Quinn McDonald's Blog, page 100

What Gets in the Way is Important

“Look where you want to go,” I often say to my coaching clients. “Without looking at what you want, you won’t recognize it when it’s in front of you.” Sometimes I even say, “Unless you have a dream and know what it looks like, you can’t create it.”

Opposite ends of the day: SunsetDawn by Roshni Kakad, from her blog: http://roshnikakad.blogspot.com/2011/...

The opposite is also true. If you constantly imagine failure, know what it looks like, and keep looking for it, you will find it. And yet, I don’t believe in the more militant portions of the Law of Attraction that say if you even consider  a Plan B, if you even think about a block to success, you will fail because you manifested failure just thinking about it.

I think it takes a lot more than that. I think people who are afraid of failure spend a lot more time planning what they will do when they fail than they do about how to succeed.

As a coach, I think that failure is important. We can learn from failure. The important thing we can learn is what gets in our way. Is it poor planning? Is it fear? Is it a feeling of “not enough”? What gets in our way in one part of our life is almost always the same thing that gets in the way in another part of our life.

People often believe that once you find your stumbling block and name it, well, you just pull it out by the roots and then you are done. After that, a perfect life awaits. If you are chuckling, you would enjoy a day in my coaching chair. Many, many people believe that recognizing a problem is the same as solving it.

A problem is a situation that requires change to alter the situation. And most people don’t want change. Even if they recognize the problem, they believe the outcome will be different if they ignore it again. Or they are embarrassed that the same problem has come back. I think that one reason people fail on the way to success is that they don’t want to address the same problem in a different suit, so they say it is a different problem. What gets in the way is often the same problem.

What holds us up, what causes us to slip and fall, is the same problem that’s part of your story. We know our story so well, we have developed a pattern of living by it. And that includes the thing that gets in the way, too. Maybe it’s quitting too early, maybe it’s making an assumption about worthiness. Whatever gets in your way has been doing it for a long time.

This is the shocking part: It’s the other end of something useful and one of your best characteristics. It always is. Love details? Good at quality control? Could it be your problem is procrastination? (It often is with perfectionists.) Well organized? Got your to-do list under control? Take a look at what happens when that gets too much. Are you a micro-manager? A bit obsessive?

Our good points are always linked to those characteristics we’d like to get rid of. What gets in the way is too much of a good thing. And then it’s not good any more. Take a close look at it; you’ll have it with you for a long time. Don’t try to pull it out by the roots, but do try to dial it back. What happens next is that you will have to make more room for success.

–-Quinn McDonald is a creativity coach and art journaler who teaches what she knows.

Filed under: Creativity, In My Life, Recovering Perfectionists Tagged: faults, on the way to success, postaday2012, story

Hidden Stories

Monsoon Papers hold endless fascination for me because I can’t control them. I think I am going to make a largely blue one, and then one corner, with a yellow flash, holds all the interest. I begin to think of the background of the page, and think of it like tea leaves–that the random patterns hold the story of the past and future.

The detail above looks to me like an exploding sun at the time of creation. It spins off a world into the shadowy ocean. People are born and live on that world, which is not of their choosing. Some thrive, others ache for what they don’t have on this undersea, mysterious world.

When I make them, my hands and arms are covered in ink that takes days to wear off. I don’t get tired of looking at the accidental details in the papers. In this one the sun is back and the gold shows the track of the sun as it crosses the sky in a different path through the seasons. The years behind the gold tracks layer into the colors. There is history on this page.

This looks like an ancient map, on ancient papers, with shadows hiding the parts of the past we want to forget.

My biggest delight today is that I discovered how to make Monsoon Papers in a room with one sink. Without a hose and with rich, deep colors. That means that I have inks, will travel. I no longer need good weather and outdoor space to make Monsoon Papers. And best of all, these new ones also tell me stories about places I’ve never seen.

--Quinn McDonald is a writer and artist who works at the intersection of stories and color. She teaches what she knows.

Filed under: Raw Art Journaling, The Writing Life, Wabi-Sabi Tagged: inspiration, mixed media, monsoon papers, story-telling

Competitive Peer Pressure

Klout sent me a notice. Klout, if you don’t know, is a program that tells you how much you influence your Twitter followers. The notice warned me that I was “falling behind” some of my “peers” in the popularity numbers they make up.

Mean, but popular, girls.

I thought about this a while, wondering what they expected my reaction to be. After all, who cares about an imaginary score, based on arbitrary ideas of influence? A lot of people, I discovered. Three of my friends encouraged me to take some of the steps suggested to become more influential.There’s a nightclub in Manhattan that won’t let you in unless your score is a certain minimum number.

That baffled me. Why would I want to trade some of my privacy to gather non-existent points to pretend I am influential to my Twitter followers? I already know how popular I am on Twitter by how many people come from Twitter to read the blog by clicking on a link.

That need to be told you are popular appears on Facebook, too. There are any number of posts that give a fact, then a challenge. For example: I’m checking to see how carefully you read Facebook. Share if you read this. I know 99% of my friends won’t do it, but I hope you will.” I have no inclination to share those posts. I feel vaguely bullied by them. But not enough to share them. All they are missing is some dire threat of bad luck if you don’t comply.

FourSquare, the annoying program that posts where you are all the time (I don’t care if you are at Joe’s Gas ‘n’ Grill in Seymor, N.J) because it has made you think your friends (and Twitter followers who live in another state) care. Most likely, they do not, unless you are a new driver and the person who cares is your parent.

Of course you have many close friends on Facebook, and if one of them didn’t post, you would call them and ask if they are OK. No? What? You might not notice? Well, there goes your Klout score. And you’ll never be the Mayor of Farmville on FourSquare. I remember when I felt sorry for the people who thought their Twitter friends meant as much as real friends.  Now real isn’t enough. We’re competing with them for attention.  Me? I’m heading to the studio. I feel productive there.

–Quinn McDonald is a creativity coach who helps people with re-invention and change.

 

Filed under: In My Life, Opinion Tagged: fake popularity, influence, popularlity, postaday2012

Books on the Nightstand

Do you have a pile of books someplace–a waiting list of books that you want to get to in some order? My pile is balancing precariously on the nightstand. Some of them are partially read, some new and waiting.

We read for many reasons–to learn, to relax, to satisfy curiosity. I belong to Goodreads, and you can certainly categorize and chat about book choices there. But I’m curious about that stack and why you are reading what you are reading.

Here’s the top seven of my stack, along with reasons:

Refuge, by Terry Tempest Williams. About half read. Just started it. A book about the loss of a wildlife habitat combined with the loss of the writer’s mother to cancer. The balance of loss in nature and in family is carefully written, never mawkish. I’m a naturalist, and this book is a natural for me.

A Thousand Names for Joy by Byron Katie with Stephen Mitchell. A gift book and one I’m curious about. After discovering “the work” that Katie does, I’m interested in this topic: Living in Harmony with the Way Things Are.

Creating Time: Using Creativity to Reinvent the Clock and Reclaim Your Life by Marney Makridakis. An interesting collection of essays on re-imagining time and how to make it appear to slow down or speed up. Lavishly illustrated by the coaches Marney trains. I love other people’s perspctives on time and how time controls your life.

Stung by “B”s by Theresa JK Drinka and Jeni Synnes. A survival guide to help identify and overcome the damage of the disruptive people in our lives. When you are a coach, reading books about people who push your buttons is an excellent idea. Just ordered it, but am delighted to know it’s on the way.

The Accidental Creative by Todd Henry. The workplace is taking on creativity as a desirable trait, and I can see it being pushed into little cookie-cutter shapes already. I’ve heard of “disruptive ideas” and it makes me roll my eyes. I also read a lot of books on creativity so I can listen knowledgeably to people who speak about it.

What the Dead Know by Laura Lippman. Suspense novel. Lippman worked for the Baltimore Sun and her novel takes place in Baltimore. I’ve lived there, so it’s interesting to hear the details I recognize about the city. This novel is a page turner and I’m hooked. The woman who should be a protagonist is not likable, and may be a narcissistic liar or an innocent victim. The male protagonist is a cynical cop. I’m almost done and have no idea who did what. I like the Tess Monaghan novels, and I like this one.

The Scrapbook of Frankie Pratt by Caroline Preston. A fascinating collage book. Preston collected vintage (1920s-1930s) ephemera and then created a story around it. You turn the pages of the book like a scrapbook, get caught up in ticket stubs, photos, photos of old cans and labels as well as the story of Frankie, a young woman with a wandering heart and a Corona manual typewriter. Great concept.

What is in your reading stack? What’s the one you are choosing next?

--Quinn McDonald is a writer and creativity coach who loves to read.

Filed under: Book Reviews, Opinion, The Writing Life Tagged: collage, Creativity, non-fiction, reading

Drama-Lovers Bliss: Munchausen at Work

Some years ago, when I was still in the corporate world, I had a boss who was a mystery to me. She seemed to be very savvy at work politics (which I was not.) What made her a mystery to me was that when I was around her, a crisis would erupt out of nowhere. Suddenly, there was lots of activity, staying late and coming in early. Then, as suddenly as it had started, the crisis was declared over.

It took me months to untangle the mystery, and I didn’t want to believe it when I

The real Baron von Munchausen. Image source: Wikipedia

did. The crisis would erupt when my supervisor wanted the attention of her boss. Occasionally, the crisis would erupt when she had forgotten a deadline or offended her boss in some other way. She then deftly created a crisis, was the only person who know how to solve it, solved it successfully, and got the attention she needed, along with the praise that come from crisis management.

The fact that there were bodies scattered around her office was of no importance. We were the collateral damage of the corporate world. So skillful was this tactic, that I thought I was imagining it. When I saw it years later, at another job in another state, I realized it was real. And I wasn’t the only one noticing it.

Jennifer Alvey, the author of the Leaving Law blog told me some time ago that this behavior has a name: Munchausen at Work. Named after the mental disease in which a person fakes symptoms or deliberately harms themselves in order to get medical attention and sympathy, Munchausen is no less serious when it migrates to the workplace.

John Neville (who died in 2011) played Munchausen in the movies.

According to a Harvard Business Review article (Nov. 2007),Georgia Tech professon Nate Bennett reported on the phenomenon and gave it the name.  The Wall Street Journal took it seriously enough highlight Munchausen at Work as well. The article concluded that fewer people have cause to engage in creating a crisis with the economy stripping workplace employees down to a minimum.

I humbly disagree. A workforce pressed to excel, in which perfectionism is treated as success instead of the sure path to failure, is a workplace ready for Munchausen at Work, and even Munchausen-by-proxy at work. (Munchausen by Proxy is a mental disorder in which a caretaker of someone helpless—often a child—induces real or faked illness to gain attention for the caregiver.)

A example of Munchausen-by-proxy at Work would be an employee who causes strife between two departments or two co-workers through gossip, rumors or lies. The originator then steps in as intermediary and saves the situation. This happens in businesses where knowledge is restricted to those who “need to know” and is then used as currency for favors.

Knowledge or information hoarding is common in businesses, often through lack of communication. The most frequent sign of MAW or MBPAW is poorly-run meetings. If the reason for meetings is to distribute knowledge, than a meeting gone wrong raises  more problems than it solves. Meetings that involve too many people, not the right people, or the same few people and a management representative are also symptoms.

What do you do if you think this is happening at work? Watch for a lack of teamwork; different departments being told wildly varying reasons for problems; employees being deliberately pitted against each other in the same department; and a workplace that creates “heroes” and rewards them lavishly.

The best way around this problem is not to participate in it.
Do not create or fuel drama at work.
Do not get involved in gossip or shunning.
Get your work done on time.

It’s true that if you don’t participate, the MAW may get worse as the attention-seeker stretches to absurd lengths to get attention. And that is what will eventually come to the attention of senior management. A MAW employee will almost always overstep the rules of accepted office behavior. And do it quickly. The real Baron von Munchausen (for whom the disease is named) first exaggerated deeds on the 18th-century battlefield. When he didn’t get enough attention, he claimed to have ridden cannonballs as they were shot, to have roamed the moon, and to have pulled himself out of a quicksand-like pond by his own bootstraps. Which is where that expression comes from.

--Quinn McDonald is no fan of drama. She’s seen her share of Munchausen–at work and in social situations. She writes about what she sees.

Filed under: In My Life, Opinion Tagged: crises creators, Munchausen at Work, office politics, postaday2012

The Beauty of Change

This palo verde is in Arizona. It’s been trimmed, and it’s bare.

When I arrived in Wisconsin, the trees were leafing out. Seeing big-leaved trees again was great, they had just started to unfold and fill the trees. By the time I went home three days later, the trees had come into their shapes.

Change. We hate the idea, but we live it every day. The trees changed every day I was there. They were changing when I watched and when I didn’t.

Evolution is not something limited to ten thousand years ago. Evolution happens every day. We adapt, we behave a new way, it works, we keep doing it. We’ve changed.

Leaves are starting to push out, dark and fresh green.

Adapting is the stepping stone to flexibility. Flexibility is the doorway to creativity. We explore, we create, we invent, and we grow. Creative evolution. We change without really noticing it, just notice that our art is getting easier. More satisfying. More natural. Until we have fully leafed out and ideas come to rest in the shadow we cast on the earth.

Tree in progress to becoming.

–Quinn McDonald is an artist who writes and teaches what she knows. It changes from year to year.

Filed under: Coaching, Creativity, Nature, Inside and Out Tagged: change, evolution, growth, naturalist

Monsoon Papers: Learning from Class

I’ve taught in a lot of places, and I’ve had a lot of experiences. Right up there at the top of my “Wow!” list is the class I just taught at Valley Ridge in Muscoda, Wisconsin. Katherine Engen, the owner-artist of Valley Ridge has the genius gift of treating both participants and instructors as very special people. She values creativity, and she honors it. Instructors are treasured and class participants are honored for their enthusiasm, skill and adventurous spirit.

I taught a class this weekend that included Monsoon Papers. On Saturday night, Katherine invited us all into her house for dinner. We cooked together–always a wonderful experience, but the conversation that flowed through the meal was as nurturing as anything we ate.

Some photos:

Monsoon papers and ink-as-color postcard.

No one in this class was afraid of color!

It was wonderful to see people make different papers with completely different color ways.

Shy people can turn bold with gold!

Maroon asparagus reflected in the granite kitchen counter. Looks like they are in a stream. Katherine tried this technique and I was happy to learn from her.

One of four amazing chandeliers in the great room. Even the lighting is art at Valley Ridge.

Monsoon Papers work best when the creator doesn’t try to control the result.

Monet-like colors started as an experiment and worked beautifully.

These aren’t the only photos, just ones I could put up quickly.

Thanks to everyone who made the weekend incredible!

--Quinn McDonald teaches art and writing classes and loves it best when they come together.

Filed under: Coaching, Creativity, Journal Pages, Raw Art Journaling Tagged: art class, monsoon papers, Valley Ridge, Wisconsin

The Perfect Purse is Out There

Still haven’t found a summer purse. Can’t carry the black leather tote in the summer because I’ll poach the phone in a black bag. So I’m on the lookout for a summer tote.

But aliens have invaded the brains of purse designers, making them design bags with enough buckles, straps, and whip ends to win the Preakness without a jockey. And never fear breaking your delicate ankle schlepping one of these behemoths. The bags I saw tonight were thicker than the skin of a politician cheating on his wife. Who needs to be carrying a bag with an 8-inch bottom?  Get an LL Bean tote if you need that, but please give me a tote that doesn’t make me look as wide as a street sweeper.

In fact, here are some rules for all you purse designers to sell on Etsy, Ebay and store outlets:

1. Stop using magnets. Please. I know they are cheaper than zippers. They also mess up debit cards, metro passes, hotel room keys and older  iPhones. And no, I don’t want to carry my iPhone in a separate bag. One, good, big bag will do. I looked at 300 bags tonight, and two of them (both priced at more than $300) were magnet free.

2. Use a lining that isn’t black. I don’t want to have to carry a flashlight to find something in the dark recesses of my purse. Use a lighter lining–tan, gray, red. Just not black.

3. If you are going to add a cellphone pocket, please measure a cellphone first. And not just yours. Measure an iPhone, too. The purses I saw tonight are apparently designed for gum-chewers, as  the pockets were neither deep enough nor wide enough to hold my cell phone.

4. All those samples from Restoration Hardware you’ve attached to the outside of the purse can be exchanged for a decent outside pocket. It’s where I’d like to put my keys or cellphone, or my boarding pass or even that tower of precarious bills, change and receipt that the grocery checker  balances on your palm, leaving you to walk out of the store carrying because you need both hands to put it away.

5. If you are going to build a vertical purse, please put a lot of pockets on the walls. Otherwise, everything falls into the dark bottom and bulges. I already have a body that looks like that, please make my purse more practical.

6. Make the strap adjustable. I know the Size 00 you designed it for can get it over her tiny shoulder, but if the strap is so short that I have to apply antiperspirant to the bag  to be able to wear it without ruining it, the strap is too short.

7. Give the top a closure I can use with one hand. No magnets, please. In addition to the problems in Item #1, a magnet shuts the middle, leaving both ends open, inviting the pickpocket riding next to me on the light rail to help himself. A zipper is the best. A zipper that closes from both sides is best of all.

8. Please don’t tuck that extra foot of lining you have leftover into the bag. A lining that fills up the bag and hides half the contents of the bag is no friend to those of us in a hurry to find the checkbook.

9. If you are going to use a double handle, measure carefully. If they aren’t the same size, the longer one will keep flopping off our shoulders.

10. Many women like to carry a magazine or a file folder in their bag. Please don’t make it 1/8 of an inch too short. Make it fit, or make it a lot smaller. Don’t be a tease.

–Bags, from top:  Red, shiny bag: Antonio Melani Small Hobo Bag $199.00 at Dillards; turquoise pleated bag:Prada Tessuto Gaufre Hobo $1,195.00 at Neiman Marcus; taupe multi-pocket bag: Plenty by Tracy Reese Multi Pocket Drawstring Hobo, $335.00 at Nordstrom.

--Quinn McDonald is a writer who carries a journal, colored pencils, an iPhone, and a book in her purse. She is convinced that the right purse is out there, with clean lines and no frou-frou.

Filed under: Creativity

Nature, Text Messaging

When the phone rang at 6:30 this morning, I already had the headset on. When you are a creativity coach, you leave at least one morning for early calls and one evening for late calls. Not every client wants to call from work, so you plan to do the coaching early or late. After the coaching calls were over, I prepared for a client meeting. It is a lovely May day, and I decided to leave the studio window open.

On my way out of the studio, I heard the text message beep that signaled an incoming message. I smiled. One of my clients loves to text me. I love this client’s ability to summarize problems; he drew me into learning how to spell with my thumbs 9 years ago, and now I love the brief exchanges of ideas.

We’d talked early, and I was surprised to get a text message. I put my purse containing the phone on the kitchen chair when the beep sounded faintly again. “I need breakfast first,” I said to the purse, poured a cup of coffee, and reached for the granola. Another beep. I gave in. This many messages sounded serious. Before I poured milk on the granola, I pulled the phone from the briefcase. No messages. I checked again. Nope, no messages. I shook my head. I could have sworn I heard it. I dropped the phone back into the purse.

I sprinkled blueberries on my granola and poured milk over it. The beep again. But this time, it seemed to be coming from the window in front of me. I pushed open the window and heard another incoming message. But this time I saw the message-sender. The mockingbird sat in the fig tree next to the kitchen window. He’s heard the beep often enough to repeat it. He already mimics my alarm clock and now he’s got the text message notification down perfectly.

When mockingbirds learned to mimic sounds, it must have been for a better reason than echoing technological tools. But I have to admit, he’s useful. I’m a sound sleeper, but what the alarm clock can’t do–the mockingbird can. I can’t turn him off.

—Quinn McDonald is a creativity coach, writer and art journaler.

Filed under: Coaching, Creativity, The Writing Life Tagged: birds, mimics, nature, technology.

Privacy, Designed

Most of my journals are experimental, so I write notes in them, experiment in them, and don’t worry too much about having beautiful show-piece journals. But because my life is really just one push of toothpaste out of the tube, I also write my thoughts, fears and hopes into my journals.

Once, I was more careful to keep things separate, but I have become stubborn in my refusal to create “show journals” that don’t reflect my life. It’s one of the reasons working on loose leaf pages is appealing. That way I can gather what I want to show to a class.

Side view of journal with tied pages.

The journal that’s going to Valley Ridge with me this weekend is one that contains some personal observations that I don’t care to share with anyone. They might include my own inner critic’s rant, or a comment I found hurtful but recorded, along with the source–things that don’t benefit from sharing.

Still, the journal has a lot of pages that demo a technique, so it’s coming along. How to keep private thoughts private?

One hole is enough, no need to turn the journal into a sneaker-lacing project.

I punched a hole in the contiguous pages that contained the information, then tied them shut with waxed linen. Elegant in its own right, not glaring enough to call attention to what it might contain, this method is better than ripping pages out or pasting other paper over it.

Close up of tied pages.

When I return home, I can take out the waxed linen, and the pages, still  punched, will be neatly marked for the next time they need privacy.

–Quinn McDonald is a creativity coach, who teaches art journaling with a lot of creativity coaching mixed in.

Filed under: Journal Pages, Raw Art Journaling, The Writing Life Tagged: art journaling, mixed media journals, private journals