I’ve learned of a new way to think about saying yes and no.

Saying “no” is saying “no” to one thing.

Saying “yes” is saying “no” to a thousand things.

This doesn’t necessarily make turning someone down any easier, but it somehow helps to have an awareness that we’re saying “no” to things all the time.

H/T Vince

It sounds cute. Useful even. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

That makes sense. Why spend time and resources trying to change something that’s working?

And yet the phrase is a dangerous adherence to the status quo. It says nothing of how to make things better. It assumes that we all know, and we can all agree upon what “broken” means (and for whom).

When we think of all the complexities of our culture, our systems, our businesses, and our daily lives … the broken-fixed duality is a poor way to determine what we should do.

Let’s abandon “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Let’s embrace, “If we can make it better, let’s make it better.”

At a drive-through window, I noticed the outward-facing back of a computer monitor. Three cables connected it to a port in the wall.

The cables were coiled and wrapped perfectly. Noticeably. Beautifully.

This didn’t happen accidentally. Someone took care to do this. Someone took care to do this at a drive-through window.

The moment made me smile — seeing how much attention someone brought to a small detail that might have otherwise been overlooked.

There’s beauty so many places if we only have eyes to see it.

I recently attended an hour-long webinar. During part of the presentation, the microphone cut out. About twenty seconds of speaking were unintelligible.

Of the many participants on the call (I’m guilty too) no one asked the speaker to back up and repeat what was missed. We were fine letting it go.

Conversely, I’ve attended events where the audience was captivated. A microphone glitch would have resulted in quickly raised hands. We had hung on every word.

* * *

Not every presentation will be a viral TED Talk. However, we can strive to be compelling. We can endeavor to offer what’s meaningful to our audience. And we can seek the audience that needs to hear what we have to say.

But no matter what, we can learn from our missteps. If our microphone is dead and no one tells us, we’ve just learned that there’s a mismatch between what we’re saying and who we’re seeking to serve.

We don’t always feel grateful. We’re not always in a good mood.

We might be having a bad moment within a worse day.

But let civility rise above it. Set courtesy and politeness to “always on”.

This is not to say that we should bury our emotions. Not at all. But words like “hello,” “goodbye,” “please,” and “thank you,” should be unconditional — proffered whether we are in love with life or having a moment of struggle.

From embattled leader to angsty teen, civility is a choice — one that signals a connection to our shared humanity, no matter the prevailing weather conditions.

How can we live in such a way that when someone says to us, “It was you!” … it’s said with delight?

Every day, we have opportunities to make a difference in the world around us. As a result, our fingerprints will be on an unknowable number of projects and legacies.

Where are we contributing? How are others enriched by what we do?

It’s not about getting credit. It’s about being part of something that matters.

I received a thank you yesterday and it blew me away.

It wasn’t a note. It wasn’t a phone call.

It was a thirty-nine second video.

Sincere words spoken to me in the way they were intended.

I was speechless and my heart was full.

* * *

Writing a thank you is courteous. But saying it — in person or through video … unscripted and direct — that’s a generous expression of gratitude that has the power to turn words into lyrics.

During my son’s piano lesson, I could tell that he was not playing the music as written.

I had anticipated the teacher gently saying, “Those aren’t the right notes,” or, “Let’s try that again.”

But she took a different approach. She said, “That’s kind of your own song … because you’re playing the notes and rests where you want to.”

I love this.

I do love discipline and the persistence it takes to get something just right — as someone else has outlined. But I also love the idea of writing one’s own story, and a teacher who doesn’t begin with “that’s wrong” but instead embraces a student’s own creative voice.

And in the big picture, I think that’s a better lesson.

Our default self is not our best self. It’s maybe not a bad version of ourselves, but it’s not our best.

Being our best involves effort. It requires intention. It calls for some measure of striving.

But regardless of how far we stray, an unbreakable thread of a lifeline always connects us to that best self. It might take some time to get there, but we know the direction, and we know how to take the smallest first steps.

Your problems may weigh heavy, but that doesn’t mean that it’s all going to come crashing to the ground.

Take a lesson from cumulus clouds — the big, white, fluffy kind.

Scientists estimate that a one cubic kilometer cloud weighs about 500,000 kilograms (1.1 million pounds).

We don’t think of clouds as having weight, but they do. A lot of it.

They look like they’re just floating in the sky, but they’re really sitting on top of dry air.

* * *

Like the clouds in the sky, with the right support, the right environment, and enough distance, our heaviest of burdens might just become majestic and beautiful.

Before we begin, it can help to take a few deep breaths. But that doesn’t always do the trick.

Another technique is to take sixty seconds to look around. Take note of what’s in front of you. Beside you. Above you. Behind you.

Just visually noting — not trying to change or react to, but noting — can help to calm the mind and to help us reconnect to our own presence … and our own purpose.

And then, we go.

How many votes before a candidate claims victory?

How many canvases before an artist calls herself a painter?

How many posts before a writer calls himself a blogger?

How many photos? How many meals? How many compositions? How many presentations? How many clients?

There comes a time when we call it. A time when we pass a threshold and we can claim the title we seek. A time that we can own our role. A time when we’re no longer an impostor, but the owner of our title.

It probably comes sooner than we think.

When we lose, we ask ourselves, “What do we do now?”

But the question is just as valid when we win.

Win or lose, we are always faced with this question: What do we do now?

And while every step of our journey is important, our next steps are always the most consequential.

One morning, my then-four-year-old son watched me combing my hair. He asked why I was doing it.

I explained, “If I didn’t, my hair would be messy.”

“And we comb my hair too, so it’s not messy. Right, Daddy?”

“Yep. But we comb your hair in a different way.”

“Because all ‘messies’ are not the same?” he asked.

He’s absolutely right. Every ‘messy’ is different. And we each have our own.

So simple. So true.

In the brisk, early morning, I stood outside waiting for someone to arrive.

As the sun rose, I looked down and noticed that directly under my feet, the color of the asphalt had changed. The heat from my body was warming the space beneath my shoes.

I was making a difference simply by where I was standing.

There’s a nice metaphor in that.

Sometimes when we’re waiting to see what’s going to happen, it’s almost as though we’re also waiting to know how we’re going to feel.

And in the middle of that, we may find ourselves waiting … generally. Stuck. Unmoving.

But events will unfold, time will pass, and life will happen.

And as it does, we still have important work to do, dreams to chase, and adventures to invent.

We don’t just wait. We don’t just hold our breath.

We breathe, and we do the work that matters.

Yes, the artist notices things. She’s always looking, listening, observing. Ruminating.

But then she acts. She engages. She creates.

It’s beyond thinking — it’s doing.

And then (most importantly) it’s showing, sharing, and shipping.

Art is not made for the studio; it’s made to go out into the world.

It’s not just what we put in the ballot box. It’s how we spend our time. How we spend our money. Where we put our effort. Who gets our attention.

We are always voting. Always choosing. Always saying yes to one thing and no to another.

Yard sign or nay, it’s worth considering all the things in life that get our vote.

If you let it out — if you let it come into the world — then you can assess its worth. Then you can decide if the idea first-entered in the form it wants to be.

Let the poem come. Let the photograph be made. Let the drawing take form. Let the words be spoken. Let the melody be heard.

What can happen, though, is that we scrub the idea before it has a chance to live. We prejudge the work as being wanting, and we keep ourselves from even starting.

Thing is, a beautiful screenplay may begin as a clumsy poem. A transformative sculpture might have its start as a hasty watercolor. A new creative endeavor may be born of a simple blog post.

When we allow the ideas to come forth, we have the opportunity to say, “Yes, this is just right,” or “No, this needs to take another form.”

But when we discount ideas before they can breathe — or worse yet, convince ourselves that we are void of good ideas — we forget that creativity is not a product. Creativity is a process. It’s a practice. It’s a way of dancing with possibility. And its first step into the world is never like its last.

We’re always ambassadors.

We’re representing our family. Our group or our tribe. Our school, or people who do what we do, or people who look like us.

Right or wrong, people judge “people like us” based on what they see and what they think.

And while we don’t have control over what people think of us, we do have control of ourselves — how we act and how we treat others.

Recognize it as both a responsibility and a gift.