Monday, August 6, 2007
More on Creating
I continue to spend a lot of time thinking about "creating" vs. "creativity" of late.
I saw the movie Pride on Saturday night, which is a true story of Jim Ellis, a math teacher, who started an all black swim club, back in the 1970s, when pools were beyond scarce in the inner city of Philadelphia.
From cleaning up a decaying pool at a rec center to winning swim meets against better-funded teams, the movie follows a predictable sports hero formula: underdogs come from behind to win--and big. There's nothing particularly amazing in the screenwriting either.
Regardless of predictability, the movie touched a chord. Because it's a true story. Because it's a story of caring about something enough, like swimming and kids, to overcome all the odds. Because it's a story about focusing on what the characters "wanted more of" (and not about the infuriating and potentially derailing things that happened along the way).
The movie Pride opens up with Jim Ellis looking for a job, ultimately any job, as he was turned away from teaching opportunities for which he was qualified. He ended up in a seemingly-dead-end job cleaning up a rec facility that was to be closed.
He could have started assessing things the community genuinely wanted and needed and made proposals based on what he discovered. He could have started any number of meaningful projects that way.
However, the difference between the project he did start and the many other possibilities was how much he cared--about swimming, about teaching, and especially about kids.
Tellingly, rather than his initial success in building the Philadelphia Department of Recreation (P.D.R.) being just a resume builder, Jim Ellis, a full 35 years later, is still teaching kids to swim and to have "pride, determination, and resilience" in their lives.
When clients ask for help in "finding their passion" it's typically not a case of "finding" anything at all. It's about having the courage to want what they want, to move forward on behalf of what they want, to invoke creativity at times, but more often to be hell bent on creating something that they consider important.
So what's stirring inside you? What passion have you only hinted at? What do you deeply care about but haven't moved into action? In your answer is the seed of your next creation.
It's not so much about "finding" something or trying to become "creative" as it is about courage--the courage to create what you care about.
Here's a quote I like on the "courage to create:"
Drop me a line with your thoughts on creating at cindy@themarteneygroup.com.
I saw the movie Pride on Saturday night, which is a true story of Jim Ellis, a math teacher, who started an all black swim club, back in the 1970s, when pools were beyond scarce in the inner city of Philadelphia.
From cleaning up a decaying pool at a rec center to winning swim meets against better-funded teams, the movie follows a predictable sports hero formula: underdogs come from behind to win--and big. There's nothing particularly amazing in the screenwriting either.
Regardless of predictability, the movie touched a chord. Because it's a true story. Because it's a story of caring about something enough, like swimming and kids, to overcome all the odds. Because it's a story about focusing on what the characters "wanted more of" (and not about the infuriating and potentially derailing things that happened along the way).
The movie Pride opens up with Jim Ellis looking for a job, ultimately any job, as he was turned away from teaching opportunities for which he was qualified. He ended up in a seemingly-dead-end job cleaning up a rec facility that was to be closed.
He could have started assessing things the community genuinely wanted and needed and made proposals based on what he discovered. He could have started any number of meaningful projects that way.
However, the difference between the project he did start and the many other possibilities was how much he cared--about swimming, about teaching, and especially about kids.
Tellingly, rather than his initial success in building the Philadelphia Department of Recreation (P.D.R.) being just a resume builder, Jim Ellis, a full 35 years later, is still teaching kids to swim and to have "pride, determination, and resilience" in their lives.
When clients ask for help in "finding their passion" it's typically not a case of "finding" anything at all. It's about having the courage to want what they want, to move forward on behalf of what they want, to invoke creativity at times, but more often to be hell bent on creating something that they consider important.
So what's stirring inside you? What passion have you only hinted at? What do you deeply care about but haven't moved into action? In your answer is the seed of your next creation.
It's not so much about "finding" something or trying to become "creative" as it is about courage--the courage to create what you care about.
Here's a quote I like on the "courage to create:"
"All one can do is to achieve nakedness,
to be what one is with all one's faculties and perceptions,
strengthened by all the skill which one can acquire,
And then to stand before the judgement of time."
---Stephen Spender
Drop me a line with your thoughts on creating at cindy@themarteneygroup.com.
# posted by Cindy Marteney @ 9:13 PM 
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