Anti-Creativity Checklist

I can't even take credit for discovering this clever little video. However, I know enough to pass it on.

Just check on the start arrow. Works for both professional and personal lives:

My Anti-Creativity Checklist from Youngme Moon on Vimeo.

Quote of the Day

"You cannot find peace until you find all the pieces."

Well, maybe not the quote of this specific day, but a good quote nonetheless.

To provide some context: Oprah Winfrey recently did a show which featured super private investigator Troy Dunn. Dunn hosts his own show, The Locator, on WeTV cable network. Through his investigation and research, he helps people find and sometimes reconnect with long lost friends and family members. That includes reuniting adopted children with their birth parents.

As you might expect, the discoveries can bring a flood of tears -- some happy, some sad. Some birth parents don't want to be found. Sometimes there is no happy ending.

But whether the information brings joy or pain, it can offer Resolution. Closure. Completion.

As Dunn told Oprah:

"You cannot find peace until you find all of the pieces."

Oscar Woman / Oscar Wisdom

The Academy Awards continue to dominate water cooler conversation, whether at the work place or in cyberspace. Movie history was made Sunday night with Kathryn Bigelow's The Hurt Locker pulling off a David vs. Goliath win over ex-husband James Cameron's box office-breaking Avatar. Bigelow is the first woman in the history of the awards to win in the Best Director category.

Comedienne Mo'Nique's win for Best Supporting Actress was much less of a surprise, which is kind of a surprise in and of itself. From the time the film Precious debuted at the Sundance Film Festival in 2009, Mo'Nique has received almost universal critical acclaim for her performance as Mary Jones, the repulsively abusive mother of an illiterate pregnant teen mother.

Precious is a tough movie to watch. It takes the audience into some of the darkest places in the human soul, and the character of Mary Jones is the main tour guide. The reason that Mo'Nique's Oscar win was considered to be a lead pipe cinch is that somehow, she manages to cast a sliver of light on the humanity of her character; a woman who easily could have been rendered as beyond the reach of any positive human emotion.

On NPR's Morning Edition, correspondent Mandalit del Braco shares part of a backstage interview with Mo'Nique after her Oscar win. A reporter asks the actress how she could identify in any way with such a dark, toxic character. Mo'Nique turns the question around to reveal a larger, more universal truth, which forms the basis of her performance. The NPR transcript follows:

Ms. MONIQUE: Have you ever had a dark moment when you were unlovable? I'm asking you the question.

Unidentified Woman: Yes.

Ms. MONIQUE: And didn't you want somebody to love you through it?

Unidentified Woman: Yes.

Ms. MONIQUE: That was that thing for me. For as cruel as Mary Jones was, for the monster that she was, everybody - and I don't care who you are and what crime you've committed - everybody deserves to be loved, even when they're unlovable.

You can hear all of del Barco's report here.

How wonderful that amid the glitz and glamor of Oscar night there was a truth more grand and more beautiful than any red carpet star.

Do I See You? Or Me?

Executive Coach and author Russell Bishop explores a concept that readers of this blog have seen before, the belief that there is the possibility of perfection within each moment. Even within times of challenge, Bishop writes that there is positive learning in negative experiences.

It's an examination of the laws of attraction, yet from a different perspective than the current pop culture variety. Bishop employs an older concept, "the mirror:"


"The mirror concept suggests that when we perceive something in another, or react to something in another, what we are really doing is seeing a reflection of our own selves in the other person's behavior.

In fact, we may not perceive their behavior accurately, especially when it comes to intent. We may be seeing something, interpreting it through our own filters or self-judgments, and then reacting toward or against the other person. What we may truly be trying to do, however, is bring to our own awareness some aspect or quality of our own behavior that detracts from who we truly are, or how we would prefer to represent ourselves in the world."

You can read more of Bishop's analysis in this article on the Huffington Post.

And spend some time with the provocative question he raises:

"Just ask yourself if you are willing for things to be different, and, by extension, for you to be different."

Digging Out

It's day three after the historic snowstorm in the Mid-Atlantic region. The sun is shining and the snowplows finally found my street today. Around the neighborhood, there is a feeling of optimism, at least for now.

I grew up in the Midwest, so I know from snow. And I know how to deal with it, both driving and maintenance around the house. I've lived in the Washington area long enough to know the snow rituals that come with any forecast that predicts more than three inches of snow: a run on hardware stores for shovels and ice melt, and a separate run on the groceries for milk and toilet paper.

(I never understood the repeated sellouts of shovels and toilet paper. Seems like people would have enough on a regular basis, you know?)

However, the storm we just had met all the predictions and then some. There were points when we got two to three inches of snow per hour. I had never seen anything like it, including during the times I lived in Cleveland, Boston and Chicago.

By midday Saturday we had about 20 inches of snow. The flakes were still falling, but my son and I joined our neighbors in beginning to do a preliminary clearing of sidewalk and the stairway and the walk up to the house. My son questioned the utility of such an exercise since there was more snow to come.




His Midwestern-raised mother knew we needed to act in order to expand our options later. The snow was wet and heavy. If we waited, the top layers would help to freeze the bottom layers, making removal more difficult later. And frankly, the more snow we cleared on Saturday meant less work when the flurries finally stopped.

I'm kinda anal about shoveling. I don't believe in creating a shovel-width path. If possible, I want to clear the whole damn walkway, from edge to edge and right down to the pavement. I sprinkle ice melt on every uncovered surface. I want to have room to move and change direction, and make my footing as sure as I can. I want to be prepared for what's coming next, instead of relying on for circumstances like rising temperatures and melting to clear my path.



Of course, a lot of things are beyond my control. A person only has so much energy, and a narrow path may be all one can reasonably clear. Sometimes there's someone to help you; sometimes you have to plow through on your own. You do what you can.

Also beyond my control: the weather. Forecasters are calling for another four to eight inches of snow to hit us tomorrow night.

I think we'll be ok. I know we have more options for how to handle the next storm because of the decisions we made on Saturday.

Don't Believe the Multitasking Hype

Today's edition of Oprah features stark testimony about the dangers of texting and/or talking on the cellphone while driving. Her guests range from those who have lost loved one from the overconfidence of others, and even a mother whose son was killed while texting his girlfriend as he drove.

You can see more details of the heartbreaking stories here.

The Oprah Show leads me to report an old reminder about multitasking.

We Americans place a high premium on our ability to multitask.

On NPR's "Morning Edition" a while ago, Jon Hamilton had a series of reports on the myth of "multitasking," a myth that we type-A personalities embrace as gospel.

From a transcript of the opening piece:

"Don't believe the multitasking hype, scientists say. New research shows that we humans aren't as good as we think we are at doing several things at once. But it also highlights a human skill that gave us an evolutionary edge.

As technology allows people to do more tasks at the same time, the myth that we can multitask has never been stronger. But researchers say it's still a myth — and they have the data to prove it."

Multitasker that you are, you may not have time to listen to the whole 7 minute, 45 second piece. If you do, click the audio link at the top of the page.

However, see if you can make some time to read the written version of the story. I think it will give you pause...or lead you to pause on your own.

By the way: check out video of the short order cook, also found on the NPR page. You thought you knew about multi-tasking?

Really.

Break Down to Break Through

image from dailymail.co.uk




I boarded an airplane for the first time when I was 15 years old. I flew from Akron, Ohio to Miami, where I transferred to an Air France jetliner which would take me to Port-au-Prince, Haiti. I would spend two weeks there as part of a group of high school missionaries, working with students at a Catholic school for handicapped children and making overnight trips to Cap-Haitien and the Albert Schweitzer hospital in the central part of the country.

This was during the rule of Francois "Papa Doc" Duvalier, the military dictator who ruled the country with an iron fist. The school which hosted our group was around the corner from the blazing white Presidential Palace, but as Americans, we were not permitted to walk on the same side of the street as the official resident. We stared at it from a distance, a symbol of the exotic, intoxicating and dangerous place we were in.

I've spent the last few days riveted by images of devastation of Haiti. The landscape is surreal. The aerial views look like a patchwork array of chalk-like debris. The view at ground level is a thousand times worse. Fearful, injured people in the streets, covered in concrete dust and blood. And those are only the ones who are mobile, freed from the rubble of the collapsed buildings.

Once again, the presidential palace serves as a symbol. A building that once stood like a big tiered wedding cake in the Caribbean sun now is flattened, as though the hand of God Himself had smashed it.

That could be a metaphor for the nation of Haiti. From the time the first European settlers arrived, it has been a land of struggle. The indigenous people struggled with the settlers. The plantation owners struggled with the black slaves they imported from Africa. The slaves mounted a revolution and liberated themselves from French rule, then struggled to gain recognition and economic parity with its neighbors. The nation has struggled against nature and hurricanes and malevolent leaders who served their own interests instead of the people. It struggled with the oft-repeated label of being "the poorest nation in the western hemisphere."

Now, Haiti faces its biggest challenge. It literally is broken -- structurally, economically, environmentally.

Yet it still has its people. Resilient. The Haitian motto: L'union fait la force -- Unity is strength.

With support -- and a lot of it -- they can rebuild. Maybe even moving beyond past shackles to build the country they deserve.

There's a phrase: "Sometimes you have to break down to break through."

Haiti has been broken. I pray this is the beginning of its breakthrough.

Here are some links to donate to Haitian relief:

https://co.clickandpledge.com/advanced/default.aspx?wid=23093

http://photos.pih.org/home2.html

http://www.state.gov/