Follow your ignorance
Lately, I’ve been watching people in their lives, noticing the difference between those who are successful and happy, and those who are less so. It looks to me like the more successful ones have learned to surf their anxiety better. Not that they are more talented, or smarter – they are simply more able to show up every day and learn from their mistakes, which they court rather than try to avoid. They manage to keep inching forward, a little more each day. Perhaps this is what Woody Allen meant when he said “90% of success is just showing up.” Or Edison when he said “Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.”
Just yesterday, I was talking to local luthier, Kenny Hill. We were in his shop where he was working on a copy of a 1856 Torres classical guitar. He was telling me about his process, and how the historical copies he made taught him the principles he used in his modern, experimental line of guitars. To make a long story short, he viewed the whole thing as one continuous mistake: he tried things and then, if he liked them, he tried to sell them. If they sold, he turned the design over the his assistants and they made them in bigger quantities. Sometimes he’d put a guitar away for months or years, thinking it was a lost cause only to take it off the shelf and be surprised by what was there. The whole process seemed to bemuse him, which fascinated me, because his guitars are highly prized by classical guitarists all over the world.
It got me to thinking about the things we show up for at work everyday: The tasks, the mission, the people. And about how all of them can lose their luster over time due to boredom or frustration. It’s painful to invest ourselves in something or someone and not get what we worked so hard for. So, like Kenny with a guitar that isn’t working, we put it away for awhile and focus our attention elsewhere. Kenny comes back to his “failed” guitars with curiosity and the soul of an inventor: what can I learn? Edgar Schein calls this “accessing your ignorance” and considers it a cornerstone of effective consulting.
That got me thinking about how we stop showing up. How we decide the guitar, the person, the situation is a failure, and not worth further attention, and leave it on the shelf. The key seems to being willing to change our preconceptions and learn to approach our guitars – the situation or the people in our lives – differently. To approach from the perspective of what I don’t know, rather than all I’m certain of through previous painful experience. To let go of my wounded – and wounding – certainty.
I used to joke about combining these two quotes, “Follow your bliss” and “Ignorance is bliss,” saying if both are true, then following your ignorance must be surest path to bliss.
Well, yeah.
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Add your voice to the conversation.
March 27th, 2009 at 1:04 pm
I loved this email from my friend Todd Last so much that I asked his permission to include it here, which he graciously gave.
“Ah, what a sweet juicy nugget your latest feed was! I truly enjoyed it.
There is soooo much here!
My observation has been at those points where we are frustrated and angry that a situation we poured ourselves into is not yielding what we want. For example, you work in a job for many, many years, and your boss is replaced with a phenomenal incompetent who is creating chaos and unhappiness at your workplace. How many people in this situation continue to battle with this situation rather than making the choice to move somewhere else? For me, the moment I hear my inner self saying “This isn’t fair, It should be…..” Those are the moments I know that I am not looking at the situation objectively.
So, I was thinking that following your ignorance can also be Journey to your unknown. What will happen to the guitar if I make the sound hole a star shape? I don’t know. What will happen if I take a different job away from my current boss who I don’t respect? I don’t know? Think of the wonderful power and excitement and learning of “I don’t know”
Following your ignorance reminds me a little bit of a book called “F*ck Yes!” One of the ideas of the book was, what if you answered every question with “F*uck Yes!” Should I look for a new job? “F*ck Yes!” Should I explore this committed relationship “F*ck Yes!” Should I vote Republican? “F*ck Yes!” (Okay just threw that last one in to show that visceral resistance to venturing into discomfort.)
The last point of my disjointed email here, is genetics. Humans are wired as pattern recognition machines and to stick to patterns that keep them alive. (This makes sense when we think of our distant ancestors – differing from a pattern (say hunting wild tigers) could have fatal consequences.) Our survival wires us to repeat what our minds BELIEVE works. And yet, our duty on the planet to have a full and interesting life is to do just the opposite. Explore our ignorance, take opportunities, maximize the options we take.
An interesting yin and yang going on here.
My advice?
Always follow ‘I don’t know!’ with ‘Let’s find out!’”
September 24th, 2010 at 1:59 pm
Hi Liz;
Great blog, some nice ideas. I laughed at Follow Your Ignorance, because it is just so correct, and something we could almost all do better: learn something new. Funny how in our society we’re taught to race to the next hot thing: pet rocks, social media, whatever. But we just might have some great old guitars of our own shelved that warrant our wisdom.
And on another funny note, the tagline of my business (helping companies learn marketing: a full service agency) is “Knowledge is Bliss”. A dichotomy? I think not.
September 25th, 2010 at 2:27 pm
I’m right with you, Alison. I follow my knowledge and arrive at its far boundary, which is where my ignorance begins. I follow my ignorance and arrive at the beginning of new knowledge. Perhaps it’s the learning at the heart of knowledge and ignorance that we’re after?