Find the Fire Page 2

  1. Fear—The Anti-Muse of Fear is the most devastating of them all. In her presence our sense of inspiration is all but vanquished. We’re in no state of mind to receive inspiration. We can become immobilized, distracted, and thrust into self-doubt mode. Growth and discovery hide in the shadows. Worry replaces wonder.

  Inspiration is doomed in the face of three fears in particular: the fear of failure, the fear of change, and the fear of criticism. Chapter 2, “Fear (Relinquished),” will give you the firepower to turn the tables on this arch-enemy of inspiration. Specifically, you’ll discover how fear interrupts our ability to get inspired. You’ll also learn:

  • How to overcome the fear of failure

  • How to overcome a fear of change

  • How to overcome a fear of criticism

  2. Settling and Boredom—Most of us have experienced or can imagine a time at work when we have been stuck. Time passes and our drive, interest, and output can wane. We discover we’re getting even less than what we know we settled for. Boredom can soon follow. We take lunches that last longer than a jar of VapoRub. Inspiration exits stage left.

  The truth is if you know you’ve settled for too long, or have become bored with your work, you have the power to change it.

  The Anti-Muse of Settling and Boredom exists, more than any other such fiend, by our own choice.

  So rejecting this force is about choosing to shift to a more open mindset and seek out new experiences. Chapter 3, “Settling and Boredom (Rejected),” will show you how. You’ll discover how to shatter a sense of settling and boredom and open the windows of inspiration by learning:

  • How to embolden yourself to take more risks

  • How to start learning and growing again

  • How to make your own opportunities

  3. Inundation—When we’re making things happen, it happens to feel great. More than that, we’re inspired to keep going, as we can sense the impact we’re having. One Harvard researcher refers to this as the “progress principle”—of all the things that can boost emotions, motivation, perceptions, and levels of inspiration during a workday, the single most important is making progress, especially on work that matters to us.12

  The Anti-Muse of Inundation is the mortal enemy of our ability to make progress at work (second only to jammed copy machines). She interrupts the virtuous cycle of progress that inspires us to keep going, which fuels more progress, which further inspires us, and so on.

  In Chapter 4, “Inundation (Relieved),” you’ll discover how to quell your sense of inundation and enable progress, in partnership with inspiration, to do its thing. You’ll learn:

  • How to make choices and set priorities

  • How to stop procrastinating and get s#@! done

  • How to stop being a perfectionist

  • How to master the art of pushback

  • How to ask for help and look good doing it

  4. Loss of Control—Psychology research shows that when we feel we have control over what happens in our lives and can favorably influence outcomes, even in times of duress, we’re also much more likely to look within ourselves for inspiration (as opposed to waiting for it to happen to us).13

  So when we have a sense of control, we’ll take more control, even over such a “divine” force as inspiration. We’re less distracted, are less likely to feel victimized, and feel much more able to take note of and act on inspiring cues all around us. Chapter 5, “Loss of Control (Reverted),” will teach you how to revive inspiration by taking control back from this whirlwind Anti-Muse. Specifically, you’ll learn:

  • How you give away your power

  • How you can take back a sense of power

  • How you emit power

  5. Dwindling Self-Belief—Inspiration is a profoundly strong force that in turn requires a base level of inner strength from which to draw—like a tornado needs the atmospheric conditions of a thunderstorm to form and then unleash its fury. This inner fortitude takes the form of an engaged, optimistic, able, self-confident presence. Research bears this out, indicating that inspired people report substantially higher levels of important psychological resources, including belief in their own abilities, self-esteem, and optimism.14 Plus they’re more likely to wear their skinny jeans on casual Friday.

  When such a presence becomes a mere shadow of itself, ground to a pulp in the daily grind, our impact and sense of inspiration evaporate. Without a revitalization of our personal presence, we begin to withdraw from our job more and more. We unwittingly shut ourselves out from passion and possibility until eventually the siren song of inspiration is doomed to fall on deaf ears.

  Chapter 6, “Dwindling Self-Belief (Revitalized),” will help you rebound against this Anti-Muse by reinvigorating your self-belief. You will thus maximize your receptivity and readiness for inspiration. You’ll learn:

  • How to elevate your self-confidence

  • How to persevere in the face of challenges

  • How to be mindfully present

  • How to earn respect

  6. Disconnectedness—Psychology professor and inspiration expert Tobin Hart asked research respondents to describe the opposite, or the lack of, inspiration. The most common response (after “the Department of Motor Vehicles”) was: “I experience a lack of connection. I feel isolated and alone.”15 It probably isn’t surprising to learn that research shows we become immensely uninspired when we become disconnected from those we are surrounded by each day at work. These human connections are deep wells of energy from which inspiration can take form.

  Chapter 7, “Disconnectedness (Reversed),” will detail how to reverse the net effect of the Anti-Muse of Disconnectedness. You’ll learn how to:

  • Reconnect with coworkers and reenergize interactions by learning how to go beyond mere collaboration to camaraderie

  • Do so while still cultivating the healthy debate necessary for producing inspiring ideas

  7. Dearth of Creating—Countless studies and raw common sense will tell you that creativity blossoms when the artist, musician, employee, etc. becomes inspired. The link between inspiration and creativity is irrefutable—the former spurs the latter.

  But is the inverse true?

  Does the act of being creative inspire you?

  Chapter 8, “Dearth of Creating (Reconstituted),” will prove this an emphatic yes and underscore the travesty at hand when we find that we’ve somehow stopped creating. The Dearth of Creating Anti-Muse is doing its stifling deed when we find that we’ve stopped expressing ourselves through our work and producing unique output that we’re proud to share with the world.

  Let what you’re capable of making/producing/writing/performing/leading come bursting forth. Make this Anti-Muse cower with the furious roar of your creative voice being heard once again. In Chapter 8, learn:

  • A powerful, detailed method for unleashing your creativity

  8. Insignificance—A close second to Fear for her dastardly skill at thoroughly suppressing a sense of inspiration is Insignificance, the most deep-seated of the Anti-Muses. She materializes as a feeling that what we’re spending our precious time on isn’t making a difference on anything that matters to us, and that we don’t really matter, or simply don’t measure up to others.

  When we can bring a sense of significance and meaning back to what we’re doing, we work with a hum, an almost palpable vibrating energy that replaces the numbness we felt beforehand. This energy drives us to advance our pursuits and jars our mind open to discover new worthy pursuits, all of which attracts more such energy—in the form of inspiration.

  So how, then, do we spend less time on the indent of someone else’s footprint and get to work on our own? How do we bring back a sense of importance to our efforts? (Besides suddenly and weirdly asking coworkers to add the title “Dr.” when addressing us)

  Chapter 9, “Insignificance (Reformulated),” will address these questions and share prompts and/or mantras for leaving your mark—time-tested manners
through which you can have an impact. And impact invites inspiration.

  9. Lack of Evocation—In the opening of this chapter I pleaded that you not rely on external forces to evoke a sense of inspiration, and instead look within and attack the draining counterforces. That said, I want to leave no stone unturned in this vital pursuit.

  But this Anti-Muse, Lack of Evocation, is a tricky foe as she’s the most patient evil-doer of the bunch.

  She will wait forever, hoping that you’ll wait forever.

  And the longer you passively wait for inspiration to appear, the stronger its cumulative negative effect (like that of reality television). More specifically, when inspiration isn’t evoked after a sustained period, your belief that it will ever show up rapidly wanes. You begin to mentally write off your job as hopeless and may even miss signals of inspiration trying to break through along the way—a double whammy.

  You deserve an occasional window of evoked inspiration to go along with the doors of inspirational opportunities you’re about to open elsewhere.

  To enable this, proactivity, not passivity, is the way forward. Hunting for external stimulus likely to spur inspiration simply requires knowing where to look. Chapter 10, “Lack of Evocation (Rediscovered),” will teach you:

  • How to evoke inspiration from external sources, including understanding the conditions and behaviors that do so

  • How to convert an inspiration-draining boss into an inspiration-evoking one

  So there you have it—it was my absolute displeasure to introduce you to the Anti-Muses—the nine fiends that drain our inspiration. Fortunately, I was also able to provide an overview for each strain of Antidote you’ll be learning much more about in subsequent chapters. (In Chapter 11, “The Bonfire,” you’ll also be given a plan for putting all the tools in this book to work for you in an organized and intentional manner to ensure that the fire of inspiration is fully rekindled.)

  Let us now proceed with concocting and then administering each Antidote.

  And let’s do so with haste. Time is precious and everyone knows that the only way to immortality is to put a man in charge of remembering birthdays.

  Inspiration, you’re more than on the mend—you’re about to be wholly reignited.

  PART II

  THE ANTIDOTE

  2

  Fear

  (RELINQUISHED)

  EXACTLY 543.7 MILES.

  The distance from Sydney, Australia, to Melbourne is dread inducing enough even to the heartiest of ultra-marathoners—and that’s before you throw in the fact that challenging hills populate the expanse.

  Hailed by many as “The World’s Most Grueling Athletic Competition,” the Westfield Run is not for the faint of heart, to say the least. On a scale of 1 to 10 for difficulty, this challenge measures “sadist.” One can only imagine the level of athletic prowess and preparation required to compete in such a horrifically grueling event.

  So on race day, April 27, 1983, it wasn’t surprising to see a supremely fit-looking group of entrants at the registration table, all decked out in the latest running shoe technology and garb emblazoned with corporate sponsorship from the likes of Nike and Adidas. Each runner was a world class athlete who had been specifically training for this event; the best of the best ultra-marathoners, twenty-somethings with something to prove to the world, and themselves.

  Not surprisingly, no one paid attention to Cliff Young when he nudged his way up to the tent to get his race number, dressed in holey overalls and rubber rain boots. In fact, he passed as a spectator, until he joined the other runners as they congregated at the race’s start point. Suddenly, many did take notice.

  Surely, this toothless, bedraggled man wasn’t actually going to run? The media approached him, thinking it was a publicity stunt of some sort. Turns out it wasn’t. The scrawny potato and sheep farmer fully intended to race. He told the press he’d finish the race (which very few did) because he was used to corralling, by foot, over 2,000 sheep on a 2,000-acre farm when storms rolled in—a duty necessitated by the fact that his family was too poor to afford a horse or tractor. As he told the press that day: “Sometimes I would have to run those sheep for two or three days. It took a long time, but I’d catch them. I believe I can run this race.”

  Bold statement considering the fact that I don’t think I could drive this race without keeling over from exhaustion.

  Befuddled, the press and onlookers watched with amusement as the race began. It appeared everyone’s skepticism was correct; during the opening day of the race the farmer soon fell dramatically and hopelessly behind the pack, he and his rain boots quickly tens of miles behind the other runners. He drew further cackles with his gait, which was much more of an awkward foot-beside-foot shuffle than it was the loping stride of a seasoned marathoner.

  He didn’t run like Forrest Gump, but comically had gumption to spare.

  Five days, fifteen hours, and four minutes later, however, no one was laughing.

  By then, Cliff Young, the easy target for ridicule that he was, had won the Westfield Run, finishing more than ten hours ahead of the other runners and obliterating the previous record by more than two days.

  Oh, and one other thing—he was 61 years old.

  You see, no one told Cliff that ultra-marathoners ran for eighteen hours, then slept for six. What did he know? That first night, after a brief nap of about an hour he simply got up and kept going. No preconceived notions of how it was supposed to be done or what’s been proven to work, no master stroke of running strategy, no fine-tuned world beating running technique—just keep running while the others slept.

  The other runners woke up to find out Cliff Young was now miles and miles ahead of them, shuffling slowly along in a modern day tortoise and hare affair. And so it went for over five and a half days, with the other runners never so much as catching a whiff of Cliff after that first night.1

  Cliff Young was deeply inspired to run such a ludicrous distance because, in his own words: “I like to finish what I start doing. I like to see it through to the end, to the best of my ability.”2 And what better challenge than to try to finish something that so few others ever could or have.

  The secret to Cliff’s success, you ask?

  No, not steroids. At least I don’t think.

  Young’s inspiration to start and finish such a herculean feat was never, not even for a moment, dampened by fear—although it had every opportunity to be.

  He knew not of the fear of failure—which could have understandably paralyzed him in the face of such an audacious undertaking. He just ran. He didn’t have preexisting norms and self-doubt born from comparing himself to others crippling him from the get-go. In fact, when all was said and done, he pushed the five other finishers of the race to their own individual successes, with each one breaking the previous Westfield record in their attempt to catch Cliff. To honor their success, Cliff actually gave away much of the $10,000 winner’s pot to the other five finishers, citing that they were tougher then he was. He didn’t even know there was a prize for winning—stating again as he gave away the money, and thus further endearing himself to Australia, that he was inspired to just “finish what he started.”

  He certainly could have succumbed to the fear of criticism—he wasn’t ignorant of the laughs and looks he got as he started the race (the same sort I get when I try to grow a beard). On that first day, the press and a nation of onlookers now joining in and compelled by his story, feared for Cliff’s life, certain that the old man would collapse and die at the end of the first day of such exertion. Calls came in from around the continent of Australia as the race wore on, begging race officials to make Cliff stop. Those concerns were shared with Cliff along the way. But still Cliff ran, impervious to the critics, the doubts, and the fears of all.

  After Cliff’s win, life changed at a blurring and uncomfortable pace for the simple farmer. But he did not bend to the fear of change. He answered the call to serve as a national hero, the furthest thing possible
from being a potato and sheep farmer and the last thing on his mind.

  And so, still, he ran.

  All the way up to eighteen years after his Westfield win, at the age of 79, he ran—this time deeply inspired by his desire to raise money to help homeless children.

  Today, the odd style of running Cliff made famous is called the “Young Shuffle” and has been adopted by ultra-marathoners around the world and hailed as a more energy-efficient means of running great lengths. Three winners of the Westfield since Cliff Young have employed the method. And taking in the absolute bare minimum amount of sleep during the race has become standard practice (among ultra-marathoners and new parents). More important, Cliff Young inspired an entire country along the way and to this day is hailed as a true Australian legend.3 Probably bigger than Crocodile Dundee. OK, I have no way of proving that.

  Anyway, all this because a country bumpkin refused to let fear, in any form, dampen his inspiration for doing something that mattered to him.

  We all have some of the Cliff Young spirit in us—that stoic force bathed in innocence that draws from inspiration for energy and that treats fear as a nonentity. It’s a part of us well worth enlisting in the battle, as the Anti-Muse called Fear is insatiable in her need to devour our sense of inspiration and wonder.

  THE FEAR EFFECT

  Fear will never, ever, stop if left unchecked.

  The impact that fear has on inspiration is unquestionably both manifold and malevolent. In general, the negative emotion and energy of fear alters our capacity to harness the positive energy of inspiration. While inspiration presses us forward, fear holds us back.

  More specifically, fear assaults our sense of inspiration in five ways:

  1. Fear disrupts the preparedness of our mind for being inspired. It greatly compromises our ability to focus, be present, still our minds, listen, and reflect—all the necessary state of mind ingredients for being maximally receptive to the advances of inspiration.4