Sunday, February 24, 2013

What Is Your "Super-Power"? Part II


Simplicity at its best.

Honestly, I don't know.

(As an aside, I love disclaiming that I don't know because honestly I so often do not know!)

Mine (I wonder) could be an ability to reduce things to it's most basic form and to make things utterly transparent?

Whether it's being able to ask basic questions to really understand what drives people? Drivers that most people aren't even aware they're governed by.

Whether it's being to pull off the mask of society and explain exactly what pretenses we live under?

Or whether it's my own relentless honesty that I reveal myself to people on a regular basis? The same relentless honesty that holds me to the standards I have to live up to.

It's even in my photography. I run a no frills enterprise. I don't use elaborate props, setups, makeup, wardrobe.

That's all I could think of lying in bed. I have this undying curiosity to understand things and what makes things tick. Whether it's people, places, situations, expectations, etc. It's not exactly a thirst for knowledge as much as it is a desire to connect on a more fundamental level. I just like seeing what's behind the curtain and what's really going on behind it all...

And this superpower allows me explain to other people the inner workings of the industry, the reason certain protocols exist, and also the inner workings of my own thought processes and workflows. But the understanding and the communication of that understanding work are two different skill sets.

Honestly, I only thought it about it for a little while lying in bed last night and certainly it's a question that should be asked repeatedly over time. There exists doubt in my mind whether or not this even qualifies as a superpower. What I'm describing is the same superpower that comedians possess and harness in order to draw attention onto what are otherwise assumed to be "normal" situations. And certainly my version of this superpower is not better and definitely not greater than the Dave Chappelles of the world. But it's the only thing that I could think of that vaguely resembles a "superpower".

I think my superpower (reducing things to it's most direct, simple, and transparent form) also allows me also to assemble things and "put two and two together" not in the traditional "conclusional" sense, but rather to assemble simple pieces to make a greater machine with simple moving parts. Like the bicycle that people have attempted to improve upon over the last century and yet still retains virtually the same design as bicycles from 100 years ago, I strive to build "machines" where the moving parts are so simple and yet so necessary that any more would be superfluous and any less would cause it to fall apart. Something that is virtually perfect and can not be improved upon.

What's what I seek to create.

Now I don't claim to have designed any such processes or machines. Far from it. But it is how I govern my own business and processes for example how I think about my workshops when I'm putting together a new production. I don't frivolously add unnecessary parts. I strive to make the most efficient machine and streamlined process to produce the maximum results and "bang-for-the buck". It is what led me down the webinar road. It is what leads me to wonder about scaling up and taking the show elsewhere. It is what leads me to (attempt to) form partnerships that work.

It (the understanding or myself and this entire journey) is a huge work in progress. One that I might very well never finish. But it is a fantastic journey and continues to be inspiring on a regular basis!

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