 Hi, welcome to Seymour's World commentary on Think Tech Hawaii. You can find all my commentaries and Seymour's World episodes on the Think Tech Hawaii website. I welcome your comments anytime by email, text, or phone. Our topic today is courtesy of Grant Gannon and is titled Get Out of Your Own Way. Let me explain. I just got back from a grueling four day, eight flights, five city trips to China, including tons of flight delays, cancellations, typhoons, missed appointments, finally getting home 36 hours late. Was I angry? Yes. Was I tired? Yes. But I stopped feeling sorry for myself and I did what I had to do. I let go of all the negativity, accepted and integrated whatever thoughts and feelings emerged and got out of my own way. From this standpoint, it's only by labeling a thought or feeling as either good or bad, productive or harmful, that you're actually getting in your own way. That restricts your creative flow. Getting out of your own way means being with who you are, moment to moment, whether you like it or not. Whether or not it's easy or comfortable, familiar or disturbing. Then you can do what you have to do. I want to talk about the most important thing a creative person must know how to do, which, for lack of a better phrase, is just to get out of his or her own way. Simple, isn't it? Not exactly, because as a former teacher of mine once remarked, it may be simple, but it ain't easy. For years, I struggled to get out of my own way, without really understanding what that meant. The phrase always had a kind of down home, common sense. Don't make such a big deal out of it quality, that I was often frustrated with myself. For my difficulty in achieving it, as it's generally understood, getting out of your own way implies somehow putting aside your anxieties and doubts, ego concerns and career pressures, mental blocks and critical inner voices, pick your own favorite pet term that stand between you and the effortless flow of thought process and your work. As though if you just did enough therapy or meditated deeply enough or visualized sincerely enough or manifested enough positive energy, you could disavow all the stuff that gets in the way of your creativity. If only, in other words, you are different than who you are. Because the simple fact is, we do bring our stuff to our creative endeavors. Stuff that runs the gamut from the ridiculous to the sublime, the irritating to the overwhelming. Some of us can't get past our fear of failure. Some struggle with a nagging sense of inadequacy regarding our ability. Some feel the pressure of being unknown and thus feeling powerless. Or even having to live up to the expectations you or others have created about you. Add to that the relationship issues, financial pressures, marketplace fluctuations and sense of isolation that we must contend with on a daily basis and suddenly the amount of stuff you're supposed to put aside in order to get out of your own way starts to feel like a veritable mountain of personal baggage. That's because it is. Each of us lugs around enough baggage to warrant the name Samsonite. It's the trait we share with every other human being. Our stuff is who we are. Our hopes and fears, our faiths and our doubt, empathy and envy, loves and hatreds and fantasies and habits and prejudices and favorite movies and the way we tie our shoes and whether we like asparagus and on and on and on and on. That's us. We're just human beings. Now comes the paradox. If we do get out of our own way, that is put our stuff aside so we can be creative, what's left? Are we perfect? I don't think so. There will always be stuff. In fact, I'll go out on a limb and just say it. There is nothing but stuff, which is great because that means I'll never be perfect and I will always keep striving for better. As long as I'm a human being, I have an exhaustible supply of stuff. I began this by stating that the most important thing we have to do was to get out of our own way. Haven't I challenged this statement? Probably not. I'm only challenging the conventional view of what that means. As I said, simple but not easy. Thank you for watching Seymour's World commentary on Think Tech Hawaii. You can find all my commentaries and Seymour's World episodes on the Think Tech Hawaii website. Love to hear from you when you have time to get out of your own way. I welcome your comments by email, text, or phone. I'm on my way to Africa this week, and hopefully we'll return before Thanksgiving with all of my limbs intact. Aloha.