Posts from — March 2011

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Did you know the number zero “0″ was invented?  And at first, it wasn’t even used as a number, simply a placeholder.  The seventh-century Indian mathematician Brahmagupta was the first to use zero as a number and create rules for its use.  Rules for its use? Today, the number zero, like all numbers, is part of our everyday lives.  Take a moment and think about life without zero.  Imagine how you’d talk about nothingness without the number zero.  Hard to imagine isn’t it?

Zero was invented.  And so was the word “I” and along with “I” came self-analysis and reflection.  There’s absolutely nothing wrong with self-analysis and reflection.  Such things can be beneficial.  My intention, as is typical, is to create some space in your thinking so that something new can show up.  So yes, like I did with zero, I’d like you to imagine life without “I”.  I’d like you to imagine life without anyway to talk about or think about yourself and your inner world.  Imagine if, for one day, you could not use the word “I” in your thoughts or in your speaking.

Why would one do something like this?  Creating something is just that it’s creating some thing. It’s about building something in the world.  Inherently, it’s not about you.  One of my missions in life is to put an end to the link between our ability to create and our identity (”I”).  Yes, I understand you are the one that will take action toward your vision.  I understand that you are part of the creation process.  But as a creation, the thing you are creating is not you.  You know that your house isn’t you and your car isn’t you.  Yet, when we go to create what we want inevitably we make it about ourselves.

So what does making our creations about “I” look like?  Simple.  ”I’m going to create an amazing relationship but I’m not sure if I can because I’ve had 5 bad relationships that always seem to end up the same way.”  ”I’m going to double my income next year, but I’m not sure if I’m good enough or if I deserve it.”  You see how identity shows up in our creations.

Culturally, we’ve come to believe that our identity issues are our creating issues and our creating issues are our identity issues.  Don’t believe me?  Start listening to the conversations of the people around you AND your own.  What you’ll hear is the same message over and over again said in different ways and that message is, “In order to create what I want, I must first handle some issue about myself.  Something is wrong with me that must be fixed before I can create what I want.”  Don’t misunderstand me, I’m not saying it’s a bad thing to work on some aspect of one’s character, attitude or psychology.  I’m simply suggesting that doing those things don’t have anything to do with creating what you want in life.

Just because you hold a strong association between what you believe about yourself AND your ability to create what you want in life doesn’t mean that association is valid.  I’m not saying that if you have that association that it won’t have an impact.  That’s the point.  It absolutely will have an impact on your ability to create.  I’m simply asking you to consider that the link we’ve historically made between our identities and our ability to create isn’t a foregone conclusion.

What if creating what you want doesn’t have anything to do with your identity issues (i.e. my beliefs about myself, who I am and what’s possible for me in life)?  What if creating is simply a mechanism?  It’s not magic and it’s not a secret anymore than it’s related to your identity issues.  It’s just a mechanism.

Right now, there are many things that you create without any reference to your identity.  Remember creation is simply taking an idea from idea through action until it results in physical structure.  Baking a cake, getting a glass of water, and planting a garden are all acts of creation.  For most of us, baking a cake doesn’t require analyzing your relationship with your parents.  It wouldn’t require working on some character defect.  Nasty, rotten people can bake a cake just as easily as wonderful, generous people.  Each can do so because a cake results from the mechanism of creation.

I’m not suggesting that baking a cake is the same thing as creating a great relationship with your spouse or building a company or … oh, no wait … that’s exactly what I’m saying.  Or to be more precise, they all utilize the same basic mechanism of creation.  The content and complexity of each creation may be different but the mechanism of design is the same.  How each moves from idea to outcome is a result of the same basic mechanism.

Want to add power to your ability to create?  Get the “I” Out of Design.