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There’s no refrigerator space for inspiration

January 30, 2011 by Rosa Say

Here’s a new habit to groom for 2011, our year of better habits:

Make space for inspiration, and not in your refrigerator.

Add it to your language of intention.

It’s become my way to remember something I originally heard from Jason Fried of 37signals, when I heard him say in a podcast that “inspiration is perishable.”

You can’t bottle up inspiration. You can’t put it in a ziplock, toss it in the freezer, and fish it out later. It’s instantly perishable if you don’t eat it while it’s fresh.
~ Jason Fried

So true!

Inspiration is fragile and fleeting, and so you have to capitalize on it, and optimize it when you can whenever you have that chance. To simply capture it, say in a written note on a scrap of paper, or in a voice memo on your phone, usually isn’t enough for it to survive as true, earth shaking inspiration. You’ve let the moment pass, missing that window of opportunity where there was something more. You edited something which should have been allowed to run rampant for a while longer. Rampant, wild and free.

You can’t refrigerate a blue flame without smothering it.

The best possible time for inspiration to hit you, is when you have space in your life — in the day to day living of your life — to stop everything if you have to, so you can focus on that inspiration and nothing else. If it’s an idea, you can milk it for all it’s worth while your inspired thinking about it is shiny and new, fresh and still untapped of its greatest potential — however you usually get that full blown release to happen.

Some people need to talk it out, which is great, for it becomes this twofer where another person can get inspired too. Me? I have to be able to write it out, writing through a complete mindsweep until I feel mentally exhausted, but never spent, for those are the times I’m most energized and feeling like I’m on fire, and burning as hot and bright as I’ll ever burn — it’s the blue flame stuff: In most fire (because it can depend on the fuel too), the blue flame is the hottest, with the potential to tip into dazzling white fire, and it burns most efficiently.

So ask yourself this: When inspiration strikes, what do you do? Can you always do it? What must you change, from however your work atmosphere now exists, to make space in your day for your inspiration to run rampant, and for however long you need it to?

The part about making space in your day is important: KÄ“ia lā — it’s “about today, the here and now.” You can’t instruct your inspiration to only come around on weekends, or be satisfied with it only showing up once a month or so. Daily inspiration is what’s ‘Imi ola, and living your best possible life.

And have you tried to track it somehow, so you know when you’re likely to be inspired? It’s habit learning you have to incorporate into your trusted system or Strong Week Plan; you simply must. Books for example, always do it for me, somewhere within their once, twice, or third time coming.

It feels so delicious, to indulge in your inspiration!
I genuinely wish you blue flames, run rampant space, and no refrigerators.

Beverly Hills.ish

The most unexpected triggers can inspire you.

It was this Beverly Hills.ish looking car for me a few days ago.

Sweet, sweet ride.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Archive Aloha: Here’s a Take 5 of related postings:

  1. What Your Big Ideas Do Best
  2. PÅ«‘olo Mea Maika‘i: Playlists
  3. Embrace your Systems Thinker
  4. When Learning Gets Overwhelming
  5. Feeling Good Isn’t the Same as Feeling Strong

What Your Big Ideas Do Best

February 16, 2010 by Rosa Say for Say “Alaka‘i”

Your big ideas are kÄ“ia lā

Here’s a leadership thought I’ve been kicking around in my self-talk with the old muse lately, and I’d like to get it out as a conversational talk-story if it gets you thinking too.

In short, it goes like this:

Our big ideas don’t have to change the world.
They just have to move it along.

I think that we often saddle our ideas with unreasonable expectations, feeling that an idea isn’t that great (and it can’t be a leadership idea) unless it’s going to change the world somehow.

That’s like saying that everything in our world at the moment isn’t good enough, and so everything has to change. We know that’s not true. There is good we want to be constant, and long lasting: We actually prefer it doesn’t change much at all. There are many things we want to remain simple and uncomplicated, and the prospect of change can mean an evolutionary variation we aren’t prepared to handle yet (or simply have no desire for).

Keep your expectations about ENERGY

And that goes for your ideas too. They are probably bigger than you are giving them credit for, and you need to go all-in with them instead of delaying them, or dismissing them too soon.

What your biggest ideas do best, is become great for today [kÄ“ia lā is about today, the here and now.]

Let’s connect the Alaka‘i dots…

Aloha, the Spirit Within

What we’ve said about leading, is that it is a verb all managers do (you too).

We’ve said that leading creates energy: It’s the 30 that gets us the other 70 (and the no.2 in our Take 5 game-changing). The managing we will then do, is  to channel that energy we have created in the best possible way, bringing it to optimal usefulness.

Optimal usefulness is probably way more important to us today than tomorrow. We don’t know what will happen tomorrow, we can only guess. However we do know what is happening all around us today; today we can work with.

Make movement your best goal

Creating energy doesn’t necessarily mean we have to change the world.

Creating energy means we have to stimulate movement of some kind, so that we simply get things moving enough to get momentum going, momentum which keeps us inspired, and  actively engaged with the good work we do today, letting tomorrow take care of itself.

For after all, we’re here today, living and working with our Aloha in the here and now. Why not enjoy our energy creation for today, with more presence and Ho‘ohana intention?

And you know how we’ve been talking story about Aloha lately, and how love is a strengthener for us? We can connect this thought:

Going all in TODAY is loving something (your idea).
Going all in TODAY is being passionate about your idea gone big.
Going all in TODAY is doing everything on-purpose, as idea-critical.

When you love a leading idea deeply enough,
where you concentrate on it fully with a sense of urgency,
and you succeed in “moving it along”
you’ll be strengthening it.

As you strengthen it,
you’ll be preparing yourself a whole lot better for tomorrow.

You’ll have fed off your own leadership energy.
The ‘something’ gone big might just be you!

So give your ideas a break, and stop expecting them to be change-the-world big.
Ho‘o [make something happen] instead. Move it along.

Be a Ho‘ohana mover and Aloha lover; someone who works with full intention kÄ“ia lā (today).

That will be very cool.

Your big ideas will be kÄ“ia lā

If we all do this, bring full intention to handling our today, we’ll be getting stronger together. We’ll get strong  enough to love tomorrow a whole lot more when the time comes, and whatever tomorrow brings with it.

And you know what? That might change us.

Cross-posted: A slightly shorter version of this article appears on Say “Alaka‘i” at The Honolulu Advertiser today: This one includes a few more connections to some additional discussions we have had here on Talking Story.

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