Tea with McNair

• moms & dads, could this be your kid ...someday?

Ever since she was a little girl, Sarah Horn wanted to sing. She loved musicals ...and is a long-time fan of Kristin Chenoweth (star of Broadway's "WICKED.") Last Friday night her family went to see Kristin, in concert at the 16,000 seat Hollywood Bowl. When Krisitn asked if anyone (in the audience) knew the song "For Good," Sarah stood, waved her hand, and ...The rest is now show biz history and a YouTube hit—2,727,462 views and still rising!

 

Follow the link to the full story on L.A. Times website. BUT ONLY AFTER you have watched the video of the actual UNREHEARSED performance, above. Then watch the top video (on Times website) of Sarah's interview and the unlikely chain events leading to the "Miracle at the Bowl."  Notice at the 4:39 mark (just after last note of their duet) how Kristin yanks Sarah toward her and grabs her for a big hug.

Moms and dads, could this be your kid ...someday? No matter their age, it is NEVER too late to encourage your "kids" to follow their passions.

[If the embeded video does not appear above, follow link, below to L.A. Times site ...scroll down and watch 2nd video first.]                                        Kristin Chenoweth > >

>> Here's the article on the L.A. Times web spot.

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• i was just wondering ...

What are you thinking about? Anything new? Something that needs changing? A better (quicker, less expensive, more efficient) way to "get it done."

Are there tasks, habits, procedures, processes that you use now because ...that's they way we've always done it ...it's the way I was trained, taught, or told to do it ...the boss likes it that way.

Some of my favorite clients are outfits where the "boss" (owner, CEO, VP, director, team leader, person we needs to pleased) says, "Let's try it like this. If someone has a better idea, we'll try that?"

Change is tough. It's new, untested, unfamiliar, strange, and might be more expensive. It might be harder. It might not work!

And ...it might be better. We'll never know till we try it.

Today I Tweeted: "Even BAD ideas begin in the imagination."

My experience with working groups from small neighborhood churches to high tech companies that currently have objects orbiting the planet is that with both (and everyone in between) they are comfortable with the current "Way we do it." It's familiar ..but so are old sweat socks with a giant hole in the heel and your running shoes with more than a couple broken shoe laces that now have "repair knots" to hold them together.

("Hey, Sparky, It's time to jog by the market and invest in a new pair of high tech laces.")

SO, whatever it is you've been thinking about, imagining, wonder ...what if we ...stop dreaming and get doing.

WARNING: Your imagination hard drive is full of what ifs. Please remove any unused ideas to make room for new and (maybe) better stuff.

Try this:

1. Think, imagine, wonder

2. Doodle, noodle

3. Try it!

If it doesn't work, it might NOT be a bad idea, but rather a not so exquisite execution. Repeat 2 and 3, above.

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Above: Leonardo multi-tasking, from the recent mini-series, "Da Vinci's Demons" on Starz. Watch all 8 episodes, FREE, on-line HERE (http://www.watchtvfree.me/watch/da-vincis-demons/). VIEWER ALERT: This series contains adult language, some nudity, and ancient violence (rated "R") AND ...Da Vinci's remarkable imagination at work—as a young man. Funny, fascinating, inspiring. (Think "Game of Thrones" with ten thousand few characters to keep trak of and far more inspinring and redeeming content. I like "Thrones", but ...y'know.        < 117 >

• signed & personalized HATCH! now available

In response to many requests for signed copies of my new book, HATCH!, I have a new on-line store just for that purpose. I can also personalized any copy to you, or friends, coworkers, your boss ...any names you provide—just first name(s). I will write them in their signed copy. 

Price per book is competitive with other on-line shops, plus $4 for postage and handling. 

Who needs to read HATCH! in your world? Co-workers, boss, pastor, teachers, students (especially one headed off to college) ...

The store uses PayPal which will accept your PayPal account, major credit, or debit card as payment. When filling out your name, address, etc. use the secondary address box to list first names to be inscribed in book(s) in parenthesis. If that box is blank, I will inscribe the book to the first name on the order form. 

To be clear:

McNair Wilson

[email protected] <<< (for your receipt)

123 E Main St.

(Napoleon, Illya, Sara) <<<

Big City, Co 80999

Here's the link: McNair's Store

You can also access the store from the Facebook.com/Hatch-by-McNair-Wilson page. Look for the purple "Store" button (see above) just under banner.

If you don't need or want signed books use the link in the "What's Brewing" area at the top of the Tea Blog, above. That will take you to my favorite on-line store: www.Givingtons.com, the "Generosity Shop." (They have so much more than books. Have a look around.) When you check out you will be asked to select from a growing list of charities. Then, at no added cost to you, 30-50% of the profits from operating the site will be donated to the charity you designate. If you do not have a preference, may I suggest my friends at Compassion International.  They are currently assisting more than one million children in twenty-five countries of Asia, Africa, and Latin America, through the sponsorship of individuals and families all around the globe. I'm currently assisting "Leonardo" in Bolivia.   

My purple felt pen is at hand and I am ready to sign books for you and thos for whom a creative jolt would be a big bennefit to their work and lives. 

P.S. If you'd like to add a small store to you Facebook or other site, have a look at the easy-to-set-up application I used Selz.com.

• my new book, in the works

The next book in my creativity series is in the works. It will be my sixth book, but it is Book No.2 the series that began with HATCH!—the current book. (Download complete first chapter—FREE—above "Hatch Sample.") Order HATCH! HERE

The upcoming book is the personal side of creativity: knowing and accepting your own creativity and being actively creative. It is based on my presentation Recapturing Your Creative Spirit. (See link, above, in "What's Brewing" to watch a full on-line version of this presentation at TEDx.)

After years of teaching my "7 Agreements of Brainstorming" to executives through Disney University I grew weary of the endless parade of executives who told me, "Well, I like your process, but I'm not really creative." 

HUH?!

I din't know what they meant. I see signs of a creative spirit in everyone. And I ain't talking art supplies and Broadway musicals.

The yet-to-be-titled new book is growing beyond just convincing readers of their "factory-installed", "you've-had-it-since-birth", "creator spirit." Some of the subjects that I've been think and writing about (in words and pictures) can be seen in my "notes" on the two page spread from the early pages of my brand new, just started two days ago, bright-red-cover sketchbook, below.

I like to move back and forth between my MacBook Pro (plinking out words and stories) and the more tactile practice of felt pens in my sketchbook or one of my fountain pens gliding across a clean, blank space.

HOMWORK This weekend, pick a day (YUP, a full day) and use ONLY "alternate" writing instruments: NO rolerball, ball point—whatever your regular writing device is—and switch to ...everything else: felt pens, PENCIL(!), crayons, and fountain pen. (Inexspencive—less than $20—fountain pens available at most office products barns and ALL artist supply shops. Try it you might LVOE it.) IF YOU HAVE ALREADY READ HATCH!, this is a good time to start using the fun and simple exercises in chapter 14, The Doodle Factor, in the book-within-a-book: "McNair's Fearless Field Guide to Doodling." Please send me a snapshot of you handy work.     <36>

• reduce

Stop trying to do EVERYTHING.

You can't be even "pretty good" at a lot.

You can be excellent at something, maybe TWO somethings.

I draw cartoons. I enjoy it. People like my sketches (my new book HATCH! is full of them), but in my circle of actual friends I am not in the TOP 5 (maybe 10!) of cartoonerists. Steve Bjorkman, Clark Tate, Chris Schechner, Steve Masseroni, and Myles Pinkney each one towers over me with their art. I am endlessly inspired by them all. However, they inspire me to make more of my art, but never to give up.

[Drawing of me, right, was sketched while I was speaking on creativity. Drawn by my "friend-since-sixth-grade" Steve Bjorkman. It's on page 192 in HATCH! I still have that coat.]

Same with my writing (SARK and her ART!), my acting, and other skills at which I am pretty good, and better.

Along the way I gave up a few activities I enjoy, but did not have time to improve to the point I was even pretty good at. GRAPHIC DESIGN, for example. Oh, I still dabble (i.e. the cover of HATCH!), but I can't get close to my friends: Curt Merlo, David Lance Goines, Tim "High Octane" Nyberg, Louis "The Magician" Lemoine, and Sabrina Ward Harrison.

All these artists, writers, designers ...in both lists, inspire me endlessly. I never see their work but I am urged to go on, try harder, do more, and that always leads to doing better. (More about the endless pursuit of self-improvement, soon.)

Seth Godin is about the top blogger on the cutting edge of business and entrepreneurial pursuits. Seth does not do Twitter. His blog posts are f-f-frequently nearly as short as Tweets.

So, pick what you love—it may be your life's PASSION—and go for it.

You might not even make a living at it, but you will be happier, richer (that inspires others), and it will serve as a powerful underpinning to all that you do.

Be the best YOU the world has ever known. That will be more than enough to inspire the rest of us.

 

[ Drawing of me, left, by Clark Tate was a going away card whe I moved from the Bay area to Colorado. He did it from memory. He will draw YOU for a ridiculously reasonable fee ..on his web site: www.ClarkTate.com]

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