is about using common things in uncommon ways, thanks to the folks who incorporated items from the breakfast spread into their creations. Or how the uncomfortability of taking the risks that innovation requires can be minimized by the support of teammates.

Pretty deep stuff from a few bowls of weirdly-colored frosting.

It’s a unique and memorable hands-on activity that allows the principles I present to stick, ensuring the impact lasts far beyond a single speech. 

Of course, although I loved participating in the merriment and facilitating the learning, I don’t need to be present for you to win.

Another organization I worked with organized an “Ugly Cake Battle” at their annual training day, two years after my initial presentation. As an extra wrinkle, the staff training and development manager had the teams barter for “premiere” items, which turned out to be a big hit. 

As the pictures make clear, this is an awesome team building activity that fosters creativity and is just plain fun. 

Get in touch with Kim to learn more about how we can work together to create an experience your people will never forget while fostering a greater spirit of innovation in your organization!

Mr. Olsen had written a series of math problems across several chalkboards. The avalanche of white scribbles was overwhelming, but not impossible. “Anyone who gets them all correct,” he told his fifth grade class, “will get a sucker.” 

Sheryl was one of five students who were up to the task. Unfortunately, the teacher said he only had four suckers, and was forced to ask if anyone would be willing to give up theirs. Sheryl said she would. Mr. Olsen thanked her, and proceeded with the rest of the school day.

Before the students were dismissed that afternoon, Mr. Olsen asked Sheryl to stay after school so he could talk to her. She’d never been asked stay after school, and she was terrified!

After all the other students exited the classroom. Mr. Olsen asked Sheryl to have a seat at his desk. He pulled open the bottom drawer and withdrew a whole, unopened bag of suckers and presented it to her. With a look of shock across her face, Mr. Olsen said, “Sheryl, what you did today was very generous and I am very proud of you. You did a good thing and I wanted to let you know how much I appreciate having you in my class. Thank you.”

This is a true story and it gives me chills. It’s just one of many that flooded my inbox after last week’s article, where I implored you to do something important: 

Notice something good in someone, and tell them what you see.

Sheryl told me, “Forty-five years later and I still remember how that simple statement made me feel. It is a memory that does not fade. It is a memory of feeling ‘seen.’ Many of us were bullied as children and our families did not provide the love and support that children require. This ONE person ‘seeing’ me made all the difference. It gave me confidence and pride that I had never felt before. It became a seedling of hope.”

I wish I could show you all of the emails I received, each one testifying to the importance of this one, simple action. Here’s a sampling:

“In middle school, at recess, my principle who was doing playground duty, saw I was trying to hang out with the wrong crowd just to belong. She basically said stay away from those kids. I felt she valued me and cared what happened to me.”

“My 5th grade teacher was so kind and caring. She had us do a lot of projects and she encouraged me to be creative. I’m 52 and she’s the teacher who I can still remember how good I felt in her classroom.”

“I had a mentor in my graduate program who told me I was “too bright not to get my PhD.”  That one comment changed my life.”

“One day as I was leaving class, my 7th grade language arts teacher said how she wished to be like me when she grew up. She explained that I had such surety and confidence in who I was and I didn’t let the desire to fit in and be popular (a huge thing for most middle schoolers) change the way I behaved. I stayed true to myself. That message has stuck with me and helped me hold onto my convictions when it would have been easier to just let them go and do what everyone else was doing.”

Some folks admitted they had a hard time coming up with more than a few names. How sad is that, when you think of all of the adults that a person encounters in just the first eighteen years of life? What a missed opportunity for all those potential influencers! I was delighted to hear one reader, a teacher herself, say that she makes a point to tell one student a day something she sees in them. 

Question: How many third grade teachers imagine their students as 62-year-olds? If you are, you should, because if you do your job well, you’ll still be an important part of the person’s story when their own grandkids are starting first grade. I heard from a 62-year-old woman who still holds tightly to the inspired spark of encouragement given to her by a third grade teacher, using it as a life preserver keeping her afloat in a sea of self-doubt and uncertainty, all these years later.

Which brings up another important point that surfaced. Maybe there really is only one person who ever saw something amazing in you and told you about it. That doesn’t mean it’s not true. You don’t need a quorum for it to count. It’s more likely that dozens of people have seen the same thing in you but never actually told you. Maybe they were busy. Maybe they never realized how important it was. Maybe they thought you already knew. As I said previously, we assume people are able to see their own strengths. But we often don’t, because our strengths come naturally to us, so we assume they come easy to everyone, and discount them as anything special.

And don’t underestimate the power of specificity. Many people recalled very specific things that were said to them, down to the exact words. I’ve been fortunate to have many cheerleaders in my life, but the ones that stand out are the ones who praised something specific about me, like my leadership skills or creative writing ability.  

I think about something Kim and I have done with our kids. We call Ginny “Little Miss Thoughtful,” because she seems to always search for creative ways to help someone. Ben is our “Sunshine Boy,” bringing smiles and positivity to others. Lucy is the “Peacemaker,” thanks to ability to skillfully negotiate peace treaties between her siblings.

These are nicknames we’ve given our kids, based on the traits we’ve identified in their personality and have seen them exhibit repeatedly in their young lives. But they’ve also become aspirational, as they work to live up to them. It’s a virtuous circle.

Compare that to the countless children – and the adults they’ve become – who have been repeatedly told that they are stupid, useless, or troublemakers, and won’t amount to anything.

We tend to live up to (or down to) the expectations others have for us.

On that point, one last email to share:

“Mr. John Sipe taught choir, Music Appreciation, Music Theory, and directed the spring musicals at my high school. This man had the ability to see each and every one of his students, value and respect them, find their hidden talents, and give them the confidence to move forward in the world. Beyond music, he taught us all life lessons in learning from and respecting others. By seeing each of us, he saved us.”

He saved us.

If you want to make a difference in the world; if you want to leave a legacy, here’s how: notice something good in someone, and tell them what you see.

I’ve had people tell me that they love what they do, but they hate where they work.

When you operate in an environment where it’s difficult to find and keep good people, your culture — and an environment that supports it — matters. A lot.

The artwork I use in my presentations does more than just serve as a pretty picture to illustrate a story. It creates a mental anchor in the mind of the participant, establishing a visual shorthand for the principle I’ve shared. Since we all think in pictures – not words – this is an extraordinarily effective way to help provide a long term impact that goes far beyond a single speech.

I’m thrilled that a number of smart organizations, from school districts to financial institutions, have utilized my artwork to enhance their environment and support the positive, dynamic culture they have built.

When Summit Credit Union built a new, state-of-the-art corporate office building, they were very intentional about the artwork they used to represent their culture. After speaking to their top level sales team, I was excited to be asked to collaborate with them on providing large canvas reproductions of my art that would be hung in a variety of their public and private workspaces and conference rooms.

Alongside each piece, we hung small frames that Illuminated the message behind the art. This enabled those who hadn’t heard me speak be able to connect with each piece on a deeper level, underscoring an important principle that supported the organization’s culture. 

Jason’s art embodied the fun, creative and collaborative image and messages that we wanted to send to our employees.  The way that Jason’s art communicates inspiring and empowering messages is how we want staff to feel when they work for Summit.”

Heidi Duss | Manager-D&I, Wellness & Community Engagement | Summit Credit Union

In a similar way, Unity school district in Wisconsin purchased a number of pieces for their high school, middle school, elementary school, and district offices and library to enhance a recent renovation project. It brings me great joy to think about the positive influence my art is able to have on the students and faculty every single day. 

If you want to change your culture, start by changing your environment. 

If you are interested in acquiring artwork to take your space to the next level, I invite you to explore the range of images available and email Kim to discuss the many options we have available.

“3D Panda” by Jason Kotecki. 40″ x 40″. Oil on canvas.
Original is SOLD. Prints available here.

Too often, we look at our plans and big dreams with rose-colored glasses. We only see the upside, the pros, the best-case scenarios.

But if our dream – whatever it is – actually comes true, there will be downsides as well.

As author and entrepreneur Mark Manson has pointed out, everything sucks, some of the time. Every dream – no matter how wonderful or glamorous it first appears  – comes with some flavor of what he calls a shit sandwich, a lousy side effect that you have to deal with.

That’s not to say we shouldn’t dream.

We just need to do it with 3D glasses.

When we look at something with 3D glasses, we see it from all sides: the good, sexy, photogenic slide, and the ugly, unfavorable, hideously-lit side. This allows us to behold a more realistic appraisal of the situation.

In the early days of our business, I dreamed of creating a giant online retail store that carried all kinds of “cool stuff for the young at heart.” It was easy to imagine us rolling in dough once we established ourselves in the marketplace and traffic started flowing. We’d be selling fun products on a fun website to people who liked to have fun. Not a downside in sight!

Well, as moved forward and started to grow, I began to encounter the drawbacks I hadn’t envisioned when I was looking at my plans with rose-colored glasses. I realized I hated trying to figure out what people would be interested in buying. I didn’t like managing inventory. Most importantly, I didn’t get any joy in selling other people’s stuff when I wanted to create my own. I saw that if we continued to grow, I would be doing MORE inventory, MORE managing, and MORE selling of other people’s stuff.

It was a shit sandwich that I didn’t want to eat.

My current role as a professional speaker involves a lot of travel, which includes no small measure of loneliness, delayed flights, and missed family events. But it’s a sandwich I’m willing to eat because it affords me the opportunity to visit cool places with my family and a lot of freedom to spend time in the studio when I’m not traveling.

As Manson notes, “Your favorite shit sandwich is your competitive advantage. By definition, anything that you’re willing to do (that you enjoy doing) that most people are not willing to do gives you a huge leg-up.”

The good news is that you can save a lot of time, money, and effort with a decent pair of 3D glasses. 

When an amazing retail location became available in downtown Madison, Kim and I considered securing it as a combination studio / store / event space. 

We spent two whole days looking at the possibilities with our trusty 3D glasses. The first day focused on imagining all the good parts: The great exposure our brand would get being steps away from the state capitol. The flexible space would allow us to host a lot of different events. The chance to sell my products directly to people, in person, in a space we created.

Then we spent the next day on the downsides: The high cost of rent. The need to hire and manage staff. The reality is that if I wanted to paint, my introverted self would rather spend it alone in my studio than in front of a crowd.

Ultimately, we decided to pass. 

The point is not about finding the perfect scenario that doesn’t include a shit sandwich, because there isn’t one. It’s to spend some time upfront finding out what it is, by realistically examining the good, the bad, AND the ugly before you sink a ton of resources into an endeavor that won’t end up being your cup of tea. 

No, you won’t be able to foresee everything but know this: Whatever you choose, your passion needs to be strong enough to withstand the most unpalatable parts of the work.

Rose-colored glasses are tempting, but a good pair of 3D glasses are the key to making smart decisions.