Moments of brilliance

When was the last time you noticed your own genius?

If you’ve been reading The Spark, or listening to Follow Your Curiosity, for a while, you’ll have heard me talk a lot about how Western culture, especially North American culture (especially American culture) tells us that creativity is a luxury, an avocation at best, something that we should do if we have time for it, and not something to go out of our way for.

It’s not “essential.” It’s just “nice to have,” if we can manage it.

You also know I believe this is absolute nonsense. Humans are wired for creativity, not just in the arts, but in many fields. It’s literally what separates us from every other animal species and has allowed us to build the civilizations and technologies we enjoy. Denying it is like denying we have opposable thumbs.

What you may not be quite so sure about is whether or not I’m right about the culture. That’s fair. One of the things that makes culture so powerful is that we can’t see it. Sure, we can see things like holidays and festivals, but we tend not to be able to see beliefs, especially the kind that underpin societies, because they’re the things we take for granted. They look normal to us—like they’re “just how things work.”

It’s only when we get outside our culture for a while, and see how other folks live, that we can see that maybe they’re not the way things have to be. They’re the way people have decided, often hundreds if not thousands of years ago, that things should be.

Photo by Anthony DELANOIX on Unsplash

Just a few days ago, my colleague Jocelyn Hastie told me a story that demonstrated this phenomenon perfectly. Jocelyn works with horses—you’ll get to hear her story on the podcast this summer—and has shown horses in a variety of contexts.

At one show, she finished showing her horse knowing they had lost. Among other things, they’d made some obvious errors right at the end, where the judge couldn’t possibly have missed them.

To her astonishment, the judge announced that Jocelyn and her horse had, indeed, won. Confused, she questioned him, pointing out that he couldn’t possibly have missed the error.

The judge, who was from Peru, replied, “I didn’t miss it. A North American judge looks for the fewest mistakes. A Peruvian judge looks for the most moments of brilliance.”

That, my friends, is a massive, massive cultural difference.

My guess is that, right now, as you’re starting to breathe again after taking in those wise words, you are re-evaluating how you’ve judged yourself and others for your entire life. Where you could have been looking for moments of brilliance… but instead of noticing them at all, only saw mistakes.

Don’t beat yourself up. It’s not your fault. If you live in a Western culture, especially in North America, and most particularly in the US, you were trained to see the world this way by the invisible hands of the culture you live in. Everyone and everything around you has been taught and designed in the belief that the most important thing in life is not to make a mistake.

You may also be looking at all the ways that being trained this way has made you feel like your value was connected to how many mistakes you’ve made, or were capable of not making, rather than how brilliant you could be regardless. That may even be making you a little angry, which is certainly understandable.

The culture has failed you. It’s failed all of us. Here’s the thing:

Nothing about you is a mistake.

Photo by Samuel Regan-Asante on Unsplash

Mistakes are normal and natural, and we can’t learn without them. I know you’ve heard that before, to the point where it probably feels like a cliché, but clichés are usually rooted in truth. It’s just that the culture got itself all twisted up and decided that we should somehow become infallible anyway, even though that’s impossible.

In that process, your moments of brilliance got completely lost. And they probably are lost to no one more than yourself. Other people are almost certainly more able to see your moments of brilliance than you are, because we’re also trained to discount our own brilliance while recognizing others’ (especially if we’re women). You’ve probably noticed this when you’ve discussed others’ talents, and they’ve discussed yours. Be honest—how many times has someone told you you’re amazing at something, and you’ve brushed it off as no big deal…and how many times have you been frustrated when someone else has done the same thing when you’ve tried to acknowledge their genius?

So, what do we do about it?

Ahh, the critical question. It may feel like an impossible one, because the culture is huge, and often invisible, and it seems like, in order to solve this situation, we have to go up against it.

That’s true, to an extent. Ultimately, it would be good to cause a cultural shift. As you’re no doubt thinking, though, causing a cultural shift is not easy. You can’t just wave a magic wand and change how everyone thinks at once. I’m not sure there’s ever been a cultural shift that’s happened that quickly that hasn’t been caused by a massive outside force like war or dictatorship (we could probably debate whether the whims of a dictator really count as a genuine shift, but we’ll save that for another time).

Photo by Alexander Grey on Unsplash

I don’t think we have to do anything that dramatic, though. I think it’s enough to change how we interact with ourselves and others, and when we’re asked what’s different about us, or how we got there, give a solid answer—one that compels people to think about making the same change for themselves. This approach can be especially powerful if we are in a position to work this way with others: kids, grandkids, other folks at work, etc.

(Spoiler: if you manage people, you’ll get far, far better results out of them—not to mention rave reviews and enduring gratitude—if you appreciate their moments of brilliance more than the mistakes they make. I’m not sure why this isn’t the central premise of every management book out there.)

Of course, it’s harder to be gentle with ourselves, especially if we weren’t taught this skill as kids. I made self-kindness a central focus of Make Bad Art for a reason: When we’re hard on ourselves, it’s so easy to fall into the cycle of perfectionism, where we judge ourselves ever more harshly because we keep making mistakes…which means we’re more likely to keep making mistakes. At some point, we have to break that toxic loop for the sake of our own sanity.

Whatever you do, I hope you keep Jocelyn’s words of wisdom in mind:

Judge yourself and those you love not by the absence of mistakes, but by the presence of moments of brilliance. Because that is what truly defines a champion.

—Jocelyn Hastie

Would you like to focus more on your moments of brilliance than your mistakes? To accept mistakes as part of the process rather than something to feel bad about or avoid? To feel less restricted by “should,” “must,” and the need to do it “right” every time? And to be able to tell your inner critic to take a long hike…or just ignore it when it’s not being helpful?

The next cohort of Make Bad Art starts on March 27 (yes, I’ve pushed it back a week). Previous participants are having more fun, feeling more energetic and alive, worrying less about doing things “right” and what people will think of them, and discovering that creativity just starts “falling out of them” when they least expect it.

Sound good? Join us next month and give yourself permission to “do it wrong,” relax the rules, and reconnect with the curiosity, awe, and sense of play you had as a kid.

If you’d like to get a taste of what the course is like first, join me for one of the two Permission to Play workshops I’m offering on a pay-what-you-can basis on March 17 or March 23.

Either way, the community is part of what makes Make Bad Art so special—and work so well—and we’d love to have you!