MONDAY BYTES — April 20, 2015
Whom do you read, listen to, and pay attention to?
Which organizations and groups play key roles in providing you with creative input?
Provocative exercise for this week: Take out a piece of unlined paper and in the center of it draw any kind of little squiggle or figure to represent yourself—in all you fabulousness.
Next, radiating out around you, use dots or any other symbols to represent people in your “inner circle” and add their names. Include those who regularly influence you and whose counsel are sources of inspiration.
Keep going: map your constellation out further.
Add in the names of folks that you maybe don’t interact with quite as much but who have been good sources of energy, ideas, feedback. This might be through their work with you, or periodic conversations, or through their writing, speaking, or their examples as role models.
Add more: include not only individuals but also groups or organizations you traffic with that are key to your creative life. These might include work-related organizations as well as groups you belong to, such as book clubs, social groups, and community organizations.
If you take 15 minutes to map this, I guarantee you’ll remember folks you’d benefit from reconnecting with. And it will remind you of all that you have to be grateful for.
We are each rich in creative social capital.
Why not reconnect with some of your creative influencers this week? A quick email to set up a time to talk? Reconnecting with colleagues and mentors is often the best fuel to recharge a project!
I’d love to hear how this goes—and it would be great (if you want) to email me back a photo of your map—happy diagramming)!
PS: In writing this blog post, I had to look up (yet again) the rules for who/whom because my inner grammarian is not always reliable. Who knew we could learn this with help from an old Get Smart routine. Read Who/Whom do you love.
For info on working with me: details are HERE.
