Navigating a Whackadoodle World: Episode 34, or Why the creative mind is the first step in strategy
A Whackadoodle lesson in which my student demonstrates how much she hates Guidepost Five: The Power of Strategy, but I talk her through it anyway.
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“So, this is the week we take on strategy,” she said pulling out a note pad.
“You make it sound like getting ready for a marathon,” I told her.
“Well, isn’t it kind of the same thing,” she murmured. She seemed more focused on finding a pen than our conversation. “I mean, if you want to run a marathon, you have to plan for it. You have to train for it. To do that, you have to have a strategy, right?”
“But you make it sound like strategy is some monumental task that I am forcing you to face.”
“If it looks like duck, and quacks like a duck…”
“It’s a duck,” I finished for her. “Look, I think you might have strategy all wrong if that’s how you feel about it.”
“How should I feel about it?” she asked dryly.
“It should feel exciting, creative, fun,” I told her. “Strategy is about designing your life. Isn’t there something inspiring about that?”
“Maybe,” she admitted sullenly. “If you want to design your life rather than live in the moment.”
“You want to live in the moment?” I asked. “Fine, live in the moment. Make that your goal. What does it look like? What are you actually doing? Who are you doing it with? Are you actually doing something you care about, or just reacting to what the world has to offer? The first step of strategy is nothing more than asking questions about who you want to be and how you want to live. Creating plans to get there comes later.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Are you talking about guideposts six and seven now?”
“Yes,” I exclaimed. “Guideposts six and seven can help you achieve your goals. However, Guidepost Five: the Power of Strategy, is all about choosing those goals.” I looked at her carefully. “If you don’t care where you’re going; then sure, any course can take you there. So the question becomes, do you care where you’re going?” I asked pointedly.
“Of course I do,” she nearly yelled. “I just don’t…” She didn’t finish the sentence. She just sat their silently.
“Imagine a perfect day ten years from now,” I said quietly. “What are you doing?” I didn’t ask anything more. I just sat silently, waiting for her answer.
“I’m traveling,” she said eventually. “I’m seeing the world.”
“Are you a tourist, or are you working? Do you have a backpack, or are you traveling first class? Are you traveling alone, or with a group of people?”
“I think I’m working,” she admitted. “I think I’m traveling kind of ruff, but I don’t mind because I’m getting to know people. I am learning how they live. I think I might have people traveling with me, but they are working too.”
“What are you working on?”
“I think I might be writing. I might be reporting. I might be helping others to report. Or, maybe I’m just learning.”
“Sounds like a lovely goal.”
“So that’s it?” she looked up suddenly. “That’s strategy?”
“No, that’s the first step to strategy. Now, you ask more questions. What will you need to get there? Who can help you get there? What skills will you need to develop? What certifications will you need to get? How will you pay for it? What will keep you on course? You might even have to do some research. Learn about people who have done what you want to do. Reach out to them for advice. There are many careers that include travel, or you could create a new career of your own. The trick is to keep asking questions and insisting on answers. In its simples form, strategy is all about ask the question, ‘Where do I want to go, and how can I get myself there?’”
“So where do I direct all these questions?” she asked irritably.
“You direct them to yourself,” I told her. “You direct them to the creative side of your brain.”
“You mean the explorer?” she said, referring to my book.
“I mean your creative mind, yes.” I took a deep breath and added, “I’m sorry girl, but you really do need to develop some faith in your creative mind. It can find solutions to problems you don’t even know you have yet.”
“And if my strategy doesn’t work?”
“If you lose one chess game, you don’t give up on chess. You start another game.”
“Whatever,” she groaned.
I looked at her long and hard before replying, “A lot of people spend their life in wishful and prayerful thinking. Strategy says, ‘Screw the wish, I’m gonna figure out how to make this happen.’ When I pray, I’m not gonna pray for someone else to make it happen, I’m gonna pray that I figuring out how to make it happen. We have a creative mind for a reason.”
“And I have been neglecting mine,” she said sarcastically.
“Not neglecting it,” I assured her. “You’ve just been taught to ignore it. The creative mind is messy. It asks questions. Questions can be messy. The status quo doesn’t like messy. The status quo like things as they are. Afterall, the creative mind can seldom give you a perfect score on your SAT. Your logical mind can only do that.” I thought for a moment and found myself adding, “Unless it’s in your essay. I’ve always loved helping kids get perfect scores on their SAT essays.”
“Can you do that?”
“I have done that.”
“Why didn’t you help me with my SAT essay?”
“You didn’t ask me.” I replied, then added. “After all, it’s all about creating a strategy for writing an essay in fifty minutes, so you get a perfect score.”
“So, how did you help them?” she asked tentatively.
“Lots of practice, lots of planning, lots of timing, and lots of grammar review. I showed them past essays that had achieved a perfect five. I showed them other essays that had only achieved a one. We talked about what the testers were looking for. We discussed the writing process; which by the way, begins with the creative mind being asked to answer the question, not get distracted by the prompt.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“All SAT tests include a prompt to help kids get started. Usually, it’s some famous quote. I would always hide the prompt during practice. When students use the prompt, they sound like everyone else answering the question. The point of the essay is to answer the question, not make sense of the prompt.”
“Sounds like something you would do.”
“I also used to force them to spend the first ten minutes of each practice just deciding what they wanted to say.” I informed her. “I wouldn’t even let them begin writing unless they spent at least five minutes brainstorming and five minutes organizing. They hated it because their instincts were to start writing immediately, so they could be sure to finish within fifty minutes. But who can write anything unless they know what they want to say and have planned how they want to say it? I timed every practice, and ten minutes into the session, I would say, ‘You may start writing your essay if you are ready.’ After thirty minutes of writing, I would say, ‘You have ten minutes left. Now is the time to think about editing.’”
“And that got them a perfect score?”
“Nine time out of ten times it did. I became a very popular tutor for writing SAT essays. I don’t know any student who got less than four out of the possible five points. All that practice created a habit. That habit helped them stay calm during the test, and have a feel for how to budget their fifty minutes of time. That strategy helped them achieved their goal.”
“A perfect score?”
“A perfect score.”
I watched her in silence. She was thinking. She was listening to herself. Hopefully, she was listening to possibilities and not criticism. “How does it work again?” she finally asked.
I didn’t ask her what she meant by ‘it’. I just said, “You start by brainstorming the question that you want answered. You spend ten percent of your time brainstorming, ten percent planning, thirty percent doing, and your last ten percent editing, which is just another word for adjusting your course.”
“I was asking about strategy, not writing,” she informed me.
“I know,” I told her. “So was I.”