I’ve been spending time reflecting upon the realizations from my last post and trying to wrap my head around it, so that I can try to start communicating in this new way. However, I keep feeling inadequate and at a loss to do so.
But when this happens now, I notice a pattern that emerges to overcome this feeling. And that pattern is me repeating to myself what creativity means to me.
Creativity is discovering something that has always been there all along but you just weren’t aware of it yet.
So when I think I can’t do something that’s new, I begin to reflect back to see if I have already unknowingly been doing what I want to do.
And strangely enough, I do become aware of ways I’ve already been doing what I want to do.
It’s funny because this mirrors something I’ve said before in terms of how it relates to organizational development.
You don’t need to find leaders outside your organization. There are tons of leaders inside of it already. You just need to become aware of them and see them for what they are.
In other words, often times we blind ourselves to possibilities and opportunities that are right under our very noses because we are looking with blinders of beliefs and assumptions on. Thus we often have a very narrow, limited, pre-defined perspective of what we “expect” we should be looking for and seeing.
Yet if we let go of these filters and broaden our vision, suddenly so much more comes into view.
So just like how a CEO is blind to potential leaders within their organizational body, I have as well been blind to aspects of myself that have already been communicating in this new way until I broaden my gaze and specifically look back for it.
In doing so, I realize instances where I’ve already been communicating in this new way.
One memory I believe is back in the past when I left a note for my wife using MMORPG language as though I was off adventuring and slaying dragons during my work day.
Another memory is how I’ve been trying to articulate my life changing experience back in 2001, when the dot-com bubble burst and I lost my job. I remember continually saying that I began questioning my beliefs and assumptions around work and in doing so, it lead me on a lifelong quest to research a new way of working.
These are both examples of describing everyday events but then interjecting keywords that embody my Life is a Role-Playing Game framework to it (i.e questioning = quest).
Yet in doing so, I’m not explaining from outside the framework, I’m instead expressing the experience from the inside of it, thus embodying it in the way I communicate.
In other words, this method of communication doesn’t feel like a know-it-all who has mastered everything already (because I most definitely haven’t) but rather feels like a not-know-it-all who is going through an experience that they can’t make sense of and it feels unknown and uncertain to them.
In doing so, it makes other people resonate with the feeling of being in an unknown and uncertain space and helps them to realize that this isn’t abnormal but actually a completely normal part of life which is what growth and development feels like.
So all I need to do now is just the same thing that a CEO would do within his organization to let the potential leadership within it emerge.
I need to get out of my own way and let these aspects of myself communicate more fully in this newer, already emerging, way.