Innovation Math

Work, as described by most, is doing something (something you probably would not be doing otherwise) with your time, energy, and focus - that someone else needs done, for a certain pay.  A key component to work, as opposed to other energy uses, is that exchange of money.

Without the money exchange the same exact things done are not called work.  And do not feel like work.  They feel like something else.  When you are paid to do something there is a certain pressure to do it in a certain way.  To perform and produce it accordingly.

Not bad.  Definitely different.

Does the exchange of money necessarily impact the quality of original work?  Can it actually inspire exceptional artistry?  Or does receiving payment for work simply act as the deadline needed to push new work out (accountability to keep us moving)?

That would be the best construction.  The love of money causes problems.  And we usually tend to see a future with more of it.  Much more of it.  If this, than that.  If we can cut costs here, we can enlarge profits there.  But there is only room for one great love.

The thought of avarice or greed rarely makes it into a discussion on entrepreneurship.

But all the greats have one thing in common.  When asked about their passion or process they do not mention fame and fortune as the driving force.  Instead they have an incessant drive to get “it” right.  They hear a song in their head and know iwhen they hear it.  It is clear.

What are great producers, artists, and writers really after?  What are they searching for?  Success?  Money?  That sounds ridiculous even to say.  But could they even put into words the objective of their pursuit?  Do they know what it is exactly they are pursuing?

Or can they only know once they see it, hear it, or experience it?

That is the beautiful symmetry of creating.  The math of innovation.  We experiment.  We theorize.  We explore.  We try.  We design.  We tweak.  We re-design.  We feel.  We listen.  We learn.  We try again.  And then one of those times something magical finally happens.

We find it.

We find the thing we have been looking for, though we could not have described it before then.  But once we heard it, saw it, experienced it, we knew…this was it!  This is what we’ve been after.  This is the thing we have been dreaming of all along.  This is it!

How we got here (or how it arrived) must remain a mystery.

But we got there, little by little by little.  Showing up.  Caring.  Doing what we were called to do.  Not sure how it would pan out.  But caring nonetheless.  And it’s that caring that leads us here.  It’s that caring that brings us to sacrificially keep working.  To keep showing up.

Even when we are not sure what’s to come of it.  Especially then.  For then we realize that we want the thing not just for what it gives us.  We want the thing on its own terms.  We want the thing because we know what it did for us, what it can do for others.  We want it for itself.

That’s when we enter into a whole new territory.  Our relationship evolves.  We are now at the mercy of the gift.  But the gift is merciful.  And has been to us.  We can trust it not to harm us.  Or burn us out.  Or leave us high and dry.

We can trust the gift to deliver to others what it already has for us.

Power.  Connection.  Faith.  Think of what the gift meant for you.  Think of those first moments discovering it.  Think when you were absolutely in love with it - the way it made you feel or the place it took you.  Remember who it introduced you to it.

Free it now to do that for others.