studio non troppo : mindful design : facilitation

Photo: Michael Dunn~!

Success results from a good mix of will and sensitivity.

Edison had the will to invent (from the Latin invenire, meaning “to find”) the incandescent lightbulb. Although thousands of his experiments failed to result in a working lightbulb, he persevered. His will helped him overcome setbacks and non-starters.

Edison also had the sensitivity to learn from setbacks, to adjust what he was trying, rather than repeat the same experiment over and over again.

If you have the will to express yourself, be glad that you possess such an elemental force. You would have little chance of making it through the bracken and bog of false starts and failures along the way to expression if you didn’t have this will.

But to the extent you want to communicate and not just express, untempered will does not work, at least not for a project of any complexity.

This is because you have to be sensitive to the other participants, the other stakeholders. If you were Edison, this sensitivity took the form of noticing how nature worked and how it didn’t work. Some materials simply didn’t work as filaments, and pointing a finger and insisting wouldn’t have made any difference. His goal was a kind of communication: he wanted to play the inventing game together with nature.

If you have an idea you want to get out there, you have the best chances for success if you have the will to express you idea and the sensitivity to observe how other people respond to it. If other people reject your idea and you are listening to them, you are already communicating. Your lightbulb will work eventually.

Here are two resources for you. Steven Pressfield’s The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles is a call to arms (or pens, really), providing practical insights to help you employ the will necessary to create.

John Wiley Spiers’ How Small Business Trades Worldwide: Your Guide to Starting or Expanding a Small Business International Trade Company NOW is a primer for starting an import/export business, but more importantly, it lays out a compelling argument why cultivating your sensitivity to other stakeholders (customers, in this case) is the perfect navigational aid.

Please share your feedback and contributions in the comments. What resources have benefited you?