The Friday Thing #716

Many of you like lists based on feedback from the last two weeks. Got it….I'll aim for another one next week...perhaps

The Friday Thing #716 is from one of the great storytellers - Ira Glass. For those not familiar with Glass, he is the?host and producer of the radio and television series This American Life - which is a bit of an institution here in the US.?

Back in 2009, Glass was recorded by Current.tv talking about storytelling - you can find the videos on YouTube, and I am guessing some may already have seen them. I had not previously seen the videos and only discovered them indirectly this week.?A creator named David Shiyang Liu has taken the seminal words from "Ira Glass on Storytelling 3" and created a short video on top of Glass's spoken word. It's quite lovely and worth two minutes of your time. My discovery though was a remix of that video by Daniel Sax that Sax created seven years ago. Check it out:

I love this video for so many reasons. First up, I love the cover image because it's very Banksy-esque. The creative execution beyond that it just first class and as the comments show that many people come back to it frequently as a source of inspiration. I imagine I will do the same.?

The topic at hand has been on my mind a bit over the last few weeks as I immerse myself in my new job. I feel 'the gap' Glass talks about.

On the one hand, I am eager to bring creativity and ideas to my new role. Yet, I feel like I don't quite know enough yet - I'm not a subject matter expert on all the things I am involved in (and likely never will be). However, I am learning a lot and reassuring myself that the gap will begin to close as I start to see the points of connection between my creative ideas and the communications projects we have. I'm not sure I'd have been so confident about this a few years ago and would likely be sinking under the weight of imposter syndrome and be incredibly stressed about the whole thing. But, as I have talked about before, we all have imposter syndrome and I have learned to get comfortable with that. What I am also being comfortable with right now, is the knowledge that I need more knowledge in order to be effective. Which means I am doing what Glass encourages in the video....

He talks about doing a huge volume or work and putting yourself on a deadline. While that makes sense when it comes to pure creative work and storytelling, the work I am doing is a combination of reading and listening. Reading as much as I can about all these new areas of interest. Listening to my team, my peers and those around me to understand and learn. Resisting the temptation to talk. Watching how things play out. And, crucially, keeping the creative saw sharp by digesting from my usual sources of creativity (magazines, websites, events, travel, newsletters) and tapping into new ones in the form of friends in the industry I have not spoken with in a while, new newsletters I had not subscribed to before and giving myself time to reflect and digest.

At some point, I know the train tracks of my creativity and my lack of knowledge will start to get closer and at some point, overlap. Moments that allowed me to end the day feeling I had made a difference.?That I had laid another brick on the foundations already established.?

I share all of this because I am sure others are going through or will go through this phase - of uncertainty and questioning oneself. It's natural and good and I am strangely enjoying it because I know it's all part of the journey of growth.

That's it for this week. I have meetings to go learn from, a pile of magazines to read and some long bike rides in my near future.

Until next week....Happy Friday,

-Steve