Latest / STOPTIME: Live in the Moment. / Mantras Don’t Carry Us Through. We Do.

Transcript

Mantras Don’t Carry Us Through. We Do. · STOPTIME: Live in the Moment.

• 0:23
  Lisa Hopkins: Hey there.
• 0:26
  Lisa Hopkins: So I recently came across something in my morning reading that I really found powerful and I wanted to share with you.
• 0:36
  Lisa Hopkins: The book is called Creativity Inc., and it's about overcoming the unseen forces that stand in the way of true inspiration.
• 0:45
  Lisa Hopkins: It's by Ed Katmall, who's co-founder of Pixar Animation.
• 0:51
  Lisa Hopkins: It's um it's a wonderful book, so shout out for that in the first place.
• 0:57
  Lisa Hopkins: But here's the thing that I came across, and it got me thinking.
• 1:01
  Lisa Hopkins: Um, I'm gonna read it in a minute, just this little chapter.
• 1:04
  Lisa Hopkins: But what what he's talking about here is how we sometimes come up with phrases to help us power through mantras, if you want.
• 1:19
  Lisa Hopkins: And well, I'm gonna go ahead and read it, and maybe we can talk about it a little bit after.
• 1:25
  Lisa Hopkins: So he says, Coming out of Toy Story, we thought that story is king and trust the process were core principles that would carry us forward and keep us focused, that the phrases themselves had the power to help us do better work.
• 1:45
  Lisa Hopkins: And it's not just Pixar people who believe this, he says, by the way.
• 1:49
  Lisa Hopkins: Try it yourself.
• 1:51
  Lisa Hopkins: Say to somebody in the creative world that story is king and they will nod their head vigorously.
• 1:58
  Lisa Hopkins: Of course, it just rings true.
• 2:01
  Lisa Hopkins: Everyone knows how important a well-wrought, emotionally affecting storyline is to any movie, or really any creative process, right?
• 2:11
  Lisa Hopkins: He goes on to say, Story is king differentiated us, we thought, not just because we said it, but also because we believed it and acted accordingly.
• 2:22
  Lisa Hopkins: So he goes on to talk about it, right?
• 2:25
  Lisa Hopkins: And how they used it and how they trusted the process, and and and story was king.
• 2:32
  Lisa Hopkins: But parroting the phrase story is king at Pixar, he says, didn't help the inexperienced directors on Toy Story 2 one little bit.
• 2:43
  Lisa Hopkins: He said this guiding principle, while simply stated and easily repeated, it didn't protect them from things going wrong.
• 2:49
  Lisa Hopkins: In fact, he says, it gave them false assurance that things would be okay.
• 2:55
  Lisa Hopkins: He goes on to say that likewise trusted the process was a phrase they used all the time, but the process didn't save Toy Story 2 either.
• 3:05
  Lisa Hopkins: It had morphed into assume that the process will fix things for us.
• 3:12
  Lisa Hopkins: It gave them solace, which they felt they needed, but it also coaxed them into letting down their guard, and in the end, he says, made us passive.
• 3:23
  Lisa Hopkins: Even worse, he goes on, it made us sloppy.
• 3:27
  Lisa Hopkins: So once this became clear to him, he began telling people that the phrase was meaningless.
• 3:32
  Lisa Hopkins: So here's the part that really stuck with me.
• 3:37
  Lisa Hopkins: He says, Imagine an old heavy suitcase whose well-worn handles are hanging by a few threads.
• 3:45
  Lisa Hopkins: The handle is trust the process, or story as king, some pithy statement that seems on the face of it to stand for so much more.
• 3:56
  Lisa Hopkins: But the suitcase represents all that has gone into the formation of the phrase.
• 4:03
  Lisa Hopkins: The experience, the deep wisdom, the truths that emerge from struggle.
• 4:11
  Lisa Hopkins: Too often we grab the handle and without realizing it walk off without the suitcase.
• 4:19
  Lisa Hopkins: What's more, we don't even think about what we've left behind.
• 4:22
  Lisa Hopkins: After all, the handle is so much easier to carry around than the suitcase.
• 4:30
  Lisa Hopkins: Wow.
• 4:31
  Lisa Hopkins: What do you think about that?
• 4:35
  Lisa Hopkins: The idea that we surface level lead from these phrases, hoping that they will lead us through the process, hoping that by saying them, reiterating them, or posting them on the wall for that matter, that it's going to do something.
• 4:52
  Lisa Hopkins: I love, love, love what he says in this about how words like quality and excellence can be misapplied so relentlessly that they border on meaningless.
• 5:05
  Lisa Hopkins: When someone comes up with a phrase that sticks, it becomes a meme.
• 5:09
  Lisa Hopkins: It's so funny he says this, and I've said it a million times to my clients, which is it's about excellence being earned.
• 5:19
  Lisa Hopkins: It's about living in our values and our experience and all those things in that suitcase, isn't it?
• 5:29
  Lisa Hopkins: I leave you with that thought.
• 5:32
  Lisa Hopkins: And I hope that you found this valuable.
• 5:36
  Lisa Hopkins: Shout out to Ed Catmell and his wonderful book, Creativity Inc., for really getting me thinking this morning.
• 5:46
  Lisa Hopkins: I'm Lisa Hopkins.
• 5:48
  Lisa Hopkins: Thanks so much for listening.
• 5:49
  Lisa Hopkins: Stay safe and healthy, everyone, and remember to live in the moment.