Don’t Just Poke the Box. Poke, Pivot, Repeat

I’ve hit many brick walls in my life.

From health troubles to career direction, the struggle to find my path has been all to familiar. And I sense that I’m face up against the barricade again with this site and my online future. So I’m left again with the same question…

“What do I do next?”

I think I’ll pivot.

Pivoting may not be your first thought. It wasn’t always mine. Like many, I used to function in a start-stop mentality. And not only start-stop motion but angular direction. This is a very rigid way of behaving, one that distorts nature and obscures opportunities.

Business, health, creativity, life … these pursuits are not mechanical. So why did I used to feel that polarizing changes in direction were always the solution? Why do we struggle collectively with navigating challenges and engineering solutions?

We need to pivot more.

There Are No Straight Lines

There are no straight lines in nature. Take water. Water flows in accord with the terrain. It doesn’t work against the rocks or fallen foliage. It adapts quickly and gently. It’s fluid, as all things in nature are.

Creativity is like water for these reasons. And yet we artificially complicate the process when our creative currents strike an obstacle. We lurch ourselves into park and ponder titanic corrections. Why? How about a pleasant downshift and slight altering of course?

Wouldn’t that be less chaotic? Wouldn’t that be less damaging? Wouldn’t that lead to faster breakthroughs?

I think so.

Creativity is like water – there are no straight lines. It’s all about being fluid, about pivoting.

Poke the Box…From All Sides

Who doesn’t adore Seth Godin. Seriously; the man’s a genius.

The Domino Project is Seth’s latest venture. It’s a bold play in a dynamic industry – publishing.

“Reinventing what it means to be a publisher, and along the way, spreading ideas that we’re proud to spread” is the project’s essence – representing “a fundamental shift in the way books (and digital media based on books) have always been published.”

Poke the Box is the project’s first creation; a featured work by Seth published via their partnership with Amazon. Poke the Box is all about taking initiative. The box is cast in the leading role. It leads one to ask…what is my box? And how do I poke it?

If you’re smart, what you don’t do is poke it once and from only one side.

This is a subtle point that requires more fanfare. Smart poking is pivoting done well. You’re evaluating the situation on all planes. You poke, evaluate, pivot, and poke again. It’s natural to poke and fluid to pivot. You pivot around the box ever poking to see what happens.

As Seth says, “[great creatives] repeat the process again and again until they figure out how the box works.”

This behavior maintains momentum – like water – and is a stark contrast to the start-stop mechanics we reviewed in the intro.

Pivot Fast; Pivot Frequently

Pivoting is most valuable when used fast and frequently. Pivoting is a muscle like all other habit – it’s strengthened with repeated used. The more you pivot (and poke) the more natural that behavior will become.

That’s to your massive advantage because in an ever-accelerating creative world the ripest rewards are reserved for those that can rename the nimblest in their thoughts and execution.

So, what am I going to do? How am I going to pivot?

As I shared at the start, I sense the need to pivot once again. I wrote a bit about this feeling recently when we discussed the role of instigators. But I’m still poking, still pivoting. Here’s what I’m discovering from doing so…

• This site has great ideas without a firm anchor
• Lacking this anchor, I’m not living up to my responsibilities as chief instigator for this community
• My ambition to be a trusted, respected, and approachable thought-leader isn’t well tied into my freelance editing business
• I have larger ambitions than just building a reputable blog (though such a blog plays into the larger ambitions)

There’s a simple bottom-line to all this – I’m not serving you as well as I should or am capable of doing.

I’m going to further evolve this site’s focus – still with the “discover your innate power” theme but channeled in a more thoughtful, anchored direction. I welcome your inputs into this. Please contact me with your ideas!

As always, to infinity and beyond…just with a little more poking