The DAILY SPARK Blog

LEMONADE…

Success, when it comes overnight, often departs with the dawn.

Failure is, in a sense, the highway to success, inasmuch as every discovery we make of what is false leads us to seek earnestly after what is true and every fresh experience points out some form of error which we shall afterward carefully avoid. The path walked, often with dampened tears, has not been a wasted journey.

FROM:  THE GREATEST SALESMAN IN THE WORLD PART II  The End Of The Story by Og Mandino

REFLECTION:

  • What “failures” have you had that still haunt you?
  • What is something that you previously viewed as a failure but now see as a necessary part of your journey?
  • Is there some form of error you are currently experiencing that you can see differently? Write about it.

HANDLING DISAGREEMENT

“THAT”S NOT WHAT I MEANT”

Disagreements among people who mean well usually begin with that emotion.  You meant to say something or agree to something but the “other side” didn’t hear it that way.  That’s enough for one to walk away forever.  Because denying the experience of the other person doesn’t open the door for re-connection.  Forward motion is possible if we can extend the sentence to, “That not what I meant, but that must be what you heard, how do we fix this?  Will you help me make things right again?”

If we can agree on intent, it’s a lot easier to figure out how to move forward.

Quote from Seth Godin’s Daily Blog

REFLECTION:

  • Is there a relationship you have walked away from due to a disagreement or is there a relationship in your life that is strained because “that is not what I meant” exists?
  • Are you willing to acknowledge the other person might not have heard what you actually meant to say?
  • What if, you can acknowledge there was a misfire in the communication.  What if you could say, “That’s not what I meant, but that must be what you heard.  How do we fix this?  Will you help me make things right again?”
  • BE BRAVE… try it! (and let me know how it turned out!)

DISTURB THE PEACE

Most of us, no matter what we say, are walking in the dark, whistling in the dark.  Nobody knows what is going to happen from one moment to the next, or how one will bear it.  This is irreducible.  And it’s true of everybody.  Now, it is true that the nature of society is to create, among its citizens, an illusion of safety; but it is also absolutely true that the safety is always necessarily an illusion.  Artists are here to disturb the peace. 

FROM:  “An Interview with James Baldwin” (1961) during an interview with Studs Terkel published  in Conversations with James Baldwin (1989)

REFLECTION:

  • We don’t know what will happen from one moment to the next.  Have you come to terms with the illusion of safety?
  • Think about a time when you thought you could not bear it.  How did you get through this time?
  • What form of art do you create (i.e. cooking, writing, speaking, leading, photography, singing, etc.) How can you “disturb the peace” with you own artist expression?