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In This Issue: September 13, 2007
- No More Bland - Getting the Curry Effect Who knew the secret of a good Vindaloo is also a secret to a richer, tastier life?
- An Apology For those of you who got a little more of me than you wanted the other week.
- The Market Place The Joy Facilitator's Guide. For trainers, facilitators, coaches - an excellent, inspiring and practical resource to add to your products and services.
- What Stops Coaching Flourishing? Thanks to everyone who has participated in the survey. If you’d like to share your opinions, you’ve got until Friday September 21.
 Warm wishes,
Michael Bungay Stanier
Principal, Box of Crayons
PS - Know anyone whose life is a little bland? Please forward Outside the Lines to anyone you think might be interested.
No More Bland - Getting the "curry effect"
The other day I was having coffee with a friend of mine, Ric Wolfe, and he asked if I'd ever experienced "the curry effect."
I sipped my espresso, trying not to look confused.
“Have you ever noticed,” he said, “that as you eat a curry it gets hotter and hotter with every bite. The flavor expands as the heat gets more intense.”
I'm not talking about vindaloo here
Now, I've eaten some brilliant curries. First in England in London’s Brick Lane. Then in Boston's Back Bay. And last year a fish curry in Mumbai, India. (But not yet, sadly, in Canada. If any Canadians can recommend a restaurant...). I love the heat, the sweet, the sour all mixed together in an ecstasy of flavors, especially when you get to mop it all up with fresh, hot Naan bread ... one of my favorite things in the whole world.
But I'd never considered "the curry effect" before - and how it can help you create a richer, tastier life...
Suddenly, I got an appetite
And suddenly, that's what I wanted. Curry. And lots of it.
Not literally, of course - it was 9 in the morning, and I wasn't ready for a jalfrazi or a korma.
But I was hungry for more intensity, more flavor, more heat in the work that I do and the life I lead.
I realised that there were just too many things that I was doing that were under-spiced. They weren't bad. They were perfectly palatable. But did they give me, and the other people involved, more heat and more flavor the longer they stayed and tasted?
Nope.
The curry measuring stick
So the "curry effect" is one of my new business metrics.
(I've never been that good at metrics. But this is a form of measurement that makes sense).
As I look at the work I can do, I now ask myself two great questions.
1. Is this Bad, Good or Great Work?
2. Out of 10, what's the "curry effect" here? And what will it take to increase the intensity?
Beyond TABO
This newsletter is an example of something I've worked on, and I want to show you what I was thinking.
What I want: I want this to help you make connections and learn something new in an easy and non-pompous way, be full of my personality and inspire you to try out something different.
Blandness danger: The metaphors are too obvious. The sources aren't "digested" enough, so it's just me telling rather than cooking my own meal. I don't give the writing enough time for my personality to blend in.
How to get the curry effect: More of me (are you seeing that in this newsletter?) At least three strands of interesting things woven together to go beyond TABO ("True And Bleedingly Obvious). Insights that light me up.
Currying favor
So what could benefit from "the curry effect" in your life?
Step one: Get clear about an area of focus. Just pick one for now. It could be about how you show up in your relationship with your partner. It could be about how you find clients. it could be about your role in a project at work. Whatever's important for you - and just a little bland right now.
Step two: What do you want? Imagine you had the full "curry effect" going on. Heat. Flavor. Intensity. This is one delicious dish! This is as good as it gets. Close your eyes and just spend a minute imagining how that might look. Just like when eating a curry, you should feel a little sweat, a little excitment, a little raised heart beat as you connect to this fantastic moment.
Step three: Where’s the danger of blandness? Where are things getting watered down?
Step four: So what will it take to bring this back to life, to give it a hit of flavour, intensity and heat?
Step five: Start cooking! What's the first step you need to take towards getting that "curry effect"? You don't need to do everything at once, just like you wouldn't cook a curry by throwing all the ingredients in at once. Where's the starting point? What will you do differently?
Want to learn more? Here are some great resources
Getting intense...
The Dip, Seth Godin. Godin's latest, and as usual he's taken a simple idea and brought it to life. This is about what it takes to "push through" to create something that's the best
Re-Imagine, Tom Peters. Anything Peters does is done with passion and intensity. This is my favourite of his books, as irritating as it is provocative as it is useful.
Finding fabulous curries...
In the UK, The Guardian have listed their top 10 curry houses here
Here's my favourite curry recipe book Classic Indian Vegetarian and Grain Cooking by Julie Sahni.
Here's the secret to great curries
Cooling things down
OK, this is off topic...but here's a practical way for you to not contribute to global warming. Try this funky application for your computer.
Don't take my word for it
Smart folks thinking out loud about getting intense.
"The excellency of every art is its intensity, capable of making all disagreeable evaporate."
-John Keats, English poet
"You try to stay within the rules for the sake of the game, but you can always turn up the intensity."
-Lawrence Taylor, American football player
"The most intense conflicts, if overcome, leave behind a sense of security and calm that is not easily disturbed. It is just these intense conflicts and their conflagration which are needed to produce valuable and lasting results."
-Carl Jung, Swiss psychologist
"There is only one admirable form of the imagination: the imagination that is so intense that it creates a new reality, that it makes things happen."
Sean O'Faolain, Irish author
"I'm a very intense person. When I go after something, I want to go after it with everything I have. I want to push myself to the edge."
-Greg Norman, Australian golfer
"Out of intense complexities intense simplicities emerge."
-Winston Churchill, English statesman
"We are told that talent creates its own opportunities. But it sometimes seems that intense desire creates not only its own opportunities, but its own talents."
-Eric Hoffer, American author
"I feel the need of attaining the maximum of intensity with the minimum of means. It is this which has led me to give my painting a character of even greater bareness."
Joan Miro, Spanish artist
"This curry was like a performance of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony that I'd once heard...especially the last movement, with everything screaming and banging 'Joy.' It stunned, it made one fear great art. My father could say nothing after the meal."
-Anthony Burgess, English author
Apologies
We goofed up the other week, and a bunch of you ended up getting a series of emails from me you didn’t ask for. Sorry about that – a technical snafu at our end, followed by a certain amount of hand-wringing and teeth-gnashing…
The Market Place: The Joy Facilitator's Guide
This is the best
facilitator's guide
I have ever seen,
and should be seriously
considered by any
coach, trainer
or facilitator
looking to add
a new service to
their current "mix".
You can check it out here.
When I first learned
of this product,
my cunning plan was
to take a peek at
what Suzanne Falter-Burns
had written on how
to create, book,
fill and lead a creativity
workshop. I
thought: I'll get
myself a copy, check
it out and when I
write my own facilitator's
guide for Get
Unstuck & Get
Going, I'd have a useful template.
And I’ve found it both inspiring and daunting. This
is a high quality
product, and one
which gives you a
great deal of support
in selling and running
a workshop on creativity
Here's what makes
it so good:
- It's got
wise things
to say about
creativity. In
other words,
the core content
is rock solid.
- It's
a
plug
and
play
workshop
that
comes
in
four
or
five
different
formats,
from
a
full
weekend
to
a
teleclass.
- You have
an unlimited
license that
lets you change
it at will.
- The material's
been tried
and tested for
over 6 years.
- It's crammed
full of information:
400 pages -
of process, stories,
encouragement
and support,
as well as supporting
CDs
- It
does a brilliant
job at helping
you visualize
the course, doing
all it can to
help you understand
and then "own" the
material.
- It has a wonderful
section on
how to market
the tool - this
from a woman
who's written
one of the definitive
guides on getting
known.
- It's wonderfully
written. Suzanne's
a former copy
writer, and she
writes elegantly.
You
can check
it out here.
What Stops Coaching Flourishing?
Many thanks to the 800+ people who've already answered the survey to date - I'm very grateful for your support. For others, this is a final call to get your opinions on what stops coaching flourishing.
I'm presenting a workshop called "Coaching 2.0" at the OD Network Conference in Baltimore in October and I need your help.
In the workshop, I will explore what allows coaching to REALLY flourish in organizations.
To do that, I want to understand the barriers that stop coaching from having the impact it might.
If you work in an organization, or provide coaching to an organization, I’d greatly appreciate you taking 5 minutes (or less) to complete this quick survey on coaching in organizations. You can take the survey now
As a thank you, I'll happily send you (if you wish) the results of this survey AND the handouts from the conference.
You can access the survey here
Got It Going On: Michael's Speaking Gigs
There are some upcoming public workshops in Toronto, Baltimore and Italy. You can find out more here.
"The day was a huge success. My team felt invigorated with the new skills learned and found it extremely beneficial to practice the new techniques on a 'real life' example. Michael gave us some very practical tools and insights, but was also flexible and accommodating to the needs of the group. I have great confidence that my team will continue to apply the learning." - Melissa Gasson, Director, Kraft Canada.
Could I be of service to your organization? If you are responsible for booking speakers or organizing conferences, or know someone who is, find out more information here.
About Michael
Michael Bungay Stanier is the guy behind The Possibility Virus, an organization that provides products and services so people can have lives of fun, inspiration and action.
To learn more about his corporate offerings, see BoxOfCrayons.biz
You can find out more by contacting Michael directly at michael@boxofcrayons.biz or +1 (416) 532-1322.
Subscribe - To subscribe to Outside the Lines click here or go to PossibilityVirus.com.
Reprint - I'd be delighted if you should wish to reprint (for free) any part of Outside the Lines in your newsletters, websites, and message boards. Simply include the following attribution:
Michael Bungay Stanier is a professional keynote speaker, the author of the best selling coaching tool, Get Unstuck & Get Going ...on the stuff that matters and the creator of Eight Irresistible Principles of Fun. A certified coach and Rhodes Scholar, he works with teams and organizations to help them do less Good Work and more Great Work.
Schedule - Outside the Lines is distributed on the 2nd and 4th Thursday of every month. Your contact information is never traded, never rented, never sold.
I send out an extra email one to three times a month detailing programs and offers.
©Box of Crayons 2007. Box of Crayons is a registered trading name of Maida CC Inc.
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