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today
Today, I have more understanding than I did yesterday, more love than months gone past and more grace to handle it all. I am focused on digging deeper into the things that I do not know, and my desire to connect and be connected with resonate loudly within the earth, so in this endeavor I am successful. I am only one of many, but my part in this amazing thing called "life" is set before me, before time, and before even my own consciousness - yet my collision with purpose is imminent because I am indeed purposeful. ~ V.A. Hunt 1972™
crayons and coloring books
I can clearly remember refining my ideas about design when I was about 8 or 9 years old. My mother would buy me coloring books (lots of them) and she would buy me crayons (lots of those too) and I would sit in my room for HOURS on end, tracing images (because I thought that it looked "clean" when I did that) and coloring pictures in the coloring books. For HOURS I would do this...
As I got older the crayons evolved, the books evolved, I evolved...
I can remember working with my dad in the shed on woodworking projects, and more importantly I can remember his keen attention to the details, and his relentless pursuit of excellence. He was a "self-taught" Woodworker... A Designer. I admired that."The details matter..."
I can remember things breaking around the house, and I can still hear my dad calling my name - to help him solve the problems at hand... He knew I could think them through, design them through, "design think" them through ...
"Design thinking was not taught to me ... it was nurtured and built in me ... Refined later."
It was my early childhood experiences that shaped my DNA. I had the opportunity to do the things I was DESIGNED to do at an early age. Through my environment, my parents willingness to let me be who I was designed to be prepared me for my today...
purpose and calling are not what you find... they are what you do.
A big part of what I do deals with working with people. When designing a system, a brand or a new product or service, it's imperative that we dig our way down to the ethos of the organization, BUT more importantly, it's imperative that we dig down to the ethos of the people involved within the organization OR at least the key individuals that have a direct effect on the results and sustainability of the desired end, may it be product, service or brand. And it's because of these dealings that I get this question more times than I can count ....
"How do you discover the thing that you were designed to do? How do you discover your purpose, your calling?"
Though simple, it's probably one of the toughest questions one can ask themselves, and others, and this is largely due to the fact, it should never be asked. Fact of the matter is, most people KNOW what their purpose and calling is, BUT what they identify with even more than the ingredients of their destiny is one word..
Fear.
It's fear of the unknown ideas that support most God given purposes and callings. In many cases, the thing that people are designed to do, has no proven revenue model, or any structure of sustainability that can be "seen". The reality of this for most people, OR we can say the "illusion" of this for most people is un-bearable. For example .... If Jack Dorsey operated in what he could see, OR if he focused only on the revenue model of Twitter, today we would be "Twitterless", and if CEO Steve Jobs did not walk in his calling, and his divine purpose we would have no iPhone, AND God forbid Bill Gates moved and operated in what he could see, we would be "Microsoftless". SO the big question is ...
The idea that people do not know what they are CALLED to do, or DESIGNED to do is a stretch ... From a babe, you know what you are designed to do. It is time, life, expenses, and mis-guided passions that throw us off course. If you are always itching to bake cookies, IF That excites you, then you are probably supposed to be introducing a new and innovative type of cookie to the rest of us. If knitting and sewing are your true loves - then perhaps you are supposed to be making clothing that can be shipped to third world countries that need cost effective textiles ... Just perhaps.
You know what you are designed to do, OR you at least have a clue. The real question(s) ...
2. How do I free myself of the fears that have trapped me in the cycles of my current reality
3. How do I sustain myself while walking in purpose and destiny
So... In MY opinion... Calling and purpose can not really be found, they come pre-installed. The question is: Do you have the courage to do it? Purpose and calling are not what you find, they are what you do. Do what you are authentically passionate about, and active your purpose, unlock your calling.
designers: different types, different functions, one purpose
From time to time people ask me what I do, and with absolute confidence I say ... Design. I say it with confidence because I have been a Designer for over 17 years of my life. The single most puzzling part of it all to me however; is though design is all around us, many of us do not know the differences between a graphic designer and an experience designer, an industrial designer and a interior designer. When I say... "Designer", the instant idea, that comes to mind, is "graphic designer" or "interior designer" and this brings me to a set of ideas of my own...
1. Though design is all around us, innovation - through design; is crippled by our lack of understanding as it pertains to the different facets of the field
2. Many designers are mis-placed because many mid-level (even high-level) leaders lack the ability to identify the unique abilities of the different "types" of creatives they have at their disposal
3. The overall design thinking of an organization becomes stagnated because designers are looked at as solely "pretty thing makers" and NOT "process innovators", or "organization transformers" ...
These ideas are surface at best, and I want to keep this post simple for the sake of us gaining a different perspective of the designers within our organizations and among us in our everyday lives. Let's first find out what a designer is and NOT assume that we "know"...
Designer: A person who designs or CREATES something. OR as psychologist Herbert Simon would say... "Everyone designs who devises courses of action aimed at changing existing situations into preferred ones".
SO based on this lens, we can easily say that we are ALL designers at one level or another, and THIS is indeed good news. I am privileged to know all kinds of designers ... Interior designers, system designers, experience designers, graphic designers, user experience designers... I could go on and on, however; the idea here is that just about everything you see, touch, smell or even experience comes from the hand or mind of a designer.With this revelation we can quickly conclude that designers are an very important part of our every day lives... We can also conclude that there are, in-fact different types of designers, AND designers have different functions however; if we look deeper we will find they all really have the same purpose, arguably - creating courses of action aimed at changing existing situations into preferred ones. We "prefer" to have elegantly designed cars versus "ugly" ones, we would "prefer" to have a "well oiled system" at the hospital versus a "cumbersome" one. Fact is however, the answer rest in design and design thinking.
Organizations can tap into new levels of innovation if they can somehow sift through all of the "stuff" and get down to the ethos of each of their employees BUT primarily the creatives - the ones with a proven record of design thinking capabilities, and re-leverage them for optimal results.
As for me... IF I had to be classified as any "type" of designer, I would have to be classed as a "experience designer", however primarily I am a "design thinker". I look at the totality of the problem to be solved and I am able to intuitively and systematically devise or "design" solutions to accomplish a desired result. With 17 years of creative/design thinking under my belt - I am able to lead creative teams into the innovation of new products, services and brands. So when I say I am a designer, my view of what design is and what it does is broad and wide ranging. From the design of a website to the design of a customer experience - I leverage design thinking to get results. Creative - innovation driven results.
I am only one type of designer however; and within organizations there are generally many. The true power of innovation is tapped when organization leaders at every level have an understanding of the "types" of designers they are leading. They tap into greater levels of innovation when they know the "functions" that each of their designers serve, and the single goal, the common purpose of progressive/disruptive innovation becomes the driving force behind the organization.
satori ethos: becoming aware of inner genius
For the past week I have been wrestling with God over two words. One being Satori, a Japanese Buddhist term meaning "enlightenment" or "understanding". The second word, Ethos, a Greek word originally meaning "accustomed place". Ethos forms the root "Ethikos" meaning "the state of being" - the inner source, soul, mind. According to the Oxford Dictionary it is defined as "the characteristic spirit, prevalent tone of sentiment, of a people or community; the genius of an institution or system"...
Satori Ethos, becoming aware of inner genius ...
Today I was in Church listening to my Mentor, Life Coach and Spiritual Father Dr. Victor L. Powell and it's like all of the dots started connecting together in my mind. I was first introduced to the word Satori about 4 years ago. And since then I have tossed it around loosely in various ways. It was not until the last 7-9 months once I received the word Ethos that Satori started to have meaning beyond it's surface structure. Satori alone is a very powerful idea however; when coupled with the word Ethos - we start to see a deeper idea, Satori + Ethos or "becoming aware of the inner genius of an organization". Dr. Victor L. Powell talked today about Leadership. He talked about how as Leaders we have to know the gifting(s) of the people around us to leverage the gifts properly for the purpose of creative project manifestation. Something that was striking to me, something that he said that absolutely blew me away was the idea that the problem, many times, is not the recognition of the gifts, the problem is the individual understanding his or her own gifts, in other words - knowing what THEY are designed to do...
So what if, just what if we could all understand what we were designed to do? What if we were all grounded in our purpose? What if we knew, without a shadow of a doubt what our roles are in the earth? Dr. Powell asked the question .. "Do you know what you were designed to do..." I thought about this for a second... I know what my gifting is, I have been blessed with a early understanding that I am a Designer. I think creatively without effort, I can look at just about any problem through the lens of design and manifest creative solutions. I am indeed a Designer. However; me knowing what I am designed to to has very little impact on the collective whole if the people around me do not know what they are designed to do. For example...
Say I have an idea for a new way to execute church services and my desire is to design this idea, manifest it into the earth. If I need administrators, that can execute the ideas that I develop I need the people who have the "inner genius" or "gifting" for administration to be rooted in what THEY are designed to do. If there is a graphic design element to the idea, I need the Graphic Designers to be grounded in their "inner genius" or "gifting" ... IF all of the parts are not working together, there is a great chance that my design will fail.
Designing or even leading from the strengths of many has a huge upside; however this upside has no effect if the "many" are clueless to their "inner genius" ... This is where Satori Ethos comes into play... I really feel that if a Life Development Coach type would dig deeper into this single idea, the idea could open new doors to collective innovation at many different levels...
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[+] Open Ideation - Satori Ethos for the organization - Discovering the inner genius of an organization
[+] Open Ideation - Satori Ethos for the individual - Discovering the inner genius of an individual
Compelling Idea: Wooden Mouse
Handling the vision of a Visionary
I have been wanting to write this blog post for a long time. I have been wanting to write this because over the course of my 17 year career I have found this topic probably the most difficult topic for people to wrap their minds around. NOW I am NOT talking about ALL people - BUT I am saying MOST people, and the reason why I say most is because out of all of the people I talk to on a daily basis, and share "vision" with, there is a slanted ratio of about 75% of the people who "totally miss it" and then there is that rare and much desired 25% "that get it".
What the heck am I talking about? Right??
Vision. I am talking about the birthing of a new idea. I am talking about those who have the "gift" of vision (visionaries), and those who are to be recipients of the gifts benefits (host) ... AND more importantly, I am talking about how this relationship is handled. AND I know what you are probably asking... "Vincent, you are a Designer, an Experience Designer to be specific... What are you talking about VISION for?" If you are reading this and you are a "Creative" you are going to quickly understand why I am compelled to write this, if you are NOT a Creative - Read on... I am going to open a new matrix of thought for you. Hopefully.
If a creative person comes into your space, and they give you an idea... It's NOT 100% the responsibility of that creative person to GIVE you the idea AND to execute the idea. Sorry. Nope. This is no how this goes... Not all the time.
Most creative people are visionary by nature. They have the ability to go into the future, see the possibilities of a thing, and bring that thing into right now context for the purpose of execution. This is a gift. AND when this happens, from time to time, what the visionary sees is not for their own handy-work BUT the thing that is bought into right-now context is the project of someone else, even though they were endowed with the vision...
For example: recently I had a vision for a book that I felt like that if it were written by a compelling speaker, it's subject matter could shift the minds of many people and bless many, HOWEVER; I am not a compelling speaker, NOR am I a writer... I am a designer. I shared this vision with a compelling speaker... They agreed that the subject matter needed to be heard, AND could articulate it clearly. It was a perfect fit for them. Upon leaving the meeting with the speaker, I felt like I had blessed them with something that could dramatically shift their career and be a blessing to THEM. After about a week, my phone would not stop ringing, the compelling speaker wanted me to write the content, design the book, and in an essence, manifest the book into reality ... Remember... I am NOT a compelling speaker, NOR a writer.
If given a vision from a Visionary, do not hold the Visionary responsible for manifesting what is being given. Not all the time. NOW from time to time I will have a vision or an idea that I KNOW I am supposed to have an intimate relationship with, however; there are times where I am simply a "carrier" and the vision needs a host. If YOU are the host of a vision, make sure you write the vision down, make it plain, and think about it carefully. IF you are going to carry the vision out, assemble the resources you need to manifest the vision into reality. Surround yourself with the people that you need to forward the vision. IF you are NOT going to carry the vision out, let it go. If the visionary has not made a clear and evident connection with you, and the particular vision, than it's a really good chance that the visionary was simply giving you a piece of something that they saw in the future that could open doors for YOU, not them, not in the sense of them having any hands or "minds on" relationship with the vision/idea.
This exchange happens more times than not. I can remember countless projects that I had vision for, gave them to a host, and felt obligated to see the vision come to pass. SO often I would be involved in projects that were not designed for me and my passion center my ethos, BUT it was suited better for the host and external resources. The visionary has to be able to let go, and the host has to be able to forward the idea OR both have to conclude that the timing is not good... There are no lost ideas, BUT there are ones that could be out of season.
internal innovation: what if what you are designed to do has not been designed yet?
From time to time I find myself acting in the role of an Innovation Coach - if such a thing even exists. Colleagues, potential colleagues, workshop attendees alike seem to battle with the idea of what I like to call "internal innovation". In other words, they have a hard time grasping their destiny, what they are to do in or contribute to theworld, because there are no working models of what they are to become in the earth, while I argue that what they are to become is locked on the inside of them ...




