Simplifying a Complicated World

The world is not easy to navigate. It’s complex and drains a lot of energy from you. Complicated connections. Pull one thing and a whole lot of others come apart, too.

Lots of tangled wires, all connected.

Sometimes, when we don’t do anything except witness–watch and wait, take notes before acting or jumping to conclusions–we get more information. That step–being a witness instead of a fixer–holds the space for learning.

Choosing to be a fixer means we rush in with an answer, a suggestion, a solution as soon as we sense the connection is complicated. We want to simplify it, cut it apart, all before we are sure what  the problem really is. Because solving problems gives us a shot at being a hero. If we are a witness, and wait for information, well, time could be lost.

It’s a twisted fence, ugly from this view. Complicated, too.

Time doesn’t get lost. We do, but time does not. Time knows exactly where it is. When we stand still, stay calm, witness, take notes, don’t give advice till we know what we are doing, we catch up with time. We gather information. We don’t take on work that isn’t ours to do. We see what is ready to resolve itself without our help.

A simple pattern evolves.

And then, in the sharp shadow of understanding, the information becomes not only clear, but beautiful. Sometimes without our getting involved at all. The shadow of the fence on the sidewalk shows, not the complicated twisted pattern, but a simple light and dark outline of connections.

The other side of complicated is not simple, it’s waiting. So we can learn more.

—Quinn McDonald is a creativity coach who learns on her walks every day.

Freelancers and Perspective

If you read the blog, you’ve seen several articles on perspective. (Here’s one using a fence,  one with a Homer Simpson tree,  the ugly dog mindset, and one using landscaping). Most people think perspective is an artist app, or maybe a New Age-y way of looking at life. But for a freelancer, knowing how to work with perspective can be the difference between saving and losing a client relationship.

Case A: Ms. Freelancer is a trainer. She has several clients, and Client A wants to lock the training days in place for the company’s budget. In July, at the beginning of the fiscal year, Client A and Ms. Freelancer agree to 5 training days through December. In October, two days before the training date, Ms. Freelancer calls Client A to confirm the upcoming training hours and ask for final registration numbers. Client A is flustered, having forgotten. There are only three people registered. Client A cancels the class and apologizes. Ms. Freelancer is left with no class, no pay, and not enough time to replace the work. Client A says, “Enjoy the unexpected day off.

Problem: To Client A, the only consequence is embarrassment. To Ms. Freelancer, the problem is both financial and supplies–she’s spent now-unpaid time preparing the class and money on class materials which now need to be stored for the next time.

Perspective: Ms. Freelancer makes money only on days she works. Client A gets paid every two weeks, no matter how much or little she works. She has no idea that she has caused financial problems for Ms. Freelancer. An unscheduled day off looks very different for each of these people. For Client A, it looks like a day of fun. For Ms. Freelancer, it could easily mean a bill-paying problem. Maybe even a grocery-restriction problem.

A contract is a negotiable document before it's signed.

Case B: Ms. Freelancer has saved dates for Client A, and lost one of them. Client B calls and asks for a training, which must be held on a date already promised to Client A. Ms. Freelancer worries that Client A may cancel another class and begins to wonder if it wouldn’t be smart to cancel Client A’s class and take Client B’s.

Problem: To Ms. Freelancer, having been burned, lining up another client might seem like a good idea. To Client A, it means a break in trust, and possibly a cancellation of the rest of the job.

Perspective: To Ms. Freelancer, having once been burned, it might look like a good idea to take on Client B. To Client A, it will look like a break in trust and contract. To Client B, cancellation will look like an unreliable freelancer at work. (Or not at work.)

Solutions: In both cases, it’s a matter of client education. A good idea is to add a kill fee into the contract. If the class is canceled less than a week in advance, the client pays a fee to the freelancer. Often, however, the client will refuse this. That’s how it is for most contracts–both parties want to have the upper hand. This is a time to negotiate. Before that, it’s good to explain to a client how life works for a freelancer. Don’t fall into the “I can’t buy groceries” trap. Showing neediness to a client is like having an overly-needy friend–you immediately want to push away, knowing that no matter what you do, it won’t be enough.

Better to say, “When you cancel, you are breaking the contract. When you do it with one-day notice, I have no way of replacing the training day, and I lose money. The purpose of our contract is to assure you that your group will be trained, and assure me that I will be paid. If you want to change the contract, we can talk about it. But canceling a day I have reserved for you needs to be covered financially.”

While that sounds tough, freelancers need to be clear. The client doesn’t have your perspective and can’t be expected to. When explained objectively, there is a better chance for good results. The other important part of perspective discussions, is to show the same situation if the client got the fuzzy end of the lollipop–if you canceled with one day’s notice.

Of course, one discussion won’t fit all sizes. Your experiences will vary. A client who is sloppy and cancels routinely is one that you need to drop. And that might require a shift in your perspective–a lousy client isn’t a client, it’s a financial liability.

–Quinn McDonald is a trainer, writer, and author.

 

Fence Perspective

When we see the world, we see it our way. When someone else tells us what they see, and we don’t understand it, we assume they are wrong. We trust what we see. “I know what I saw” we say, and we are sure. It is the Truth, with a capital T.

That’s how most of my clients see the world.  I don’t. I think we see what we want to see and disregard the rest. So it was fun to see this fence. Coming up on it, I saw that one of the verticals had been severely bent.

You can see the bent fence in the front third of the photo.

Yep, anyone would see that. Then I stood in front of the fence, and saw that the fence was pried apart. Yep, the Truth: the fence is damaged.

Big enough for a few javalinas to squeeze through.

Then I walked past the bent piece, and turned around and . . . the fence looked fine. It was the perspective of course. And the same as our own. We see what we think is “real” and that creates our reality.

Fence from the other end, looking back at the invisible damage.

Looking back, the damage vanishes. The fence seems fine. It just depends on what your perspective is. And that’s the Truth.

–Quinn McDonald is a writer and a life coach.

Raw Art Journal Prompt: Moon Lake

Raw art is the art you do from the deep, often lonely, place inside you that brings you great joy, but often not great understanding from others. It’s the place that sets you free, that allows you to draw, write, collage, even when you “can’t draw a stick figure.” (That’s how people who can’t draw describe themselves.) You often don’t show your raw art to people because you feel vulnerable, even exposed. Raw art is not perfect, sometimes it’s not clear to anyone but yourself.

That is the exact place creativity lives. In the work that makes meaning for you. Not photo-quality illustration. Not museum-accepted watercolor. A page in your journal that you hug to your chest because you got it right for you–that memory, that pain, that sadness, that joy, maybe even all of them together. Raw art is intimate and a bit scary because it is so real to you, so heavy with recognition of who you are, were, can be.

This raw-art journal prompt is simple–print it out, use it as a background, alter it to show what you need to show. Write over it. What is it? It’s a stark silhouette of a mountain with a moon mirrored in the still lake. Or maybe it’s just a crack in the sidewalk. You can decide. Put the link to your raw-art result in the comments.

 

Monochrome moon rising over lake.

 

–Quinn McDonald keeps a raw-art journal. Her how-to book, Raw Art Journaling: Making Meaning, Making Art will be published by North Light books in June of 2011.

Perspective in a Tree

Other people see the Virgin Mary in a grilled cheese sandwich or Jesus in a potato chip, or grow a rutabaga that looks like Lincoln.

Me, I walk by a tree every day that looks like Homer Simpson. Or at least it does to me. What have you seen lately that’s given you a fresh look at life?

 

 

If Homer Simpson were a tree. . .

 

 

–Quinn McDonald is a creativity coach who does walking meditation every morning. She helps other people explore possibilities in their lives.

Don’t Believe Everything You Think

Phoenix has a lot of dogs. Every morning, I’m greeted by barking dogs, dogs wanting to be petted, dogs out for a run. One house that I pass has a very quiet boxer who loves a little scratching, and a chocolate lab who barks incessently. This morning, I saw a third dog. He was fat and low-slung, and the ugliest dog I’ve ever seen.

Two dogs, one pig

As I walked toward the fence, the boxer and the ugly dog wrestled briefly, and the chocolate lab never stopped barking. As I got closer, I noticed the ugly dog was partially bald. A really ugly dog.

And suddenly my perspective shifted and I saw, not an ugly dog, but a handsome pig. The third dog was not dog, it was either a very large pot-bellied pig, or a small regular pig. It was no longer ugly, it was no longer bald. It had bristles like a pig.

Boxer and pig

When we look at things, people, even events, we see what we want to see. We make terrible eye witnesses to life. We see what we already know. We believe what we think we see. We make up conclusions to fit what we already believe. “She didn’t say hello to me so she must be angry.” “I forgot the milk when I was at the store, I hope it’s not Alzheimer’s.”  “Everything in the yard must be a dog.” I drew all my conclusions from recent experience.  And I was wrong. Once I could see the pig for what it was, I was ready to shift persepectives and judgment, to see it as it really was.

We have a tree in the back yard. It’s about 10 feet tall, and I have no idea what it is. I was waiting for it to bloom, to give me a hint. I was walking past it yesterday, when I noticed, out of the corner of my eye, what I took to be a wasp nest. My heart fell. I’m allergic to wasps, and just yesterday, when I was repotting an orchid, a wasp had been persistently hanging around me. Now here was a big nest.

What kind of tree is it?

I was about five feet past the tree when I stopped. The wasp nest was not shaped like a real wasp nest. It was round. And too light-colored. I backed up and there, in the tree, hung a single grapefruit, pale yellow like a full moon.

Grapefruit, just one

Yesterday’s wasp’s nest was today’s grapefruit. Because I didn’t know what the tree was, I didn’t recognize the fruit, which often grows in clusters. Although I’ve seen a number of grapefruit trees in the area, I’ve never seen a lone grapefruit on the tree.

We see what we expect to see.  We create people as we expect them to be. Forcing a new perspective can change the whole story, create an entirely new meaning, a new way of understanding. Interesting thought, isn’t it?

–Quinn McDonald is a writer and certified creativity coach. She teaches communications and personal journaling.

Perspective: What Are You Looking At?

My coaching clients and I do a lot of perspective work. We all see things our way, and often think it is the best, right, or only way. But look at your point of view from another perspective, and you often run into a real “Aha!’ moment.

Doing perspective work isn’t easy. It requires you to imagine what someone else believes or thinks. Often, a good way to get there is to use images. It makes it easier to imagine.

Clouds on Lake Michigan

I flew to the East Coast today, through Chicago. I love Chicago–it has friendly people, great restaurants, and I love Centennial Park. But the site that always amazes me is the flight over Lake Michigan. I think of the people who stood at the edge of what looks like an ocean, and decided to cross it, not having any idea of what they would discover or encounter on the crossing. And did it anyway.

The other amazing thing is that the city of Chicago presses on the edge of Lake Michigan, busy and crowded. On the other side, are small cities, much more pastoral. Why isn’t it as busy on the other side?

It’s a perspective issue. Flying over Lake Michigan, I was struck at the luminosity of the water. Last time I saw it, in November, it was gray and dark. Today it looked turquoise and serene. Over the water were shadows, and at first I thought they were some kind of wave effect. After studying them a few minutes, I saw they were rows of clouds between the airplane and the water. It suddenly “clicked” in my head, and then I couldn’t see it any other way.

Perspective work in coaching is like that. You see one thing, then, with some thinking, it suddenly “clicks” and you can see it another way. It frequently is followed by a rush of understanding and

Chicago coastline

expansion.

The two images are both of Lake Michigan. In the smaller image, you can see the edge of Chicago. The light-colored rectangle on the middle left edge  is the wing of the airplane.

–Quinn McDonald is a writer and certified creativity coach. See more about coaching at QuinnCreative.com. (c) 2008. All rights reserved.

Layering Colors

It was my first night in colored pencil class. This sounds a bit like coloring class for grown-ups. The lesson was drawing an apple. As I looked at the apple in front of me, I noticed it was irregular and had an interesting stem–and that made for a great outline drawing.

The lesson was to apply color from light to dark, so the first step was to cover the inside of the drawing with a nicely applied layer of cream. You dont’ want a lot of white spots on the paper. A layer of a light color modifies the image nicely.

As I applied layer after layer, it occurred to me how complicated the outside of an apple is. And how easy it is to make the apple look three -dimensional with the addition of a darker color. And how the highlight, where the ceiling light shines off the peel, is not really white, but reflective.

While I sat an applied color, I learned that a wash of yellow over the curve in the front brightens the entire image. That using the opposite of the red color of the apple–green–makes the shadows look deeper. That another layer of color can change the color entirely.

And I smiled because this sounded more like a life lesson than an art lesson. That steadily applying a cheerful face to life makes you more cheerful. That knowing the opposites in life–happiness and sorrow, failure and success, patience and impetuousness–adds richness to the texture of life. And that adding another perspective can change your outlook. Not only that, but that a lot of work and a willingness to keep layering color makes for a better depth of experience.

When I was done, I had used 15 colors on the apple. It had taken two hours. And I know that if I show it to someone, they’ll shrug and say, “Well, what will you DO with that? Can you sell it?” And I’ll smile and say, “It’s art,” and think, “Just like life.”

–Quinn McDonald is a writer and certified creativity coach. See her work at QuinnCreative.com  Apple drawing by Quinn McDonald. (c) 2008 All rights reservd.

Perspective Switch

One of the techniques I use in coaching is shifting perspective. We develop a point of view, and we reinforce it with beliefs and ideas. Pretty soon it’s not only the “right” way, but the “only” way. When a client gets stuck, it’s often a perspective issue. See if any of these sentences are ones you’ve said:

“That woman [man] hates me. I can’t do anything about it.”
“My boss [mother, mother-in-law, spouse, child, teacher] is out to get me. They are always criticizing me.”
“I can’t meet all your demands, it’s just too much.”
“I won’t ever be able to do that. I’m not up to it.”

All of those are perspectives. Your beliefs are certainly true for you at this moment. It’s your reality. But as my recent drawing classes have shown, if you move, even slightly, you will get a different view. And that viewpoint might shift your beliefs. If you see things differently, you can have a fresh look at them, maybe see something you didn’t see before.

Shifting your perspective is an exercise that asks the client to step into a different viewpoint. It’s not always easy, but it’s always enlightening. I’ll ask a client to pretend they are the other party, or to pretend they are in another part of their lives. Sometimes I even ask them to shift to a different position while they are talking to me. That is often enough to get them away from being stuck.

In the picture on the left, you can see an older house. You can see it has agaves growing in front of it, a grated door, and a typical desert front yard. You could draw all sorts of conclusions looking at the picture. If you are from the lush, green East, you could think the people are poor and have a dirt yard.

Now look at the photo below. The only change is that I took three steps backwards to take the photo. Exactly the same spot, just a different perspective. Now you can see the stucco and block fence that runs outside the house. You might think the person is closed off, maybe hates outsiders. You could add this to the idea that the person is poor, and you have a fairly unflattering picture of the owner.

Until you add the information that the house is in the desert Southwest, where almost every house is surrounded by a fence like this. Originally the fences kept out the wandering javelinas (wild pigs) that rooted up the gardens and attacked pets. Now, because most houses in this area are build close to each other to save resources, the fences provide boundaries and assure privacy. The landscape style suits the desert climate. It’s called xeriscaping, using only native desert plants and using sand and rocks as ground cover. Grass requires a lot of water, which isn’t plentiful in the Sonoran desert.

To get a different perspective, I often think of taking a photograph of my opinion, writing down a few viewpoints. Then I mentally turn, step back, or put a different light on it and take another mental picture. Voila! a new perspective. It doesn’t always result in an Aha! moment, but it does add important information to my decision making process.

–Quinn McDonald is a writer and certified creativity coach. She also develops and leads seminars on communicating better with office colleagues and friends. Image: Quinn took the photos. (c) 2008 All rights reserved.