Posts Tagged ‘creativity’

Create a New Story

Written by on 18th January 2011

This is Part Four in a Six-Part Series about getting to the stuff that really matters this year. If you missed the other parts, start here.

We have come to the next step in this series that deals with the construction of a new story, something that participants in Jumpstart What Matters Most 2011 will be doing as part of their group coaching experience. Of course, constructing your own story is something you either passively or actively participate in whether you’re aware of it or not. As often as possible, I vote for active participation!

What I haven’t really articulated, however, is a response to the question, why story? Story is the thread running through all aspects of this series (and my work at Get There From Here) and, while it’s likely made some sort of connection with you already (you’re still reading, right?), I’d nonetheless like to be explicit on why the focus is on creating a new story and not a new plan/life/vision/system.

Open Sky

Let me start here: there are myriad frameworks to use when supporting others to grow and change. There exists a plethora of helping professions. Additionally, each coach brings something different to the table. For me, taking a narrative approach rose to the surface in terms of effectiveness and personal preference.This is not to say that the language of plans/life/visions/systems is never used in my work; it’s simply to say it falls under the larger umbrella of story.

This is partly true for the simple fact that humans are hardwired to be meaning-makers and have been making sense of themselves and their world through narratives since the beginning of time. In other words, story is a natural entry point for coaching . Story also tends to laser in on the root of many issues, such that constructing a new story is less about changing habits or setting goals and more about becoming someone who can sustain change and traverse the path toward what’s envisioned.

Perhaps most obviously, for individuals and organizations who are already predisposed to approaching the world while tapped into their creativity, a framework of story is undeniably rich and attractive. Artists, creative entrepreneurs and writers easily grasp and benefit from this work.

But there are other reasons that I’d like to quickly enumerate.

1. Using story provides a universal language. Especially in groups, we move out of individualized, jargony self-help language and into something easily understood and accessible.

2. Story provides safe ways to revisit the past. Taking a narrative approach helps you stay in the present while exploring your history, making it less intimidating and, importantly, less rigid or fixed.

3. Story captures the imagination. Coaching through the lens of story not only engages your most creative self (incredibly important when solving your complex problems!), it also has a way of opening up the pathway for new possibilities.

4. Story provides distance and objectivity. In addition to removing the burden of having to “work” on “yourself” (you work on your story) using a narrative approach gives you power to choose what kind of meaning you will make, how you will interpret the facts before you.

Story creation is an important, powerful process that enables you to step fully into the life and work you desire. It is a gateway for getting to the stuff that matters. And when you find that you can rewrite your story, you discover that you are operating from an incredibly powerful place.

Don’t believe me?

Read these stories.

If you are ready to create a story that enables you to get to the stuff that matters, I encourage you to connect with me. I’d love to have you join the small group of other creative/entrepreneurial folks who will be participating in Jumpstart What Matters Most 2011. The group starts in two weeks, so drop me a line ASAP and we can decide together if this is a natural next step for you. Call (215.764.1615) or email today!

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Discover and Understand Your Current Story

Written by on 12th January 2011

This is Part Two in a Six-Part Series about getting to the stuff that really matters this year. If you missed Part One, start here.




At the very end of December, I blogged about orienting your life around its most important elements, whatever they are to you. I also invited you to take stock of 2010, exploring what did or did not align with your priorities. This was a prelude to the launch of an incredibly exciting group coaching series that starts on February 2.  As I wrote in December, Identifying What Really Matters is the first step in the series.

Today I want to share more about Step 2 in the group coaching series: Discover and Understand Your Current Story. To do so, I’m going to start with a story you’ve heard before, the story of the half-mad, starving artist.

The half-mad, starving artist is talented in his work. He may have a primary way of expressing himself artistically or he may have several. His profession is very often in the creative economy, where he experiences success, but he frustrated because he’s not getting to his own projects. He can’t ever seem to get the right structures in place or develop the discipline to get things done. His self-esteem is low and dropping, a problem exacerbated by the fact that he is generally underpaid and overworked and has alienated those around him with erratic behavior and “forgetfulness.” He understands this to be part and parcel of being an artist.

As a coach, I am immediately drawn toward five or six different areas when presented with a client in a similar (though undoubtedly less archetypal!) situation; however, the most effective one rests in identity.  Said another way, it’s all about the story he tells to himself about himself.

If this artist tells himself that being an artist = being irresponsible and impoverished, he is trapped in a perpetual cycle of disappointment. He can either be responsible and solvent OR he can be an artist. He can either get to the stuff that matters OR he can be an artist. But he cannot be both.

Each one of us faces this conundrum in myriad ways all over the fabric of our lives and work. While often less obvious, we naturally tell ourselves stories, many of which actually help us get to where we want to be, many of which don’t. Maybe yours sound like this:

  • I can’t make a difference and make money.
  • Since I’m so even-keeled, I must not be very creative.
  • Success is something that happens overnight or it doesn’t happen at all.
  • If my ideas were good, someone would have noticed by now.
  • No one makes a living doing what they really love.
  • What’s the point of starting; I’m never going to finish.
  • I can’t be an artist and be business-savvy.
  • If I were really devoted to my business, I’d be working 24/7.



On one hand, these are all just stories – a particular reality to a particular interpretation of the facts. Unfortunately, if what we want fits outside that interpretation, we cannot have it, do it, get to it, change it. End of story.

A Mayan Ruin

© Jennifer Gleeson Blue

Understanding your own story might sound as difficult as reading ancient Mayan hieroglyphics, but it’s not – I promise.



Consider the stories you tell yourself. Where do you think they come from? Do they help you or hinder you? When it comes to getting to the most important stuff in your life, are they in the way?

It may be time to draft a new story so you can take those goals/dreams/projects off the back burner and finally breathe life into them. If you’re ready for that, I invite you to join Jumpstart What Matters Most 2011.  Space is super limited (maxing out at 6 people) and it starts February 2. Reserve your spot today!

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What Really Matters

Written by on 30th December 2010

You already know what’s important to you. Because you have been told what’s important to you. By the media. By your friends. By your partner. By your parents. By pundits. Maybe even by me.

There are so many voices competing for your mind share, particularly around the New Year, telling you what you should care about, change and go after that it can be hard to hear your own voice.

Last year around this time I blogged about New Year’s Resolutions and when it’s good not to make them.  This year I want to encourage you to orient your life around what really matters.

Sounds kinda simple, right? Often, no.

The initial problem rests with all those other voices, with the competition we face in identifying what’s really important to us. How can you focus your energy on making time and space for your creative work or  solidifying and growing your creative business or integrating your creative self into your life if the cultural narrative you are being peddled is one of short-term fixes and surface-level adjustments?



(Perhaps getting to more than the most important stuff can work if you are a Hindu god with multiple arms. Alas, you are not. Recommendation: stick the stuff that really matters.)



If you are truly ready to get to what’s important in 2011, step one is to actually identify the stuff that matters to you.

Next week I’ll be rolling out an offering for a group coaching program to equip you with a new story and strategic roadmap for getting to the deeply important creative, vocational and entrepreneurial goals you have for yourself, your business and your life in 2011.  As a group, we’re going to start, here, too, with identifying what actually matters.

For now, I encourage you to take some quiet space to do a quick inventory of this last year as it relates to what’s important to you. Here are some guiding questions:

  • If every moment of your year had been calendered, would a review of that calendar reveal that your time had reflected those deep, creative and difference-making priorities you set out for yourself?


  • When did you feel most alive or creatively engaged over the last 12 months? What were you doing? What was the environment like? Were you alone or working on a team?


  • What dragged you down the most? Was there a project or work that was soul-sucking? Be specific and detail the context and environment.


  • What did you not do that you wish you had?


  • How did you change and grow in ways that prepare you for getting to the stuff that matters in 2011?



I invite you to use your answers as building blocks for crafting your own story that you submit at Tell A Story. It will be an inspiration to others, I am certain!

Finally, as we sit at the threshold of a new year, I want to thank you — all of you — who have followed and participated in the growth of Get There From here throughout 2010. I’m deeply privileged to be doing this work that you make possible. Happy New Year!

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My Name Is Geoff and I Have A Story

Written by on 17th December 2010

This post was submitted on Tell a Story. Isn’t it time you told your story?

I carry the hallmarks of a creative person. I’m an Enneagram type 4: the individualist. I’m an ENFP: plenty of ideas, strengths to apply and real challenges around focus and follow-through. I write these things to help you understand my journey. I don’t feel like these elements fully define me as a person, but they’re guideposts to who I am. I also write them because I have a confession:

They’re the very things that I’ve fought against for a very long time in my life.

See, I thought that normalcy and a sense of balance meant suppressing these parts of who I am. I grew up in a family that placed a premium on the three Rs of freedom: Respect, Responsibility and Reason. And so for years, I made the responsible choices. I Plan B’d my creativity into advertising. Not a bad thing. But inside? I was smoldering like Jack White in a Trappist Monastery.

Married at 22, I felt the pull of deeper and deeper responsibility and I had to respect that. I reasoned that if I could just work in the underbelly of my industry then eventually I’d find a way to reconcile these issues I had.

Until I found that my issues were my assets – my gifts, my jewel.

It took 25 years.

Let me give you my stories. It’s surreal:

• Childhood: Jerusalem (Swedish film; worth your time; Netflix it)
• High School: Breakfast Club as experienced by Andrew Clark
• College: Terry Gilliam’s Brazil
• Quarterlife: How to Get a Head in Advertising
• At 30: Kramer vs. Kramer minus the kid

Now understand, for 20 of those years I’ve been working implicitly on transcending these stories to write the new one. But a lot of those years I was doing it on my own. Gotta say, the transformation began when I made the conscious choice to move from self-reflective story changer to overt, out of the closet pursuer of my story. When I did this, it began to click and I made the move. To what?

Story teller. Interpreter of beauty. Writer. Filmmaker. My creative sensibility that has driven my career in the telling of brand stories has myriad applications. My artistic, idea-driven self holds the key. You know what else? What with the Three Rs of freedom and three decades of producing in a suppressive mode I can actually redeem that side of my experience too: I know how to get s**t done.

So I’m doing it. I have my own and new stories I’m going to write and film. You’ll read and watch them. Why? ENFPs have really finely honed delusions of grandeur. I wouldn’t trade mine for the world.

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Posted in Tell A Story | 2 Comments »

What’s Stopping You?

Written by on 11th November 2010

This post was submitted on Tell a Story. Isn’t it time you told your story?

A few months ago I got serious about creative work. I pulled a book off my shelf that had been sitting there unread for 8 years: The War of Art by Steven Pressfield. I told my business partner that I was looking for other work that will be less time-consuming and will allow me to pursue creative work. I followed the guidance of a fortune cookie that led me to the right person to give me creative wisdom at exactly the right time in the right way. I wrote a spec script for a TV show because I have nothing to lose—and I am meeting people in the industry who can help me with it. I went to Burning Man. I met someone on the bus (the bus!) who led me to a screenwriting mentor. I am saying yes to the creative path by forcing myself to make a conscious decision—as often as possible—to get out of my own way.

I finally realized that I am the only one stopping me and I am the only one who has the power to change the course of my life and follow the path that is my “personal legend.” I started resenting movies and books that gave me the impression that if only I had chosen a different spouse or a different college or grown up in a different family, things would be better.The message that my whole life hinges on one decision is a lie. Sometimes you can change those things for the better and sometimes you need to just kiss them and thank them for making you who you are. I can start to live the life I want right now, in this instant, without doing any fixing of the past or replaying what could have been different.

The freedom I have is powerful when I remember what’s stopping me from living—really living—that unlived life I dream about. The one where I’m the person who gets to do what I want to do. Where I get paid to do something I love. Where I decide how I want to spend my time. Where I create things that I care about and want to share. Where I’m vulnerable and invite people to share my life and my struggles and in return, I feel less lonely and afraid that I’m the only one who feels the way I do.Where I feel less alienated and more human—alive. I have the chance to express myself and feel embraced and understood.

I was stopping myself from living the life I want to live and it’s a daily, hourly, moment by moment struggle to tell myself to get the hell out of my way. When I do, it’s worth it. And that makes it much easier to choose as time goes on.

Burning Man proved to be the best place to test my new self. There, it was easy to be the self I want to be all the time because I was around a community of people seeking their true selves too. It was so easy that I walked around the streets with a smile on my face and a garland of toilet paper rolls flowing from my cowboy hat. Even at Burning Man—a place where I was offered some lemonade from a man on stilts who invented a lemonade dispenser out of a body part—even at Burning Man—that was enough to get people to stop and take notice.

I loved it. The purpose I had in wearing my toilet paper head dress was to ask a simple question of people: “What’s stopping you?” I asked them to write it on a roll and promised it would be placed in the Temple of Flux to burn. I couldn’t do much for them but tell them I hoped it would be released. In that simple act, some of them told me it was. That was amazing.

As the mediator for these unwanted barriers, the experience was not only a symbolic shedding of the shadow of my own insecure, fearful self but a chance to offer that same hope to others. I loved that too. I also realized that a lot of my insecurities and hang-ups are shared by people who really look like they have it all together (which tends to be my assessment of most of the people I talk to—that they’ve got things together more than I do). But they are plagued by the same things that nag me—fear of success, fear of failure, self-loathing. I’m not alone.

As I walked around the block carrying these written and unspoken burdens on my head, the sun started to burn my shoulders and I also started to think about bearing the burden of everyone else’s barriers. When I thought about it, I realized that they weren’t my burdens to bear and that made me smile. I repeated it to myself over and over in my head: “these aren’t your burdens to bear”—and that made me cry.

I worry a lot, and too much about other people’s well-being. Until this point, I have literally made a career out of it. For me, it’s time to stop worrying about other people’s burdens, stop carrying them as my own, and release them along with my own. The ideal of selflessness has been one of my excuses to stop myself from living the life that I believe is waiting for me. Probably the most dangerous and selfish one.

When I dropped off the fears and barriers at the Temple, knowing they would be burned in a beautiful ritual, I serendipitously hung them across from a message that said “Let it all go.” In that moment, I did. I know that doesn’t mean that I won’t try to go back into my mind, gather up the pieces again and collect them in my arms—overflowing, holding on to my own fears and worrying about everyone else’s, indulging in self-pity once in awhile and always longer than I should.

What’s stopping you? Let it all go. And let it all go again when it creeps back in.

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Posted in Tell A Story | 2 Comments »

Disconnection

Written by on 20th July 2010

A perfect confluence of events:

  • my laptop adapter died on Friday and the new one wasn’t delivered until late this afternoon
  • my husband spent the last three days holed up editing video
  • the TV and spare computer were stolen last month
  • this Sunday, Monday and Tuesday were oddly clear of any appointments

Over the last three days, I have gotten more done on the domestic front than I’ve gotten done in the previous six weeks.  In addition to soloing on the regular upkeep of the house – dishes, food, litterbox – while Scott remained glued to two computer monitors, I:

  • hung four pieces of artwork
  • emptied an entire room of the crap I’d dumped in it
  • folded close to a dozen loads of laundry
  • vacuumed the entire house
  • cleaned the bathroom

Plus, I:

  • wrote the marketing copy for a new business idea long hand
  • enjoyed a really long evening out with a dear friend
  • reread a novel
  • wrote down my dreams
  • meditated
  • lent my audio expertise from a previous life to Scott’s video project
  • gave my carpel tunnel a rest

What would disconnectivity do for you?

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Posted in creativity, goals | 4 Comments »

Day 19: Camping (30th Birthday Countdown)

Written by on 6th March 2010

As a countdown to my 30th birthday on March 18, I’ve committed to offering 30 people, things and experiences I want to celebrate from the last 30 years. Grab a piece of cake and enjoy reading!

My mother has been known to say that I was born in the dirt. By which she means I was camping by the time I was six months old.

That’s tent camping, for those of you who do the RV thing.

Many of my childhood memories involve firewood, dirt, sleeping bags, bikes and fighting with my brother for the front seat as we drove around the country looking for places to set up camp. We’d do this for two weeks straight with my dad every summer and periodically with my mom. By the time I was a freshman in college, the only Christmas gift I really wanted was a tent. And when my husband and I were planning to move from California to Pennsylvania, we loaded the sleeping bags, tent and camping box into the back of the car for a month of travel.

Over the years, I’ve camped:

  • In the sweltering heat of Death Valley
  • On the god-forsaken Outer Banks
  • At the edge of the Grand Canyon
  • On a dewy Lexington, Kentucky horse farm
  • Under giant redwood trees in Big Sur
  • Amid the canyon walls of Zion National Park
  • In the torrential downpours of West Virginia

(A view of our South Dakota campground during the cross-country trek. A bison walked right on through later that day.)

As a kid, I camped because my parents camped. By the time I was 18, I started to camp because it made me feel better. Because it blurred my distinction between the material and immaterial worlds. Because I could satisfy the evolutionary part of me that just wants to scavenge.

In the end, though, I think camping draws out the perfect alchemy of child and adult in me. I love how responsible I feel when I camp. I also love that camping has enabled me to stay connected to the kid who’s forever on the hunt for arrowheads and snakes and is fairly certain that squirrels are looking for human friends and that fires are made out of magic.

Now who’s ready to celebrate with a s’mores?

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Posted in celebration, creativity | 5 Comments »

Day 18: Cats (30th Birthday Countdown)

Written by on 5th March 2010

As a countdown to my 30th birthday on March 18, I’ve committed to offering 30 people, things and experiences I want to celebrate from the last 30 years. Grab a piece of cake and enjoy reading!

I am one cat shy, one husband too many and 15 years too young to be a crazy cat lady, but should the situation change and in 15 years I find myself widowed and still childless, I will undoubtedly stock up on cats.

The cats I grew up with were Paprika (a calico) and Dots (a stripped tabby). Both of these little ladies went around the block a few times, so our home was frequently blessed with kittens in boxes and sock drawers.  Alas, Paprika was run over by a cop in town when I was still in elementary school and I discovered Dots, curled up in the corner and cold, one afternoon in the 7th grade.

These days, my husband, Scott, and I are proud caretakers of Malcolm (aka Crazy) and Niko (aka Cow Cat). There could not be a 30-day series of celebrations without including them.

(Niko and Malcolm)

I adore these cats. Really. I’m just this side of obsessed with my unusually tall feline friends. But for the life of me I can’t quite figure out why. Sure, they’re damn cute. And they purr. And the imagination runs rampant with anthropomorphization. But they also cause my allergies to flare up, destroy furniture, act rather entitled and can be difficult to communicate with.

So I hunted around briefly for an explanation, thinking perhaps some researcher had written the final word on the appeal of these furry critters. No such luck, but the Pets for the Elderly Foundation did have this to say about pet ownership:

Pets offer affection, unconditional love, fight loneliness, and can help ease the loss of a loved one.

Somehow this doesn’t quite measure up for me. I’m 99% certain that my cats’ love is far from unconditional. I’m not even sure you could call it love. Mostly, I think we’re all pretending.

I won’t be home when I reach the big three-oh so I won’t be able to force the cats to celebrate with me. But that’s okay. I’ll be celebrating them, and all the love and imagination they somehow draw forth from me, making me an undoubtedly more generous person.

And because this is what people who are obsessed with their pets do, I’ll also probably be imagining that they’re trying to figure out how to operate the webcam so they can dial up Marrakesh and meow me a rendition of Happy Birthday. You know, what with their unconditional love and all.

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Posted in celebration, change, communication, creativity, happiness | No Comments »

Day 8: Second Grade (30th Birthday Countdown)

Written by on 23rd February 2010

As a countdown to my 30th birthday on March 18, I’ve committed to offering 30 people, things and experiences I want to celebrate from the last 30 years. Grab a piece of cake and enjoy reading!

The first 30 years were, predictably, dominated by formal education. I started with pre-school in 1984 and wrapped up college in 2002. In those 18 years, there are some definite highlights:

  • Latin
  • Constitutional Law
  • Racquetball
  • History in Film

But Mrs. Arbo’s 2nd grade had me at hello.

Perhaps the most inventive teacher I ever had, Mrs. Arbo managed to create that unique alchemy of learning and fun that leaves a child thirsting for more. And for a child like me who was already nursing a love of story and a talent at writing, Mrs. Arbo’s insistence that her entire class write and illustrate their own books (to be published through her own Igor Publishing Company, naturally) was heavenly.

Here’s a little something from my bestseller, The Alien from Saturn:

The cover of my well-reviewed masterpiece, Magical Leprechauns:

And the inside back flap of the childhood classic, Santa Claus Makes a Mistake:

It’s possible I’ll write a book someday and I realize now that I’ll have the fortunate gift of being able to draw on important lessons learned in 2nd grade. For example:

  • Hire an illlustrator
  • Don’t use too many fonts or colors so as to confuse your reader
  • Telling the world your street address in your book may be unwise
  • Leave the furry friends out of the picture

So thanks, Mrs. Arbo. And thanks, 2nd grade.  Not only did you make the 1988-89 school year lots of fun, but you reinforced the idea that adults can be fun and that learning can be fun.

As for the books themselves, I have decided to add these titles to my resume as credibility builders. Who knows what successes await in my future as a result!

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Posted in celebration, change, creativity | 3 Comments »


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“Jennifer helped me achieve my personal and creative goals. Throughout our coaching relationship, her professionalism, enthusiasm, warmth, and sense of humor were of great value to me. She asked all the right questions and gave me a great deal of support and encouragement. I would not hesitate to recommend her to anyone in need of a coach.” – Suzanne Bromberg, N.J.