I've
had a marvellous October.
I picked up the prototypes of my new book,
Booster Shot! Get unstuck
and get going on the stuff that matters,
and I've been showing it off madly
to all and sundry (it is, if I say
so myself, a beautiful thing). I
spent a week in England with friends
and colleagues in interesting and
provocative conversations. And I've
just returned from Quebec City where
I presented at the International
Coach Federation conference and hung
out with a thousand coaches from
30 different countries.
The connection between all of these adventures
has been about doing Great Work - in other
words, how to make sure the stuff that
you do is the best possible stuff to be
doing.
(Know anyone who could do with more Great
Work in their life? Would they enjoy Outside
the Lines?
Please forward this (in its entirety
please, using the link at the end
of the newsletter) to anyone else
you think might be interested.
This community grows with your
help. As a thank you, I'll donate
10 cents for every subscriber to
The Nature Conservancy Canada.
You can check out the great work
they do at www.natureconservancy.ca.)
Michael Bungay Stanier
Principal, Box of Crayons
Great
work? Good work? Bad work?
You may not know the name of Milton Glaser,
but you probably know at least one of his
works of art - the
"I NY" logo.
(The most recent homage of many is the IHuckabees movie).
My friend Kate pointed me to a very powerful
distinction Glaser makes in his book, Art
is Work:
- Work that goes beyond its functional
intention and moves us in deep
and mysterious ways we call great work.
- Work
that is conceived and executed with
elegance and rigour we call good work.
- Work that meets its intended need honestly
and without pretence we call simply
work.
- Everything else,
the sad and shoddy stuff of daily life,
can come under the heading of bad work.
I often combine the
second and third distinction, so that I have
just three categories: Great Work, Good Work
and Bad Work. And by "Work",
I'm talking all of "the stuff you do".
It's not only about what you do in the office,
but what you do 24/7. Work includes looking
after your children, watching TV, preparing
meals, exercise, being with friends, being
by yourself, and so on.
How do you know
what's what? Here's my litmus test. Great
Work brings with it both exhilaration
and terror. You're delighted when someone
asks you what you do. You tap into reserves
of courage and chutzpah to get done what
needs to be done. You often have no idea
how to do what needs to be done, and
are only a little fazed by that (check
out Peter Block's latest, The
Answer to How Is Yes). It is a place
of inspiration, where suddenly all your
past makes sense ("a-ha! That's
why I did that, learned that, experienced
that"). It is a
place that honours your skills, your passion
and your experience.
With Good Work, there is no shame attached.
You're doing work that uses your skills,
it gets stuff done, it may well pay you
a wage. It's not that you're having a bad
time. It's just that when you're asked
at parties what you do, sometimes it feels
like you're trying to convince yourself
that this is great. And in a year's time,
you probably can't remember what it was
you were doing a year ago.
And as for Bad Work, this is when you
sit and ask yourself: why exactly am I
wasting my life with this?
Action:
Here's a quick exercise. Draw a biggish circle
on a piece of paper. Now, divide it into
three segments that represent the proportion
of each of these types of work in your life
today.
How much Great Work are you doing? More
than 80%? Less than 20%? A good many of
my conversations of the last month have
been around this very topic - how inspiring
the concept of Great Work is, and how few
of us have lots of Great Work in our lives.
What would you
have to say "no" to,
to double the amount of Great Work in your
life?
What would you have to say "yes" to,
to halve the amount of Bad Work in your
life?
Quotes
"The secret
of life is this: When you hear the sound
of the cannons, walk toward them." Marcel France
"A man with outward courage dares
to die. A man with inward courage dares
to live." Lao-Tzu
Booster
Shot! Can you help?
Great Work has been top of mind for me
recently because, through my work on Booster
Shot!, I've come to realise just how little
Great Work I've done in my life. I've spent
an awfully large part of my life cruising
along in the Good Work lane. Now I get
the difference "in my bones".
This book is the best possible route at
the moment to my "bigger game",
which is to infect a billion people with
the possibility virus.*
Booster Shot! is a self-coaching book
that allows you to get unstuck and get
going on stuff that matters. It combines
the deepest principles of creativity and
coaching, and it's a source of infinitely
renewable possibilities. Because of its
unique structure, you can generate 125,000
different possible perspectives with this
book to any challenge you might have -
and then work through the Action Acceleration(TM)
Sheet to commit to doing something about
it.
Help me!
Here's how you
could help me. Part of the publishing
game is to get brief testimonials from "the good and the great" saying
that they think this is a good book. I
am shamelessly asking people to introduce
me to "the most famous person they
know" in the hope that they might
write a testimonial. I'm looking for people
with Impressive Titles in Impressive Organizations
(both profit and non-profit) and people
who are influential in their communities.
If you think there's someone out there
who fits the bill and might be willing
to help me out, please let me know! As
a thank you for every introduction I get,
I'll make a donation to the Nature Conservancy
of Canada.
Booster Shot! will
be available in March 2005. You'll hear
more about it as we get closer to its release
date. Right now, you can register for no-obligation
pre-publication specials and information
at www.getunstuckandgetgoing.com.
*The
Possibility Virus. Why Possibility? One characteristic
of being stuck in your life is you can
only see one possible way of viewing
the situation... and you don't like what
you see. If people can create possibilities,
they have a choice. If they can chose,
then they can chose the best possible
life ("Great Work").
If people chose the best possible life,
humankind is emancipated! Why a Virus?
A virus spreads of its own accord, rapidly
infecting large numbers of people. To touch
a billion people, this thing needs to find
its own way to get around!
Creativity Camp
A number of you have expressed interested
in the Creativity Camp (www.creativitycamp.ca),
which I've mentioned in previous issues.
It's now been rescheduled to January 19
2005. I'll be presenting the opening session,
which will help set the day up so it is
both inspiring and useful (it's a process
you can use every day of your life). Save
the date, and sign up.
And
Welcome
I
know this month I have quite a few new
subscribers, many of whom I met at the
ICF Conference in Quebec City. I wanted
to say what a pleasure it was to hang out
with so many people who are committed to
using coaching as a force for change in
this world. These are people who are stepping
into Great Work.
Michael Bungay Stanier is a certified coach,
consultant, trainer and speaker. He works
with people, teams and organizations to
step forward into possibilities, so that
they have more impact and have more fun.
You can find out all about it at www.boxofcrayons.biz
or you can just contact him directly at
Michael@BoxOfCrayons.biz
or +1 (416) 532-1322.
Outside the Lines is distributed
on the 2nd Thursday of every month. Subscribe
at www.boxofcrayons.biz.
Your contact information is never traded,
never rented, never sold.
All writing (c) Box of Crayons 2004. Box
of Crayons is a registered trading name
of Maida CC Inc.
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