Unchain the Brain

In week eight of the Shattering the Meme novena, we examine the meme of self-limitation.  No matter how much we may say we want change in our lives, we tend to cling white-knuckled to the comfort of the familiar, never realizing how much that is keeping us stuck.

Unconsciously, we believe that we are only allowed a certain measure of success and that anything else is presumptuous.  In our careers, this manifests as a holding back, no matter how unhappy or unfulfilled we might be.  After all, what would your boss think if you said you wanted to own the company one day?  How would a client react if you said at the start of the project that you wanted to have it published?  It is certainly a conditioned response, this self-limitation meme, but did you ever stop to think about what would happen if there were no big thinkers?  We might all still be living hunter-gatherer existences.  It is not presumptuous to think big, it is wasteful to limit yourself.

In our lives we have a total of four resources; time, energy, relationships and money.  Everything we need is acquired by spending one or more of them.  The money thing is pretty self-evident as we live in a cash based economy.  But what about the others?  Well, much as having money wouldn’t do you any good at all if you buried it in the ground and didn’t spend it, you have to spend your other resources in order to enjoy what they can bring into your life as well.  Notice that I said spend not squander and also realize that these four resources are interdependent.  To live at your highest potential you have to understand that these resources (in effect all that you have) must be leveraged by actively investing in the life and career you want to have.

Well, that didn’t work
Failure.  That would mean that we had squandered our big four resources, right?  Wrong.  We operate in such fear of failure that it is easy to forget that it is the only means to success.  Our brain shuts down around the idea of risk-taking, or we dream big, but only at a really fuzzy global level and don’t see how their are opportunities for action all around us that would set us on the path the realizing those dreams.  Part of unchaining your brain from that rock is to cultivate resilience.  Failure of a task or venture is not failure of you as a person.  It simply means that that particular thing did not work out.  You may even be on the right tack and just need to allow for a different variable.  Find out why what you tried didn’t work, make the necessary adjustments and try again.  Even something as big as losing a job or a client does not make you a failure, it simply means that something wasn’t a good fit.  Resist the urge to extrapolate that event to your whole life and let pessimism and “I told you so” limited thinking kick in.  Instead, realize that you always have choices and resources.  Commit to moving forward and take control of the situation instead of being a passive victim.

Kick the “but”
When I work with clients and make suggestions that take them outside of their comfort zone, it is not uncommon to hear the “yes, but...” response.  What they are really saying is that their fear of the unfamiliar is stronger than their desire to succeed.  When you put it like that, all those excuses sound downright silly.  But we don’t very often put our “yes, but...” statements in that context, do we?  Instead, we buy into all of them, we turn our fears into pseudo-facts and talk ourselves right off that ledge.  Did you ever notice the relief you feel in those moments when you can convince yourself NOT to make a bold move?  However, what do you really get by staying stagnant in your life or career?  It’s easy to think that you are conserving your resources of time, energy, relationships and money by playing it safe, but the exact opposite is true.  No matter how much it may cost you to take a risk, think about what it costs you to stay stuck.  Is your energy sapped?  Are you upset all the time?  Do you harbor resentments?  Are you really enjoying and savoring life? 

Stay Curious
Instead of fearing change because you are focussing on what you may lose, think instead about change being the gateway to endless possibilities.  In nature, change is the means of generation.  Do you feel depressed that it is autumn and the leaves are going to fall, or do you enjoy the splendor of the trees cloaked in shades of yellow, red and orange?  You, too are part of the universe and the events in your life are meant to constantly evolve and change. There are cycles of growth. Even when you are in a “winter” it is only in preparation to regenerate again in a “spring.”  Recognizing when your fallow period is related to being stuck or that you are just between leaps evolves cultivating a curiosity and sense of wonderment.  In short, an appreciation of change.  Instead of shutting down your potential with “yes, but...”  reframe that response to say “what if...” and see what happens.  Stay open to all of the possibilities instead of focussing on the problems.

Shatter the Meme:
As human beings, we would be nowhere if we didn’t have a sense of wonderment and the desire to experiment.  It is your birthight to embrace the possibilities that come from a world where change is the only constant.  There is no virtue in limiting yourself and not working to achieve your fullest potential.  Instead, you are wasting your resources and cheating the world out of the opportunity to benefit from what you uniquely have to offer. Let your creativity soar- removing all the obstacles to your time and energy you place in your own way.

Swatting Flies

Week five of the Shattering the Meme novena, explores the link between distraction and fear.   We derail our dreams without even realizing what we are doing as we load up our days with seemingly virtuous activities that deplete us. 

Thwack!  How did that extra meeting sneak into your week?  The planning for it is swarming around your head like a bunch of flies, an endless stream of issues to deal with.  It’s bad enough to cope with the constant distractions of a day, the ping of email (thwack), people walking up to your desk (thwack), and crises real and imagined that never stop rearing their ugly heads (thwackety, thwack, thwack, thwack).  All of these tasks add up to distractions that derail us from achieving the things we really value in our lives.  But while swatting all those flies, you might want to notice that you are the one who left open the screen door.

It’s done with the best of intentions (or so we think).  After all, big life goals are, well, big.  They take time to reach.  And today was exhausting.  This week is an endless stream of meetings, in between which are deadlines.  Better to think about what you need to do next week...month...year. Year!  That’s real time we are talking about, and deferring progress on achieving the things that will lead to your professional and personal fulfillment can’t wait that long.  What happens when you don’t make time for the things that will make you happy is that you begin to define yourself by the things that distract you.  The meme of virtuous distraction draws you in with task lists and deadlines, then starts pulling you ever downward in its spiral.  Other people validate this by demanding “responsiveness”  and instant attention to their issues.  The idea of setting any kind of boundaries seems downright unholy.  So instead of doing our life’s work, we spend our time swatting flies.

Business equals avoidance
Chores are one thing.  Departures from your life path are something else.  I want to define chores here as any of the things you have to do in work or life, whether reading your email or attending a meeting, or dropping your kid off at karate class.  Chores that can be delegated should be and the remainder of them done as efficiently as possible so that they do not consume all your time and sap your energy.  Your day itself should be about far more than the to do list, if it’s not, you have crossed the line into distraction.  Distraction is easy.  It gets your mind off of things.  It alleviates the pressure of seeking fulfillment.  It tricks you into thinking you are making progress all the while corroding your soul.  You keep so busy doing all these “necessary” things that you can justify procrastinating on the things that really matter.  I strongly believe that we make time for the things that matter to us and excuses for the things that don’t.  When we are afraid of what it will really mean to take the risks and do the work to accomplish our dreams, we decide that they aren’t nearly as important as all the busywork.  Resolve right now to add more structure to your day so all these duties and expectations occupy a smaller and more concentrated percentage of your time and  won’t keep pulling your attention away.  If you find that you go to the distraction zone when you feel stuck, it’s especially important that you have a routine that doesn’t allow you to run around with that fly swatter.

Stop settling
You go kind of numb inside and start to settle when you are in the business trap. You tell yourself that this is how life is.  You lower your expectations.  And you probably start to like using your fly swatter.  The mind craves action and will take it any way it can get it.  However, you did not become an architect so that you could respond to urgent emails about paint color.  Ask yourself what you would tell a high school student who was interested in majoring in architecture.  If your first thought was to jokingly give your condolences, you have settled.  Fix that by no longer accepting the premise that professional practice is defined by a whole bunch of chores.  Get in touch with why you love being an architect and resolve to do more things related to that.  Every time you think you have to put those activities on hold because you have too much to do, recognize it as fear of the unknown and make it a priority to open your schedule up.  Some of the most successful people are the busiest, and they never let that little fact stop them, do they?

The meaningfulness litmus test
We have explored the meaning of success in this novena, but you can’t be successful if you don’t pursue things that are meaningful.  Being your boss’s right hand might get you on her good side, but the rush you feel from that “attaboy” doesn’t last very long, does it?  Don’t mistake the stress response for actual creative energy, either.  Meaningful work feeds your soul, and leaves behind a trail of accomplishments that build on one another and take you closer to the things you want for your career.   Ask yourself where you want to be in ten years and whether or not anything you did today helped get you there. The things that did are actually meaningful, the rest was a waste of time in the larger context of your life.  Get a handle on your compulsory activities so you can make some space to freestyle.

Shatter the meme:
As creative people, we are often attracted to action and new ideas, but it’s so much wasted effort if you can’t see things through to completion, or lose sight of why you ever started down this path in the first place because you have stopped so many times along the way.  Nature abhors a vacuum.  Your life will fill up with a bunch of activities you didn't choose if you leave the space for them.  Along with those activities will come the expectations of others, and your own need to meet those expectations.  Swatting the flies of distraction can be exhausting.  No matter how many you kill, more will keep buzzing around.  Shouldn’t you redirect your energy in a more meaningful way?

Pulling Open the Flower

On week three of our Shattering the Meme novena, we explore the concept of creativity.  Creativity cannot be forced, nor can it emerge fully formed from the depths of our minds.  Unlearning the idea that hours spent equals quality of output to force an outcome is the lesson of this week.

As creatives, it’s ingrained in us from our earliest years that we are somehow supposed to be masters of everything.  The image of the superstar sole proprietor who conquers the word is dangled before us and we’re made to feel as if we are doing something wrong if we can’t achieve it.  From those first weeks in studio classes, the all-nighter is introduced. The idea behind it is that we need to work hard, really hard, at being creative.  We are not taught techniques for collaboration, or pulling in ideas from other industries or arts.  We are not taught how to understand the needs of the people we design for.  No, Instead the message is that it all must come from within.  And if the great idea won’t just open up out of our mind and bloom, we need to start picking at the bud, much like an ant on a peony.

Sounds strangely logical, except that creativity doesn’t work that way.  The worst thing you can do is to put performance pressure on it, instead of letting it flow, to close down its sources instead of expanding its horizons.  This meme has never served anything but our collective egos as it takes our self-esteem on a perpetual roller coaster ride.

Stop the suffering
Because we have been taught the behavior pattern of hard work, it feels wrong when an idea comes too easily.  We analyze it, reconstruct it, over-embellish it, reject it.  All in an attempt to make the act of creation something that requires tremendous effort.  We need to recognize that what we have been conditioned to feel “right” about in the design process is actually only what feels familiar to ourselves and our profession.  It gets propagated as “the way.”  In fact, what really ends up being propagated is stress inducing behavior. So, we think that if we are not under stress, we must not be very creative.  This is somewhat like planting a shade-loving plant in full sun, assuming that your shadow as you constantly tend it will be enough.

Live in the now
Creativity is about being present, not trying to predict the future based on the past.  When you are in the zone and are in a state of pure consciousness, nothing except the present moment matters.  You stop imposing past limiting beliefs and letting fears about what might happen restrict you, and you just go with it.  No over-thinking, no judgement.  Just think what would happen if you gave yourself more opportunities to disconnect the outcome from possibility. You might even realize that what you or your client thought the outcome should be wasn’t the best way to solve the problem. Stop ignoring all of the other ideas flowering in the garden in your focus on the one plant that hasn’t yet bloomed.

Allow the unfolding
In our “I am enough” mentality, we believe that we can go directly from intention to outcome.  We think that we control the outcome solely through our efforts, and if we didn’t get the result we wanted, we must have either not worked hard enough or made some mistake.  Not only does this corrode self esteem, it sets us up to shut down opportunities that might lead us to an even better result. You can plant the seeds, and tend the garden, but the plant will grow at its own rate, take its own form.  Building the framework for your intent and ideas to grow and then letting them take shape organically will lead you to the best possible outcome.  Relinquish control of what the outcome needs to look like and trust that you have set the right things in motion.

Shatter the Meme:
Allow yourself to detach from the outcome and instead focus on the intent behind the work you are doing.  What opportunity for growth can you find in the problem?  What is really motivating your client to take action?  What kind of environments do people really need? By asking these questions of yourself, your team and your client, you are able to ensure you are solving the right problems and building the right framework.  Resist the need to be a control freak and remember that when you pull open the flower, you usually spoil it.  Step back and let things unfold instead of trying, in your impatience, to force the outcome.

Shattering the Meme

For the third annual novena at the Patron Saint of Architecture, I want to help you to see all of the unlimited potential you have and start putting it to work for you.  Novenas are an annual chance to look in-depth at issues that affect how we operate in the world.  In past novenas we looked at how we can truly make a difference in the world, and how to overcome the things that drain our creativity.  This year, we will center around all of the things that we may not even know are holding us back, so that you can shatter those memes and become all that you were meant to be.

Memes, those ideas or beliefs that pervade our culture, are hard to avoid.  Like frogs in the pot, we don’t even know that they’re affecting us, they just seem to be the way it is.  As creative people we are especially susceptible to memes because there’s a certain voodoo around the act of creation.  When your work involves acts for which there is no right answer, you can only respond by evoking memes. The memes of a culture and its expectations, the memes of professional conduct, the memes of what a relationship with a client is supposed to look like.  But what if the meme is wrong? 

We can see the short-term effects of memes in viral internet content.  People get caught up in the topic, idiomatic speech may even be affected.  Then it passes.  Observing these micormemes allows us to see how something can be incredibly relevant due to factors taking place at the moment then pass away like a fad. I want to try to look at metamemes in much the same way.  That’s a lot harder to do.  Even if you can see that there may be something beyond, you might not see why it’s even in your interests to pursue it. 

Live outside the fishbowl
It’s important to realize that memes can operate on two different levels.  The horizontal level is what we absorb from our peers and other surroundings. Those memes can be, but aren’t always, easier to identify.  The more insidious memes are the ones that operate on a vertical level through cultural inheritance.  It’s what you learned about the culture of your profession from your professors and mentors, what your employers and co-workers have enforced, even what your parents thought.  If memes are all around us and have helped to form our beliefs about who we are and what’s possible in our lives and careers, that means we are not necessarily aware of them.  In this nine week series, we are going to bust through some common memes and shatter all of the limitations they hold.  I warn you, this will be both challenging and scary.  Your first reaction will be to disagree, but I ask you to sit with it and really think about why you might be unwilling to question a given issue.  We may not arrive at the same idea for shattering it, but just the realization that there could be a different approach is powerful.

Change the Equation
Believe it or not, most of us live our lives as if everything we encounter were a basic algebra problem.  We use the formulas we know to solve for x (ex. 6 + x = 10).  Unfortunately, solving for x means you have used a meme to eliminate the other variables, in our example that would be the number six or even the outcome, the number 10.  This very straightforward approach to problem solving often causes us to have tunnel vision about achieving outcomes.  If you have ever become frustrated about why you could be doing “all the right things” and still not get the desired outcome, you know what I am talking about.  I want to challenge you to think of things in a different way:  what do you really want the outcome to be?  Not the outcome you think you should achieve, but the one you really want.  Then, work backwards to see how you could achieve it.  Allow there to be more variables and less givens about the situation.  Use a little calculus, or even some differential equations.

Enter the World of Innovative Transformation
Innovative transformation is about challenging yourself to have a game-changing response to the opportunities in your life, instead of your automatic one.  How often do you start a new project the same way you start every other project?  I’m willing to bet you have all kinds of reasons why this is the best or only way to approach things.  You might be open to tweaking your process, but probably feel resistant to throwing it out wholesale.  But what if you did?  Silence all those limiting beliefs and just think about that.  What could happen?  Now think about all of the little things, the small and large decisions you make every single day.  Instead of making them on auto-pilot, start being conscious of them, and start asking yourself what assumptions are tied up in your typical actions.  Change your thinking and change your life.

For the next eight posts, I’m going to present common metamemes that we all deal with and give you strategies for looking at them in a whole different way.  I hope you’ll share your thoughts and experiences as you work to shatter each one.  The Patron community supports you and I know that you are unlimited.

Feast Day 2013: You are Unlimited

Today the Patron Saint of Architecture celebrates three years of helping bring inspiration and creativity to the forefront of what we do as architects.  What started as a personal need to affirm that architecture could and should be so much more than the professional opportunities that I was experiencing has now become a worldwide network of people who share that same purpose.  Each year, I build on the original intent and expand the content offerings; going from this blog to a facebook page, Pinterest account and, in this past year, a book.  As I challenge myself to experiment with new media and outreach efforts, I hope to not only build a community of creatives, but to encourage all of us to stretch outside of our comfort zone. 

I’ve come to realize that the comfort zone is a pretty deceptive place.  It’s what we know.  So we operate within a set of self-imposed constraints that limit our thinking about what’s possible.  Many of these constraints come from our education and professional experiences, and have permeated our understanding about what it means to practice architecture.  That’s why this year’s novena will be Shattering the Meme.  We’ll spend nine weeks exploring things about the profession of architecture that we just assume “have” to be that way and work to stop accepting the limiting premise of each one. 

In conjunction with this novena, I am launching my first ever series of teleclasses.  Based on my book, Career Crisis, which launched in April, the teleclasses begin next week with a free introductory session.  I am excited to bring the theme of applying your passion and purpose meaningfully to your career alive in an interactive way.  It’s one thing to read something, but nothing compares to actually being able to work through issues in a more direct way.  As architects, we often feel that we can and should be able to do it all, from graphic design to marketing to management, so it is natural for us to  think we can be our own coaches as well.  But coaching by its very nature is not a DIY endeavor. A coach can help you to understand your unique situation in a whole different way.  You need someone to encourage you to think beyond what you think is possible and challenge you achieve things that you really want (because that's the scary stuff you won't ever push yourself to do).  Someone who will tell you when you are allowing yourself to get distracted by being “too busy”  or when you are losing focus. 

You can begin to experience what it's like to work with a coach in the teleclasses, where we will spend an hour on each career theme and also do some individual “laser coaching,” where I will take questions from participants and provide targeted advice live on the call. 

If you want more, you can always work with me one on one in my career coaching program, which is a three week long intensive process.  I’m also pleased to announce a new coaching offering this year:  I Need a Quickie is specifically tailored to architects who really want to seek out coaching, but are still afraid to invest in themselves in this way.  While nowhere near as intensive as a coaching program, this new offering will let you buy an hour of one on one time with me to talk about career issues important to you.  I’m hoping that by offering this bridge to coaching, many of you will see how valuable it really is to work with me or another coach to up your game.  Wherever you are in your career, however much or little you have accomplished, you can always set your sights higher and achieve even more. 

We kicked off last year with the Change the World Novena, where I profiled architects who have taken it upon themselves to make the world a better place through the built environment.  Many of you viewed those architects as people who were somehow different from you.  You thought, “What they’re doing is great, but I can’t do that.  Who am I to think I can change the world?”  This year I’m not accepting that excuse- you are a gifted, creative, person, or you wouldn’t be an architect.  Who are you not to use that talent?  Get unstuck and shatter all those memes that are convincing you otherwise!

Avoiding the Architecture of Fear

Wow.  My post on the limiting beliefs of architects grew legs, stood, up and ran out the door. It was being chased.  While I never expect that readers of my blog will agree with me wholesale, reactions to this post fell very strongly into two camps.  The camp that agreed with me and said "Right on,  we need to overcome these limiting beliefs," made me feel that I had written about a meaningful and timely topic.  The camp that threw cold water on the very premise of the post confirmed it.  I noticed a very specific pattern that emerged among the naysayers.  It was fear.  Fear of being irrelevant,  seen as extravagant or uncooperative by clients.  It is this very fear that is being manifested as a reality in our profession.  Therefore, I have taken these comments, condensed them into some major themes around fear and share them with you today.  Since most of the discussion was generated on the American Institute of Architects Linked In Group, you can visit this page if you want to see the comments and discussion chain firsthand.

Fear: I will play into their worst stereotype
This one is tricky because no one wants to be typecast as the black clad ideologue with funky glasses who is using their client as a vehicle for their own artistic license.  Many comments I received were concerned that architects are our own worst enemy and that by pursuing a higher level of design, we were alienating our clients, showing them that we weren't listening to them and running up the costs.  It wouldn't be a stereotype if there were not some grains of truth here, mostly born out by Starchitects and their wannabes.  However,  being an advocate for solving the right problem and innovative solutions instead of being a waitress is not the same as being out of touch.  If anything, it shows you are more in touch and are providing the service they hired you to perform, instead of being a rubber  stamp.

Good design is too expensive, or too risky
Maybe it's because the design magazines are filled with examples of exotic materials and systems.  Maybe it's  because we don't really believe that you can be creative on a budget.  I was astounded at the number of people who lashed out at the very idea of bringing a higher level of design to their projects.  It truly saddened me to see architects with the mindset of a low level developer, believing that they were  providing value to their clients by delivering the staus quo.  Rather than meeting client expectations for adequacy, meet their expectations for a truly amazing space that meets needs they were heretofore afraid to state. Good design is carefully considered and responsive, and can absolutely be done with basic materials and on a budget with only the premium of creativity on your part.  A better thing to consider is how much you are paying to play it safe and add to the already bulging inventory of unremarkable buildings.

The profession can't afford this
Talk about fear-based thinking.  These commenters thought they were taking the high road by adopting a lofty, philosophical position about risk management and responsible architecture.  No wonder our profession is struggling.  What a limiting mindset to meekly take a backseat,  hoping to just be of some usefulness.  This only buys into a developer driven mentality and frankly, shows you already believe that architects are obsolete.  What the profession cannot afford is a bunch of synchophants who are afraid to be creative.  I had to chuckle that the most controversial comment in my post was a quote, "If you know it will work, it isn't creative,"from Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic.  This quote to me captures the very essence of creativity: being unafraid to take on a new challenge, to think outside of the box, to stop recycling ideas from past projects.  Isn't this what our profession needs most?  Yet, many took that comment to mean that taking a risk meant abandoning functionality.  True, form should follow function, but how to best house that function is what the act of creating architecture is all about.  It's called a practice because it is an experiment.  Otherwise, we are just drafters.

To me, these fears underline the reason so many of us feel we are in a career crisis.  We have accepted the premise that we are lucky to have work and therefore we had better not rock the boat.  We are playing it so safe that it becomes doubtful that we are actually producing architecture at all.  I can empathize with my post-dissenters because I have worked for firms that propagated these fears and the limiting beliefs that spawn them.  I felt completely demoralized in my work during those years because I felt like I was not making anybody better as a result of the projects being produced in these conditions.

There is a better way and I have made it my mission to help other architects find it.  You can choose to follow along with my blog posts and facebook community, but if you are looking to get on the path to career transformation, you need to look at a more immersive experience.  I invite you to consider one on one career coaching, or to take part in my new telesminar series.  Based on my book, Career Crisis, the teleseminars will explore themes of finding your passion, understanding where you are in the creative cycles of your life,  and how to best position yourself to work in the way that is most fulfilling to you.  It is time to stop practicing an architecture of fear and move forward into producing meaningful, enriching spaces that allow us to work at our highest creative potential.

The Limiting Beliefs of Architects

As a profession dedicated to making our clients’ vision a reality, we do a lousy job of realizing our

vision for our own careers. Maybe that’s because so few architects have taken the time to have a career vision. They think they do, because they have embraced the thinking of their teachers, mentors, co-workers and friends. It’s a surprisingly pessimistic and monolithic point of view for a profession that prides itself on its creativity. As I was working on my book, and thinking about my career coaching sessions over the last few years, I realized time and again how much of the problem we have in getting fulfillment from our careers comes from limiting beliefs. These beliefs are so deeply a part of our “architect culture” that we don’t even recognize them. I teach people how to realize their passion, and the biggest challenge I encounter when working with them are these experiential lessons which are reinforced throughout our careers unless we break the pattern:

Competition is the path to success
We are primed from our days in the studio during college to compete with one another. To believe that there is a winner, and by default, losers. The RFP and interview process underscore this idea, leading firms to undercut one another in a race to the bottom. This commoditizes our work, which causes the design process and resulting building to have less value to both the client and society as a whole. It is a mindset of lack, believing that there is only so much pie to go around, and we better do whatever it takes to get our piece. It leads us to settle for less than we deserve in terms of compensation and design effort, to focus on bringing service instead of true innovation.
Danger of this belief: you feel your time has no value.
Overcome it by thinking differently about what you do and why. Don’t accept the premise of winners and losers, instead focus on the unexpressed needs you see in the situation and how you are uniquely qualified to meet them.

It’s fame or shame
I recently read an article by Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, where he makes the incredibly profound statement, “If you know it will work it isn’t creative.” How many firms actually embrace a culture of experimentation? Even the ones that do have a pretty low threshold for failure. No one thinks that a scientist working in the lab on experiment after experiment, each result building on the knowledge to improve the next experiment is a loser because it may take years, even decades to discover something. But in our “creative” profession, we grovel with our tail between our legs whenever the client or contractor finds fault with us. Paradoxically, we are always looking for the project and opportunity that will be our “big break,” while secretly stewing over the successes of our competition.
Danger of this belief: you are afraid to take risks.
Overcome it by taking a step back from the everyday steps in the process and start to look at the big picture. Ask why not more often and don’t be afraid to have, then fully vet, big ideas.

Being provocative means you are smart
No, it likely means you’re an out of touch pompous ass, who’s had a few brilliant ideas. Our “upbringing” as architects tends to reward those who are unconventional just for the sake of being unconventional. Maybe because we buy into that fame or shame mentality so much. The provocateur is usually trying to overcome the conditioned risk adversity by putting so much out there that people will start to feel that they are unenlightened clods trapped in conventional thinking if they shut down the ideas. Unfortunately, this approach only reinforces a negative stereotype and is rooted less in a willingness to help people think differently about their needs than it is about the provocateur’s desire to get attention.
Danger of this belief: solving the problem is not as important to you as making a statement.
Overcome it by investing more insight into your effort. I believe that big ideas are not only important but necessary. However, the idea needs to have relevance to the situation at hand and be tied to solving a problem. Even more important the big idea needs to feel inclusive and allow others on the design or user group team to build upon it.

You can’t get rich and be an architect
Oh, look how hard you’re working, you poor burned out thing. Procrastinating out of exhaustion until the rush of adrenaline at the eleventh hour gives you that flash of brilliance you need to triumphantly complete the task. This reinforces a competitive culture, where burning the candle at both ends is a badge of honor. There is a kind of nobility in being the misunderstood artiste engaged in a valiant fight against the system. The truth: All nighters were a bad idea back in school and they are an even worse idea once you enter the working world. Vision and clarity don’t visit the exhausted. What’s more, if you are working long, crazy hours, you likely are going off on your own instead of collaborating.
Danger of this belief: you believe that individual effort matters more than collaboration
Overcome it by working smarter. Engage your team both in and out of house. If someone else can do a task even 80% as well as you can, it’s worth delegating it to them. Be a mentor and seek out mentors of your own. You don’t have to do this alone, and the end result will be better than if you burn yourself out trying.

Our profession desperately needs to become a lot more introspective. We need to reposition ourselves for the future like we mean it if we want the relevance we so desperately claim to seek. So as you look over these limiting beliefs (and we are all guilty of all of them to some degree), ask yourself, “what’s holding you back?”
For a more in depth look at how you are limiting yourself and strategies to fearlessly pursue the career you really want, check out Career Crisis.  Let me know what you think and how it helps you unbind your creativity.

What’s your Mountain?

How is being an architect like scaling Mount Everest?  I always read accounts of climbers with a sort of sick fascination, part of me wondering what would ever possess anyone to take on this task.  You can’t even see very far from that high up, and your body is so ravaged by the lack of oxygen and extreme cold that you can’t hang out up there and enjoy it.  As someone who is not athletic and is proud of myself that I attend yoga class three times a week, I don’t have a refined appreciation for the physical.  Especially an extreme sport like mountain climbing. I didn’t see the appeal of putting your life on hold for nearly a year to train, then scale this mountain.  Why, why, I thought would anyone risk their life like this?  Why would they make themselves so uncomfortable, put their bodies through such a grueling experience?  I recently read Mark Inglis’s story of how he scaled Mt. Everest as a double amputee. Mark’s account helped me to see that it was about more than just the ego. 

It’s easy to take the concept of scaling Everest as a totally literal pursuit.  The man vs. nature plot at its finest.  But that would be getting it wrong.  You don’t climb the mountain to conquer the mountain.  You climb to conquer yourself. It’s about setting a challenge and devoting yourself single-mindedly to meeting that challenge with every resource of your physical, mental and spiritual being.  If you are going to climb Everest, you cannot let anything stand in your way, especially not yourself.  You clear out your life to train and then make the climb.  And then you let go, you work with, not against the mountain.  You respect its seasons, weather patterns and above all the advice of your guides.  Depending on the year, you may not make it up and the fact that by waiting, you live to make the attempt another time has to be enough.

So back to life as an architect.  What’s your Everest?  What big goal do you have that you would devote yourself to achieve?  What matters so much to who you are that you will make the time and the space to realize it?  If you don’t know, or came up with some wimpy goal like “get a promotion,” you are not alone.  Maybe just thinking along these lines made you feel slightly depressed because your career is so NOT going the way you hoped it would.  You may even be rolling your eyes right now and thinking that having a goal as big as yourself is as ridiculous as it is unattainable.

I’m here to tell you that it’s not.  You can have a career that is life-affirming because it reinforces your sense of purpose in this world.  But first, you have to be deeply in touch with what that purpose is.  You have to have a personal mission statement and a plan that includes steps you can do today that align you with that purpose.  You have to clear away all the fears and all of the rationalizations that are holding you back.  Like the mountain climber, you have to eliminate all the waster activities in your professional life that are not directly moving you towards your goals. 
As a reader of this blog, you aren’t content to have just an average career.  You want to make a difference.  You want to operate as an inspiration to the world.  And I want to help you get there.  In addition to my blog posts, I offer career coaching services that allow you to work with me one on one on your individual career quest.  I’m also so excited to announce that I will very shortly be publishing my first book, Career Crisis.  This book contains many of the strategies I use with my coaching clients, but it let’s you use my techniques and act as your own coach.  It’s not very long on purpose because it’s not meant to dictate, but to guide you.  You have to do the work, but if you do, I promise you’ll be amazed at the transformation you see in your career and in your life.

Find your career mountain and know that you can get to the top.  Get ready to challenge yourself to your greatest potential, to concentrate your efforts to a single purpose, to push through hardships, and finally, to stand up on that summit and say, “Yes, yes, I did it!”

(Re)setting your Intentions

New Year's resolutions are something I have always viewed as pointless.  You either want to make a change or you don't. If you do, you begin that process at the point you set the intention, not some arbitrary time on the calendar.  However, there's no shortage of self-improvement advice this time of year, which inspired to write this New Year's Eve post because I felt that all of that wasn't enough- you need a lot more than retrospect on the passing year or self-improvement tips to help you have a successful year.  You need clear intent.

There's all kinds of superstitions and advice about what (or what not) to eat or wear or do to usher in good luck for the new year.   Some friends and I had a lot of fun exchanging our family good luck traditions on facebook, which led me to think about my favorite quote, "Luck favors the prepared."  You bring opportunity to yourself by being ready for it.  When you have a clear sense of who you are and what you want from your life, you become open to the things to which you can say yes, or no, on a daily basis that will usher in transformation.  No resolution will do that for you.

This chart perfectly sums up the open attitude
and clarity of purpose needed for success

Change, and the willingness to embrace it brings opportunity.  As a feng shui expert, I've been preparing for a new year by cleaning and clearing clutter from my life and will spend tomorrow re-setting intentions for the year ahead with my family.   I find this a good way to mentally let go of that which no longer serves me and make room for new opportunities. So don't drive yourself crazy trying to set all kinds of new goals.  Look within and take stock of how you have evolved.  Have you gotten sidetracked from your existing goals?  Do your goals from five years ago no longer serve you?  Are you complacent in your goals, or do you need to step outside your comfort zone to really achieve something big?

I invite you to do your own space clearing.  In the process of weeding out that which you don't need, use, or love, think about what the stuff you surround yourself says about who you are.  Place objects that affirm who you are or want to become in a prominent place.  Success is about your willingness to change.  You don't need more resolutions, just goals attuned to the person you wish to become.  Wishing you a happy and abundant 2013!  

See a countdown of the most popular Patron posts of 2012. 

Like They Used To: Craftsmanship, Sustainability and Design

In week eight of the Change the World novena, the spotlight shines on the art of making, asking what appreciation of craft and quality can do for creating unique memorable, and lasting neighborhoods.

When you analyze what’s great about the great cities of the world, it often comes down to a collection of neighborhoods or districts that provide a set of experiences that we want to seek out again and again.  That’s what the average person knows.  What they can never quite put their finger on is what specific ingredients went into the strange brew that is their favorite place.  Architects, designers, planners and developers have a little more insight.  We know that it’s all about placemaking, from the scale of the buildings, to the style of architecture, to the quality and texture of the public space, often “branded” by public art or unique street furniture.  But in the end, aren’t we just creating an elaborate stage set?  Sometimes with backgrounds and props so contrived and phony, so generically designed to appeal (think you average lifestyle center or planned community) that we end up with the opposite of someplace- we get anyplace.

It’s once thing to rail against self-contained development bubbles, quite another when

Details from the building to be
adaptively reused for industrial arts

that approach is applied to a historic neighborhood.  "It's important to engage the historic context," observes Brad Cooper, one of my colleagues at GBBN Architecture. A lifelong resident of Cincinnati, OH, it took his two years spent away at graduate school for him to realize how much his hometown was evolving.  "Architecture school pushes you to think about the built environment in a different way," he observed.  The most positive change he found was that more people were moving back to the inner city.  This larger population made once dangerous neighborhoods safer, which further encouraged the development of live, work and play opportunities.  "People's comfort with being in these neighborhoods made the city itself sustainable, however, getting investment is still a challenge.  The investment that does occur can be of poor quality, with a focus on new being better.  There is still a perception of Cincinnati's core as being an old city.  Getting more people interested [in historic neighborhoods] will provide more stakeholders and more 'peer pressure' for greater revitalization."   But it has to be the right kind.  Brad's urban design philosophy has been inspired by Matthew B. Crawford's Shop Class as Soulcraft book, in which the author makes the point that over the years, people value craft less because they don't know how things are made.  Especially when dealing with historic districts, "You realize that the infill projects can't begin to match the quality or integrity of the historic buildings," he says.  In order to heighten architectural appreciation, Brad feels that it is critical to build awareness of the value of the old buildings contained in Cincinnati's historic downtown neighborhoods such as Over the Rhine, which is one of the largest intact urban historic districts in the United States.   What has earned Brad a place in this Change the World series is the steps he took next.

Fresh out of graduate school, he started work on a business plan. Brad realized that, while in school, students have access to wood and metal fabrication shops, but that that resource is cut off upon graduation.  There is also a dearth of skilled craftspeople.  He decided that providing the resource of rentable shop space could be combined with urban revitalization of abandoned industrial space. He focused on Over the Rhine (OTR) for it's historic character as well as the art of its craft of is celebrated industries.  "One of Cincinnati's strong suits is its diversity of neighborhoods, in part due to the hilly topography.  I thought that engaging OTR could be fantastic and help make this neighborhood part of the city's modern identity." What emerged was the LIVE•MAKE project, an industrial arts center and business incubator that will provide housing and workshops, maker-in-resident studios (aka master craftspeople), light manufacturing studios and retail storefronts.  When you  are an intern architect without millions in the bank account, this might seem like a dream destined for the back burner.  But Brad tapped into the resources available to him in the community.  He contacted the Hamilton County Development Company and talked with them about their business incubator model.  He researched other apprenticeship, leasable workshop and redevelopment through the arts programs like TechShop, Maker Works, and Ponyride.  He met with the OTR Community Council to pitch the project and learn about site availability.  Then, he partnered with AIA Cincinnati and the Over the Rhine Brewery District Community Urban Redevelopment Corporation to launch a design competition for the project that will include adaptive reuse of a historic industrial building.  Currently in the jury phase, the entries are being reviewed by international design leaders as well as leaders in Cincinnati politics.  In January of 2013, a series of community choice events will allow neighborhood residents, developers and other interested parties to vote on their favorite project.

If you live in the Cincinnati area, put January 11th, 2013 6-9 pm @ A359 Partners in Architecture16 East 12th St.  Cincinnati, OH 45202 or January 25th, 2013 6-9pm @ Losantiville Design Collective1311 Main Street  Cincinnati, OH 45202 on your calendar.  

Finally, winners will be exhibited in a gallery show that will coincide with the Cincinnati Maker Faire in the spring of 2013.  Brad hopes that by generating awareness and excitement for this type of project that he can then work to assemble funding.

"The idea of leaving the world a better place than I found it has always been a guiding principle for me," he says.  "Architects need to be more involved in civic projects.  OTR has a lot of residential buildings and promoting homeownership is important to its revitalization.  The LIVE•MAKE space will become a resource for home improvement projects as well as a source for some of the artisans that people will need to hire to restore their spaces."  He's hoping that the party-like atmosphere that will exist at the community choice events will draw crowds and encourage everyone to voice an opinion.  "If you want to engage people in architecture, you have to make it fun." The first step of community engagement took place during archiNATI, Cincinnati's annual architecture week celebration.  Brad worked to get a grant from the  The Carol Ann and Ralph V. Haile, Jr./U.S. Bank Foundation to tour the empty old brewery buildings.  "There is so much abandoned manufacturing space.  I'm interested in finding adaptive re-use for these high quality structures," Brad notes.  "There is such a difference in the attention to detail in the way things were built and manufactured then vs. now."  Looking ahead five years or so, where does he hope to see his LIVE•MAKE dream?  "I want people to say that there has been a building constructed that matches or exceeds the quality of design and construction of its historic context."

Bradley Cooper is currently a junior designer at GBBN Architects in Cincinnati. He attained his undergraduate degree from the the University of Cincinnati (B.S. in Architecture) and his Masters of Architecture from Taubman College at the University of Michigan. His thesis work, Accuulate, Curate, is featured in Dimensions 25. Bradley is on the Steering Committee for ArchiNATI and is an avid homebrewer.

What scares you as a creative?

Happy Halloween everyone!  Tradition has is that Halloween is the start of a transitional time when we are more connected to the spirit world- next stop is All Saints Day, when we look to our spiritual guides followed by All Souls Day, where we honor our ancestors, friends and mentors who have gone before us.

Keeping with the spirit of these three days, I wanted to take a little time as your virtual mentor to reflect on releasing the fears that hold you back, identifying your inspirations, and finding people willing to help guide you on your path to fulfillment. I love this infographic I found at Design Taxi for its humorous (precisely because it hits on some core truths) look at creative phobias.  That's the trick part- the way that we talk ourselves out of going for the things that we really want in our careers.

Now for the treat:  I am developing a series strictly related to mentoring and am looking for your input on the issues that are most important to you.  Please take some time to post in the comments section about your pressing career dilemmas.  You don't have to get personal or overly detailed (if you want to do that, please email me at thepatronsaintofarchitecture@gmail.com for a one-on one coaching session), just list some of the basic hobgobblins blocking your path to success.  Those career cobwebs' days are numbered.

Power to the People: Unleashing User Insights

Patient centered design has been around for a long time. From Planetree, to LEED for Healthcare  and Evidence Based Design, the importance of the environment to outcomes has been advocated, documented and linked to design and operational decisions. The Beryl Institute is devoted solely to the cause of improving the patient experience. It’s great to have all of these resources. Even better as an architect to have healthcare clients embracing the needs to address the issue. But something gets lost in translation as we go from intent to implementation. Healthcare environments tremendously impact their users, who often have little opportunity to control them. We need to know we are getting it right, not just designing and building attractive surroundings based on precedents.

That’s why I was excited to read about a project recently launched by Penn Medicine in conjunction with the Wharton School of Business. Called “Your Big Ideas Challenge,” the effort reached out to staff throughout Penn Medicine’s system to present their innovative ideas for improving patient care. The top ten will be selected and presented at a town hall meeting. There were many compelling ideas, but what I was most interested in was the process. By empowering staff to think about how they can better serve patients, they were free to do more than air grievances or whine about needing more space. Instead, they could influence the change. Just think about how powerful this process could be when it’s time for the next design project:

Unlock information
There is only so much time at traditional design meetings and only so many staff usually allowed to attend. When you couple that with the fact that most of these people are not adept at reading plans or processing the information we present, counting on meeting feedback is actually a very bankrupt model for design. Instead, after discussing goals for the project with stakeholders, we should frame those goals in the form of questions back to a much more comprehensive cross-section of staff and empower a little innovative thinking that can lead back to either discrete design decisions or the development of design elements that will support an operational change. For example, if you develop a project goal that you want to create a less stressful environment for families, you might ask staff about how they would address commonly encountered family issues or complaints.

Cut a wide swath
Many times, we develop “departmental myopia” on our projects. We forget about just how much impact related departments or core process (lab, housekeeping, maintenance, food service, social services) or groups like infection control and facilities have on a space. Make sure to get the insights of these staff as well. The interchange of things that we don’t even realize happen in a space is often the area most ripe for a design intervention. These extra-departmental folks can provide the lowdown.

Re-integrate Information
So if you follow these suggestions, you now have a bunch of data. Hopefully, you also have a lot of ideas germinating as well. The last and very crucial step in getting the most innovation (and generating the most value) possible, is to re-integrate it back to the project. Invite key players from the extra-departmental group and a more robust sampling of staff from your departmental group to the next design meeting. Provide a recap of the results and how you are planning to use them in design. This allows the innovations to give way to some collaborative discussions, which will give the design team the most useful feedback possible going forward.

I Am Not a Waitress

I have been absent.  Busy.  Eating too much pizza and not enough green vegetables.  The truth is, I’ve been feeling sapped.  The creative brain can often operate on hyper overdrive with more ideas flooding in that we can process.  We embark on myriad projects stretching ourselves in too many different directions.  My ambitious novena project has proved more difficult than I’d imagined to execute as finding then coaxing interviews out of built environment champions from all over the country has proved to be a bit like herding cats (you know who you are out there).  I’d like to also blame the flurry of events in my 3D life for why I have not blogged more in recent months (real estate crises, hectic work schedule, launching feng shui business, family matters), but this blog is about 3D life, not escaping it, so that’s not a good excuse either.  While I still feel guilty about not posting at my usual weekly pace, I’ve also come to realize that sometimes you just need...time.  We cannot flog ourselves into a creative frenzy, producing on-demand delights for the pleasure of others.  In short, I am not a waitress, and neither are you.  As creatives, we respond to, synthesize and process information to solve problems, but we will fail every time we try to follow orders.

I was recently reminded of this at a client meeting.  Because I am a healthcare architect, many of the people I work with are physicians.  Brilliant, worldly, folks who often themselves have a passion for the arts and architecture.  Certainly people who are used to speaking up and being the authority.  In this particular meeting, the person in question was sure that she had the answer, suggesting it in the meeting and even pulling me aside later to press her point.  I personally always like to think through and interpret what people have to tell me about space because I can often gain a great deal of insight on how to best solve the problem.  However, in this case, we’d already explored that path and the suggestion had more cons attached to it than pros.  I bristled inwardly at being told how to do my job.  I marveled at the audacity and confidence of this individual at the same time I wondered why as architects we so often demur.  Those that don’t are deemed “arrogant”  and “difficult”  and had better have a hell of a lot of talent on their side to make up for the fact that no one really likes them.  It led me to want to explore further the fine line between creativity and collaboration, between clarity and conformity and when it all degrades to just serving up a requested old favorite from the menu.

Let’s start with a round of intention and purpose
If you don’t know what you want, there is no way you can get it (or recognize it when you have).  While we often think that pushing ourselves to work harder is the key to success, the real key is your passion for what you do. This passion is contagious and will fuel any project and actually foster more collaboration that being a sycophant ever will.  As my yoga teacher likes to say- “if it doesn’t feel good, don’t do it.”  Truly words to live by, yet so many of us are caught up in life’s compulsories to the point that we forget what all those things were a prerequisite for. 

Next course: time and space 
While we often think that our best ideas come out of the pressure of the last minute, they are made possible by the fact that during periods of relaxation, something we negatively label as procrastination, we subconsciously form links between our problem and seemingly unrelated things out in the world.  If you can’t focus, there’s probably a reason and no amount of time at your desk will improve that.  The mind at play can recharge and see problems from new angles while the mind under pressure and a heavy workload reverts to reconstituting the last successful idea.

Send those negative thoughts back to the kitchen
The devil you know can be mighty seductive.  No matter how much we complain about all the things holding us back in life, we have a laundry list of excuses for why we can’t let them go.  These are your fears and they have no place in the successful outcome of anything.  Fear of failure prevents you from making bold moves, or causes you to sabotage the ones you do make too soon, leaving projects unfinished.  Fear of disapproval prevents you from voicing your thoughts or being an advocate for the expertise you have when you are challenged.  Fear of losing control makes us inflexible idea-hoarders, unable to collaborate.  When you play it safe, you stay stuck in a comfortable rut, all the while telling yourself you are making a wise choice (nice job, inner critic). 

Finish it off with a nice routine
When your creative process becomes automatic, you don’t question it anymore.  That makes it infinitely less likely that others will question you either.  Being creative is a constant work in progress.  You have to nurture your creativity for it to blossom.  Just like that never ending chore of cleaning the kitchen, creativity requires a daily investment of your time, and things quickly become a mess after a day or two of neglect.  Get in the habit of feeding your soul by making rest, exercise, and a ritual of creative tasks a non-negotiable part of your day.

Being an architect is nothing like waiting tables. We are in the business of providing our clients with something they don’t have today, of working with them to shepherd a vision into a built reality.  To do that, we are going to have to expand beyond literally writing down a list of criteria to satisfy. Our purpose in the design process is to work with our project team and clients toward defining the right problem and developing an innovative way to solve it, not delivering the daily special.

Liberation: six steps to set your creativity free

Does your thinking always default to “fault?” Are you trapped in an endless game of “gotcha” with yourself?  Have you imprisoned your creative spirit in a cage of self doubt? As someone who expects perfection out of myself I can relate to the fears and desire to overachieve and exceed expectations that hold creative people back.  I recently read an excellent article on letting go by Tony Schwartz that got me thinking about how we can set ourselves free of things that don’t serve our highest self in order to make room for the things that do.  Sounds like a scary proposition- but it’s not.  What it is is nothing short of liberation.  Just as fear of failing can immobilize us and keep us stuck in a rut, letting the perfect be the enemy of the good causes us to aim low, and apologize for taking chances.  It causes that judge and jury in our heads to consistently level a guilty verdict. This is my list of six common creative prisons and recommendations for breaking out:

Shackled to the past
Maybe it took you a while to really get the hang of model building, or a design program.  Maybe you got some harsh criticisms of your work.  Maybe that first internship was a bit rocky as you learned the ropes.  Maybe, just maybe you learned from all of this and are now competent.  However, you got used to viewing yourself as inexperienced and mistake prone.  That self-image no longer is a true representation of the architect you are today.  Like the person who’s conquered a lifelong weight problem, and can’t stop seeing themselves as fat, you are locked inside your initial years as a fledgeling architect. Re-write your resume, update your LinkedIn profile, do something to affirm the architect you are today and keep celebrating that in order to change your self image so that you can feel empowered to make decisions from the point of view of who you are, not who you were.

Confined by busywork
No one ever says on their deathbed that they wished they’d worked more.  If anything they probably wished they’ed enjoyed life more and made more of an impact.  No, you can’t blow off deadlines, but you can prioritize.  Are you letting your to-do list be your excuse?  Whether it’s deadlines at work or personal projects, not giving yourself permission to move forward is not only silly, but it makes you feel so uninspired that you probably won’t actually get all those tasks done anyway.  You eat a pie one bite at a time.  At the beginning of each day, look at what parts of your life goals you can accomplish on that day.  It may be a single task and that’s fine because it advanced your agenda.  Contract, distill and excel.  When you say no to the expansive opportunities before you in order to scratch off some (insignificant in a global view) task, you are really saying no to your own expansion.

Locked into Entitlement
Do you brood about what’s not right or not fair in your career?  The client who treated you poorly, the promotion you didn’t get?  Do you beat yourself up over every real or imagined misstep?  The root of those feelings is an unyielding and harsh view of yourself as all or nothing.  Like a teenager, you believe that you deserve certain things and that life is lived at the extremes of always and never.  As your mother probably told you then, “life’s not fair.”  She was right.  Life’s not just about you.  The people you interact with have their own motives- you are far better served when you focus on understanding them because what really matters is the result and how you respond to a situation, not all the things that happened along the way to cause it.

Energetically in Isolation
You might think you took the high road by not telling your boss off, or giving that unappreciative client a lecture on the value of your service.  But you are still holding on to the resentment and it colors all of your future interactions not only with the individual in question but with others in your professional and private life as well.  Realize that by being non-confrontational, you are choosing to make yourself invisible- no wonder you aren’t on these people’s A-List.  Think about your passion for what you do as a ball of energy that lives at your core.  The more expansive the energy, the further out the glow extends.  Other people are attracted to that glow and want to work with you.  The greatest architects have such expansive energy that people will crowd into lecture halls to hear what they have to say, buy their monographs and wish they could work for or with them.  When you can’t let go of all of your resentments or regrets, you diminish your energy.  Think about that glass-half empty colleague or friend  How drawn to that person do you (or clients) feel?  Then realize that, at times, we are all that person.  Choose to be aware of when you are letting your anger, doubts and fears diminish your energy.  Then take steps to let go.  Stop suppressing your emotions and instead think about whether you actually made your point of view heard.   Calmly and with an open mind approach the person and ask them to recount their decision/actions from their point of view.  You may be surprised at what you learn.

On the chain gang of Trying Too Hard
Are you trying to make your clients like you more by practically wiping their noses for them?   Score points with your boss by being a workaholic?  Being a doormat diminishes your expertise and loses any respect people will have for you.  A project is a partnership and all involved have to understand their roles and responsibilities.  Decisions and directives (or lack of them) have consequences.  Don’t try to sweep client driven issues or office problems under the rug and cheerfully try to compensate by doing others work for them.  So often, we try to just make our situation work and do it all. You never want to put yourself in a position of being held accountable for an outcome in an areas where you have no responsibility. Your boss and your client’s main objective is to have a successful project.  If they aren’t giving you what you need to accomplish this, the greatest service you can provide is one of coaching them on how they can help make the outcome a success. 

Rotting in the dungeon of the Status Quo
What’s good for General Bullmoose is not necessarily what’s good for you.  If you are trying to live up to the expectations of your family, co-workers, society, you are engaged in conformance.  Conformity erodes creativity.  I am not suggesting that you have to be an angry, angry artist who rejects the world in order to be successful.  I am telling you that you need to know yourself and make decisions because they are right for you.  Unfortunately, we’re all likely to hit cruise control when we feel that our lives are basically going in a good direction.  It usually takes some disruptive event to create a breakthrough.  Why?  Because being shaken out of your status quo stupor makes you refocus on what really matters to you.  In the disruptive state, you reject limits and question rules.  Make bold, purposeful moves in your life and you will fail, but you will also succeed beyond your wildest dreams.    When you take actions with purpose, not just because you can or should, miracles can happen.

Who caged your creativity? Who cares?  What’s important to remember is that you hold the key to your own creative freedom. Unlock your own liberation.

Superheroes of the Built World

Last week, I took trapeze lessons.  A group of co-workers have taken on a challenge to do extreme sports activities over the course of the year and sent an email inviting others to join.  I could not hit reply fast enough- what an adventure!  When I got up on that platform, my inner daredevil took over and it was beyond thrilling.  I only regret that I do not have the body of an acrobat, and thus could not do things like a catch and release (but I tried, I tried).  After I develop more core strength, I will go back again in the hopes of successfully completing this stunt.  My four year old self is begging for the opportunity. You see, this was a childhood fantasy come true; I loved going to the circus and, next to the clowns, the acrobats were my favorite. I wanted to be one when I grew up, causing my mother some bit of consternation. While I did pursue gymnastics lessons though high school, I never competed and by the time I was eight or so, I had abandoned my dream career in the circus for being an astrophysicist, then a teacher, then an artist, only finding my way to architecture late in high school. My time on the trapeze got me thinking about what our childhood fantasy careers are really trying to tell us about who we are.

One thing they don’t tell us is to play it safe

Children crave the action oriented, things that serve an obvious purpose with a touch of adventure thrown in. They don’t dream of hours spent in mind-numbing meetings, being heckled by a bullying boss or playing office politics.  They don’t fantasize about the drudgery of overtime because of over-promised deadlines.  They most certainly do not aspire to being awarded some silly title that will pigeon-hole them into a constrained set of roles.  In fact, if you were to present any of these dismal (but all too real) scenarios to a child, they would respond by proposing some bold brash action to put the perpetrator of such misery in his or her place.

This visceral response, commonly echoed in comics, and even some movies, allows the hero to stand up for him or herself, indulging in the supreme satisfaction of defeating evil, telling off an annoying person, double crossing a backstabber  or ceremoniously walking away from oppressive expectations like a toxic job or relationship.  Many times this is coupled with  a physical act- literally vanquishing life’s villain.  We can’t legally do many of these things in real life, so we bury our frustrations and resign ourselves to our fate.  Kapow!  That’s the sound of me smacking you upside the head (virtually of course).  When you feel the urge to be resigned is when you should resign - literally - from whatever is oppressing your ability to be great.  Reconnect with your childhood self and your innermost passions- in other words, look beyond the ordinary career path.

What would Wonder Woman do?
As a child, you truly believed you could change the world.  What you may not realize is that you still can.  You don’t have to accept less than your expectations.  In career paths laden with compromise and nuance, our purpose gets lost.  This is a creativity buzzkill to say the least.  Choose to embark on a more adventurous route:

Lead a double life
No, you don’t need to have a secret identity (unless you want to), but you do need to have more than one dimension.  You can deal with the sometimes mundane aspects involved in being Diana Prince when you know that as Wonder Woman, you are saving the world.  Many times when I talk to someone who is frustrated in their career, they usually work at their job and that’s about it.  They have become flattened, so the consequences of the day to day effort involved in a project or interpersonal business relationships become all consuming.  If you have lost perspective in this way, you need to look for opportunities to live your passion outside of your job.  Volunteer in the community, apply to be a member of a board or commission- do something else that matters to you to expand your network.  It might seem counter-intuitive, but when you expose yourself to fun and inspiring activities (like trapezing), you actually become better at solving workplace problems and making career choices.

Be a hero
You are an architect, so why isn’t your city better?  People on the street may not cry out for help like they do in comic books, but it’s not very heroic of you to keep ignoring obvious need.  Heroes don’t let a purse snatcher get away because they’d rather wait for their archenemy to launch some diabolical plot.  They help wherever they are needed.  So should you. Take initiative and work to make a change. 

Confront your nemesis
What’s holding you back?  What are you too afraid to even attempt?  If you take the time to really think about it, these root fears of inadequacy or failure are the excuse you use not to pursue things that really matter  to you.  They make you risk adverse and keep you stuck in that rut you always complain about being stuck in.  Challenge yourself and remember, those elaborate plots to eliminate the hero were always foiled in the end (mostly because they were way too elaborate).  Your nemesis is really just you over-thinking everything.

Over the next few weeks, I am launching my second Patron Saint of Architecture novena (click on the tab at the top of the page to read last year's Breaking Points and Turning Points novena).  Change the World (an experiment), will profile cities as seen through the lens of the real-life superheroes who weren’t afraid to step outside their comfort zone and champion a cause in the built environment.  What they did made a difference, and you will get to hear their stories so that you, too can be inspired to use your powers as an architect for the greater good.   Before you shut down this idea by automatically thinking that you can’t possibly pull off a stunt like this, I want to share the most profound thing I discovered at my trapeze lesson: falling is truly no big deal.  It’s how you get down when you are done with your act.

Feast Day 2012: Stay Inspired

Today, the Patron Saint of Architecture turns two!  When I made my first post on May 26, 2010, I never imagined that this blog would have touched so many lives.  I've met some wonderful architects from all over the world, had the opportunity to interview some amazing people on the subject of inspiration and creativity, taken a deep dive into the issues that hold us back as creatives in the Breaking Points and Turning Points novena, and gotten even more exposure for the blog through Wellness: The Series, my monthly article for Urban Times.  The past year has included expansion into new platforms- creating a Patron facebook page where I post daily doses of inspiration (so like it if you haven't already) as well as more interactive content like surveys and sharing by other sites like Healthcare Innovation by Design and Loth Furniture.  You can also visit the Enlighten Yourself link on the right column of this page to see my recommended reading for you in the categories of business, architecture and creative resources.  Just today, I created a Patron board on Pinterest, to allow creative images to be shared.  As I get this going, you will have the opportunity to post your ongoing work or favorite images to share with the group.  I am toying with the idea of a little You Tube streaming for the coming year as well! 

All of you devotees had an exciting year of opportunities to inspire you to be your best creative selves.  Please join in the litany of inspiration by sharing a quick story with all of us in the comments section.  As I learned last year, our greatest triumphs come from challenging ourselves.  When we know what we want and ask for it, it is surprising how easily we can get it.  For example, I never dreamed that author Robin Stern would agree to an interview about gaslighting, just because I looked her up and sent her an email, or well-known executive coach Lisa Petrilli would talk to me about leadership or Therapeutic Landscape expert Naomi Sachs would share her insights into biophilic design.  They all were so generous with their time and knowledge, and those interviews were some of the top posts of the past year - all it took was me truly pushing my introverted self to approach them.

Look for this year's novena, Change the World (An Experiment), an upcoming series that interviews changemakers in nine different cities about the role they played in turning their community around.  I hope that their inspirational stories will show you all the ways that you too can make a difference as an architect.

So, if you are sitting at your remarkably uninspiring desk feeling like all you do is churn out work to meet demands and deadlines, don't forget that inspiration is what you make of it- put on your party hat, grab a balloon and some cake and celebrate your creativity!  As a prize for all of you, please download the feast day icon - you didn't even have to play a festival game to win it!