Getting Work To Work

One of my favorite questions to ask people and reflect upon myself is: What advice would you give your younger self? While it's a question that reveals a future direction by examining past decisions, it sometimes isn't enough to get you out of a rut. As I was thinking about the question today, I felt a variation bubble up from the recesses of my mind: What advice is your younger self giving you today? Like most of us, I often lose my way, and it is the wisdom of past experiences that are the best teachers, so it's time for me to pay attention.

From philosophy professor to ghostwriter and entrepreneur, today's guest on Getting Work To Work has fascinating insights into the world of ideas, words, and collaboration. Emily Crookston, AKA The Pocket Ph.D., loves working with rebels, renegades, and mavericks who not only innovate and disrupt the status quo but want to pass their knowledge and wisdom along. In this conversation, Emily talks about how she has learned to collaborate, the art of giving and receiving feedback, the most crucial question she asks a prospective client, and the role empathy plays in her creative process.

As this month's theme of practice comes to an end, I want to reflect on the following question: Why do you practice? Perhaps you're like me and were indoctrinated as a young child with the phrase, "practice makes perfect." It's a simple statement with profound consequences over a person's lifetime. To be perfect, or said another way, the best, you must devote yourself to daily practice. You must sacrifice everything you have. But what if there is more to practice than perfection? I think there is, and chances are, you believe that too.

In the good times and the bad times, where do you look for wonder? Kate Nason is a writer, artist, and storyteller who has lived an unbelievable life. Our conversation begins with what she is learning while writing her second book: discovering past family secrets as she pieces together the story by working with a genealogist. From there, we go on a journey of art history, collage, and memoir, learning to balance the past, present, and future and finding meaning in what befalls us. She shares her writing process—working with scenes and making collages to get unstuck—and learning how to trust herself.

When I was thinking about the theme of practice, the first thing I wrote down was the connection and confusion between it and performance. With social media and digital technology keeping us connected to everyone and everything 24 hours a day, seven days a week, it's no wonder we have turned every possible moment into a stage. But non-stop performance is exhausting and unsustainable. What could we become if we took even an hour of our day and stopped performing and started practicing? What if we took a break from brand management and tried something new? What if we stopped playing the hits on repeat and created something new, something daring and bold?

What happens when you can no longer do what you have trained to do? Do you give up, or do you find a way forward? Today's guest is David Lindsay, a personal trainer and professional speaker who brings an athlete's mindset to the corporate world. In this conversation, he shares what it takes to live a phenomenal life. We talk about building trust with people who have faith in you, dealing with what life gives you, getting comfortable with the uncomfortable, and how to train your mind like the muscle it is. Most importantly, he reveals rest's impact on our bodies and minds.

Continuing the monthly theme of practicing your creativity, today I'm exploring how practice defines an entire creative process while simultaneously shaping each step uniquely. I'll share a few examples and set you up with all you need to define your process and specify what you should practice next. Whether you're new to creativity or an established professional, nothing will shake up your work quite like practice.

Why not poetry? According to today's guest, the power of a poem is in its brevity, the ability to focus and precisely say what needs to be said. In her words, Ashanti Anderson is a poet, playwright, screenwriter, and occasional essayist. Starting with a reading from her debut short poetry collection, Black Under, Ashanti brings us onto common ground. From there, we talk about her quest for creative self-discovery, how she found poetry, and the visual nature of crafting poems. I hope this conversation opens you to new avenues of creative exploration and limitless possibilities.

This month on Getting Work To Work, I'm focusing each monologue on one theme: practice. I've been thinking a lot about practice each day as I play my guitar. Even though I've been playing for 27 years, my fingers have minds of their own. Practicing scales and exercises make sense with the guitar, but what does practice look like in other parts of my creative life? What does it look like in your creative pursuits? In this episode, I will set the stage for practice and do a deep dive into what it is, why it's essential, and why it isn't as popular as it should be.

There are three questions at the core of this episode with Capacity Architect Scott Ritzheimer: 1) What type of leader are you? 2) How are you bringing people together? 3) What stage is your business at in the lifecycle of an organization? In this conversation, Scott shares the four types of leaders in every organization, what predictable success is and where it fits into a company's lifecycle, how companies lose their way, and why systematizing decision-making is the secret to scaling a business. Grab something to take notes with because there is a lot to learn in this episode.