The Fertile Unknown

Intersection for Inspired Action: 3 Core Questions

This morning I heard someone being interviewed on the topic of conscious business (on Waking Up in the Workplace) and they were asked, "What is the question that drives your work.?" I love that. It's aligned with the concept that we are all living our questions (whether we are conscious of it or not) so we need to choose them carefully. In that, we become conscious participants in the creation of our work.

I was thinking about how I would answer, and it led me create the venn diagram below. My driving question is actually the intersection of 3 foundational questions. - not in any order, just holding all 3 questions on my consciousness - that I engage when I'm feeling the call to "what's next" in my work. My business tagline for over the past decade has been Consciously Creating What's Next and this intersection is at the heart of how I navigate that (and how I work with my coaching clients to structure their aliveness into income-generating work). Here is my attempt at mapping it:

I'm numbering the questions here, but there is really no order to them. It depends on which needs asking when - situationally adaptive.

1.  What is most alive for me? That is what is alive for me to engage and create right now? Not all that I can imagine or that can ever be, but where is the juice right now at this space in time? For me that is the ripe fruit, and if you engage that, you remain in life-giving energy in your work. Most significantly, it is not about asking what makes complete sense first. Ask what brings you to life first...then find ways to make it work later. So often people approach it backwards and then wonder why work feels lifeless - it was not based on the foundation of aliveness.

2.  What is calling to emerge? That is, what is calling to emerge at this time, in this particular situation? It assumes that we each have a unique purpose in the world, and that we are invited into serving this purpose through whatever is calling us the "loudest" at any given time. Discernment may take some time, but if given space, time and attention to the listening, we can learn to hear what is authentically calling us. We often do not know the complete answer to what wants to emerge until is has emerged, but by just engaging the question, we are in the emergence process.

3.  What is mine to do to serve this unfolding? That is, what is mine to do - no more, no less - to serve the highest unfolding of this particular emergence? It assumes that we are working in harmony with the larger unfolding - something greater than ourselves that is generative and already happening. It is fractal in nature...our micro-unfolding is is connected to the macro-unfolding that is happening in the world. For more on the "no more, no less" part, see this blog post. No more: not over-controlling and taking over what is not ours. No less - stepping up and owning what is.

It is from engaging the intersection of these 3 questions over the past decade that I've created programs, products, service offerings, a creativity network and conferences that feel alive and engaging for me...and that are business offerings, not just creative expression. The foundational questions have not changed, but the aliveness and the call is ever-evolving so the structures do change.

Once the energy has run it's course, as happens in natural systems, then it's time to create something new...otherwise it feels like trying to revive life into a tree that already fell over in the forest - futile. It is important to be able to discern what you spend time reviving, what you let go, and what you create. There's no short cut - it's trail and error...why it's good to get comfortable with making mistakes. :-)

I have to keep reminding myself that certain questions are not as much about getting answers as they are about living into them - and it can be a messy process. Creativity is awesomely messy! That is what aliveness is - messy, nonlinear, and not having everything answered and resolved in neat and timely packages. For years my daily mantra has been, "What's mine to do to serve the larger unfolding?" and I still sometimes do not hear/feel it, or hear it loud and clear, but don't act on it. Like anything, it is an ongoing intentional practice to really live into the questions. The point is to make sure we are asking the right qustions - the ones that lead us to more aliveness in our work and lives, not less.

In a world of work that has been dominated by goal setting and getting from A to B in a sequential step-by-step (yang), this approach offers a way to first cultivate the meaning and aliveness of what you want to do (yin)...and then go about the business of setting adaptive goals around that. Both-and, not either-or. There are all kinds of other questions that emerge in the process - these are just the 3 driving questions, for me, that (along with some other key things) form a foundation for making a living by structuring aliveness in a way that serves others.

What is your question -  or the inspired intersection of questions - that drives your work?

Creative Solution Finding: The AIIM Process

A few years ago, when leading a Creative Thinking Program for a corporate client, I developed the AIIM Solution Finding Process to make it accessible, and to help them move onto the nonlinear nature of the creative process (when it is solution-focused, like in work settings) and still have a sequence to follow for those who like to engage more sequentially. I had been studying different models and approaches at the time and narrowed in on the same main patterns I saw showing up in each one, in addition thinking about the patterns I was seeing in the real-life experiences me and my clients were having with applied creativity in the workplace. I think these elements speak to the way nature creates: linearly and non-linearly, expanding and contracting, adapting and refining...

 

"The Map is not the Territory" - Alfred Korsybski
 
The AIIM process is a map, but it is not the entire territory. You can use AIIM in a creative process like you would use a map. If you go want to a new place, you have several choices. Typically, when you are first getting to know the terrain, you get a map and follow directions.
 
Once you get comfortable with the terrain, however, then you start exploring more and may not need directions as much or at all. You may discover new ways of getting around by simply exploring and finding out what leads where and which routes are best for your purposes.
 
Therefore, like a map which involves whole brain thinking, the AIIM Model is more than a step-by-step process to be followed in a sequential order. Each of the of the stages of the AIIM process, and each step within each stage can be, and should be, used as called for by the particular situation. The map is a guide, but it is flexible - and not complete as no mapped process can be.
 
In a creative process you go back and forth between analysis and imagination and between big picture and detail thinking; and you check for relevance and modify in each stage also. Like traveling around in any city, there are many ways that work and not just one right answer. You begin the process and modify along the way as external conditions change. Therefore, any creativity map or process must have flexibility for modification built into it. New ideas, insights and connections emerge that requires nonlinear navigating in real time.

To use the AIIM process in a sequential manner, you would typically start with analysis then bring in the imagination, then go back and forth between those two until you are ready to implement the solution or vision. After the solution is implemented, you continue modify in real time as you get more information and observe what is working and what is not.

Also have a Creative Emergence Process I charted for the book I am working on that looks a bit different - will post another time.

Note to Self from the Creative Source

Just found a 12-year-old file with this message that I wrote (after a meditation) from my "creative source" to my conscious self in the midst of a particularly challenging and fear-based time for me in my business:

1/23/99 

Walk confidently toward the promised land of your higher dreams that you know is there. Walk confidently through the fog of fear, doubt and the unknown. Walk confidently through the mine fields of imaginary threats and see them for what they really are. Don't make boulders out of wads of paper. Know you won't die or be irreparably wounded. Most importantly, know you will receive support along the way. Movement is the key. Go for it. Go for it with the courage, the belief, and the action to get there.

That guidance was right - movement was the key...and there's been lots of support along the way. If I were to write this now, there would be more to add that I have learned over the years through living into this message (definitely not always confidently) and coaching creativity...like how support would not only show up, it would show up in the most magnificent, emergent and unexpected ways; how that voice is part of our fullest creative aliveness; how it is about life generating new creative life; how none fo us are  alone in the journey of our creative calling (even though it fees like it at times); and how that inner voice needs space, time and attention to be heard and known.

That inner "aliveness voice" within us always carries a more expanded, life-giving knowing about what is true and possible for us than the limited viewpoints our conscious minds carry at any given time. The key is feeling the fear, doubt, etc...and moving forward anyway.