Choose ideas that fit you | Casey Tulloch | TEDxMontaVistaHighSchool
URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BTLCYZadgM Video ID: 2BTLCYZadgM ============================================================ Transcriber: Lữ Gia Hân Reviewer: Trần Thái Hưng Hello and thank you, TEDx Monta Vista High School for inviting me to speak on my favorite subject, creativity. You see, I’ve kept an invention notebook since I was old enough to write. Among my early childhood, invention was a band-aid with one shorter side so that the sticky part wouldn’t overlap with a wound on a child-sized finger. Later in high school, I designed a bed that would make itself by zipping the sheets into place. Six months prior, I was determined to find a way to automatically open my shades in the morning. My designs involved releasing deflating balloons, wind-up cars and bouncing balls to simulate the pull-down and release effect. In that same time frame, I also designed an automatic cat food dispenser to quiet the all too early hangry meows of my cat. As you can probably tell, I wasn’t a morning person in high school, as I'm sure some of you can relate. So you can imagine when I took my first personality test, it told me I was too feelings-oriented to be an inventor. I was crushed. I thought I had failed the test. But really, the test had failed me. If I existed in the Marvel universe, I imagined a scene like this would play out next. Professor X, leader of the X-Men, approaches me, a promising young inventor grappling to repress her powerful emotions to fit in. He says, “Casey, I know what you scored in your test. But you don't need to be ashamed of who you are, what you see as your greatest weakness is your greatest strength.” But how could that be? My feelings constantly resist the things I know I should be doing. They’ve clouded my vision. No, fear and judgment clouded your vision. Once you learn to read and tap into the right feelings, you will unleash your most powerful guiding and driving force. I can teach you. Are you with me? I didn't have a Professor X at that age, and school was not helpful in this regard at all. School taught me how to choose ideas that fit problems in the world. It’s an important skill set, but only half the picture. I’m here to tell you, it’s just as if not more important to choose ideas that fit you, and to bring you on my journey of how I learned to do that. I went from considering ideas as finished products to investigating their potential for adventure, from seeing projects as separate items on a to-do list to seeing them as parts of an interconnected ecosystem that drew on a common set of resources. I learned to manage my energy accordingly. I went from motivating myself of fear to accessing a far more powerful motivator, Compassion. Adventure, energy and motivation were the three key components I used to identify ideas that were a great fit for me and to tailor them even further. The moment all three clicked identified a project that became the most exhilarating, moving and creative project of my life, the type of project where I woke up in the middle of the night crying because it was just that meaningful. And I felt just that lucky to be working on it. Furthermore, after I completed it, I was able to easily identify other ideas that were a great fit for me. So I’m going to bring you on my journey of discovering how. Here’s where it all began, in the idea space. Around the time I left my job at Apple, I hung out here a lot. I had tons of ideas, but I was stuck on doing them. I later made this illustration to describe that limbo state. Those are light bulb balloons, if you haven’t noticed already. It was tempting to linger in the vastness of my untested imagination. But so long as I stayed up there, I knew I wouldn't be grounded enough to do any one of these ideas. The ideas piled up on Post-it notes upon Post-it notes. I found myself cycling through ideas, all of which became far less appealing once I actually started doing them. Nothing stuck. I was embarrassed, and it seemed to reinforce with the personality tests insinuated, I just wasn't tough enough to be an inventor. I didn’t realize at that time that it was my poor decision-making, not my willpower, that was to blame. Eventually something brought me down to Earth. It was the permission to start letting go of good ideas that I actually wasn’t that excited to do. That permission came from a line in a speech by Marianne Williamson in which she said, “Just because it’s a good idea doesn’t mean it’s your project.” The word ‘project’ is key here. You see, your project refers to everything involved in making an idea happen - all the activities, subject matters, environments, people, and interactions at different stages. When considering ideas, I started to ask myself if the project sounded appealing on its own. If it didn’t, I’d let it go. I started to see ideas as invitations to creative adventures, ones most successful and enjoyed if designed as thoughtfully as the ideas themselves. Even though it was a fairly simple and important concept, I found I wasn’t the only person neglecting it in my decision-making. Around that time, a friend lamented to me about the fact that he had the idea for burrito-sized sushi long before Sushirrito became a popular restaurant chain. Skeptically, I asked him, “Well, would you really have wanted to build a restaurant chain? It seems counter to your passions for writing and recording podcasts on long neighborhood strolls.” He instantly looked relieved, as he said, “No, I guess I wouldn’t have.” I used this line of thinking to narrow down on the idea of me becoming a professional coach in the area of creativity. So I signed myself up for a coach training program and hoped this idea would stick. My coach training prompted me to look at how to better manage my energy. Up until then, I’ve been thinking only in terms of physical energy. If I was tired, I was physically tired. And one day, a meditation teacher asked me more specifically, “What are you tired of?” I discovered I had several other types of energies that were intellectual, social, emotional and creative. And these categories could be broken down even further. For example, intellectual could be split into verbal and non-verbal. I started to see the different projects and activities in my life as parts of an interconnected ecosystem. One that drew on a common set of resources - this common set. However, these resources weren’t just there to be used. They needed to be exercised as well. I could recognize this and the feelings of being bored, lonely or antsy. I applied these insights when facing the daunting project of writing an article for my coaching business. You can visualize how I manage my energy across activities and energy categories in this table. I knew the writing would drain me intellectually, specifically, verbally - note the big X. So I looked for a way to break it up as something that was non-verbal and creative. The article was to be on how to choose your best ideas to get unstuck. So I decided I would take breaks from writing by making light bulbs themed illustrations. Sound familiar? I made a huge difference in sustaining my energy and allowed me to finish the article while reinforcing its concepts. Well, the article ended up turning into a workshop that attracted the first hundred subscribers to my newsletter. It was a significant opportunity for me to get my first paid clients as a coach. I made a huge effort to push out the first three newsletters. Then ironically, I, the get-unstuck coach, got stuck big time. I was unable to bring myself to write marketing newsletters on which growing my business depended. And it wasn’t a matter of energy this time. It was a matter of motivation. It was time to dig deeper. Writing had always been a struggle for me. Throughout school, I’d relied on missing the fear of missing a deadline, to overcome my perfectionism, to complete papers. I didn’t have that leverage now, but I was still using fear nonetheless. And the struggle was burning me out. I was afraid if I couldn't make this newsletter work, my coaching business wouldn’t take off quickly enough. Although I was financially secure, I was in a rush to prove to others that I could make an income doing this thing I loved; that I wasn’t crazy to leave Apple in search of more fulfilling work; and especially that I wasn’t the type of person who gave up when things got tough. At the root of all of this was this need to prove myself and my sanity. The fear of failure had taken over for the compassionate reasons that had initially motivated me to pursue coaching. I had the self-awareness to realize I was operating off of a false belief system. I thought if I could use fear and stress to motivate me to achieve some big external goals, that then I’d be happy for good and not have to use fear ever again. In reality, stressing myself out only made me more unhappy. Even if I did manage to achieve some big external goals, happiness would be fleeting. I'd set a new goal with expectation that this one would do the trick, but it wouldn’t. Even though I knew this wasn’t working, I was struggling to define the motivational model that would. I knew in theory that compassion was a much more powerful motivator than fear. And then I’d have to stop using fear to motivate me for compassion to shine through. I thought if only I could cultivate more compassion for my future clients then my newsletter would be well on its way. So I tried it. I doubled down on my meditation practice: took a candle at baths, listened to spa music, etc. When I’d finished my morning meditation, I’d peacefully wait for a feeling of compassion to wash over me, motivate me to work on this newsletter. It never came. After each time compassion stood me up, my stress would come back and say: “Hey girl, miss me much? I’m still available if you are.” *Wink* Desperate for some form of motivation, I’d give up and get back with my stress. I lamented to a wise friend of mine about compassion leaving me hanging and my failure to stay Zen. He responded, “The problem isn’t that you’re not Zen enough. Compassion is showing up. It’s just not showing up for that goal.” My mind was blown. It made so much sense now. Since the goal itself was shaped primarily by fear, of course, compassion wasn’t showing up for it. I need to let compassion guide me for it to drive me. So I tried out two journaling prompts that were supposedly compassions calling cards. First, who do you like to wish well today? And second, to whom would you like to be of service? A wave of emotion washed over me as I wrote down one name in particular - Coco, a friend’s seven-year-old daughter who was diagnosed with leukemia two weeks prior. I had had it on my to-do list to find a dozen cards to send her over the course of her six-month hospital stay, but I’d been putting it off because I haven’t finished my newsletter. I decided just then that I wouldn’t put it off any longer. I would let compassion guide me and be of service to Coco today. When I couldn't find the right cards, I decided to work with a talented illustrator and create my own. A set of cards that together would tell a story that would reframe the experience of being hospitalized. The story would take place on a ship because a ship is a lot like a hospital room. You can’t leave the ship, but you can have many adventures along the way. It would start Coco as the captain, and this would be no ordinary ship. It would be a magical ship, one that could not be steered no matter how strong you were. By physical force, it was steered by the dreams of the captain herself, of what she wished to experience. Think, playdates with mermaids, treasure hunts, and dolphin-delivered messages in a bottle, and more. And in addition, these cards would come with an interactive props like a mermaid wig for fun hair day when chemo would make her hair fall out. Those writing for the chapters poured out of me like I’d struck in underground spring. In two days, I’d written the whole thing, outline what illustrations I wanted, and made a list with links to all the props I’d order. The night after, I decided to pause a newsletter and truly commit to this project. I woke up crying, not in sadness, but rather because I was so profoundly moved by what I was working on. Next day at breakfast, the tears came again as I read the first chapter to my husband. I wondered if something might be wrong with me. Quite the opposite. I came to learn that my tears were a powerful signaler of what was right for me. I still get choked up sometimes when I read the first line of my story. Oftentimes adventures choose us, not the other way around. I stepped out of my fear of inadequacy into deeper feelings of trust and love. I had not learned to rule over my feelings, but rather to let the right feelings rule over me. And I realized my potential as an inventor because of it. The personality may have been wrong about me not being an inventor. But I got something right, because I realized my other great potential too. The personality type I’d actually scored on my test was a healer. By making an adventure of my creative journey, I can create something that helped a little girl embrace her journey as well. I’m happy to share that Coco’s treatment was successful and she is cancer-free. I’ll end on this. Let this talk not only help you choose your best ideas, but also come up with ones that are a better fit for you in the first place. Choose to live by your values, and you will catalyze your creativity to overcome the challenges you will face along the way. I guarantee that what you discover and create in that process will serve others in doing the same. Thank you.