#5 The upside of hardship 🔓

Feb 14, 2020

We are wired to dodge uncertainty and danger, to follow what is known and safe.

Obstacles are perceived as dangerous because they stress us. And although they are hard, uncomfortable and messy, if embraced, they can take us places no one has been before.

They can help us unlock opportunity.

For example, Charles Best was a public school teacher in the Bronx who wanted to create engaging experiences for his students, but his main obstacle was funding. With no budget to organize activities he often had to spend his own money.

Photo: DonorsChoose.org

Instead of being paralyzed or frustrated, he devised a solution to get the money, not from the school or the students, but from regular people who want to support education.

He founded Donors Choose, a crowdfunding platform where teachers can post classroom project requests, and donors can choose the ones they want to support. Today they have impacted 39,241,033 students in the U.S.

Photo: DonorsChoose.org

While most obstacles are unintentional, we can also plan and use them deliberately to accelerate our creative process.

For instance, when the iconic singer-songwriter David Bowie moved to Berlin looking to find a new sound for his next album, he invited music producer Brian Eno to work with him and his team.

Eno arrived at the studio with what he called "Oblique Strategies", a deck of cards with different challenges. The cards worked as a creative tool to go beyond the obvious. Anytime they got stuck they picked a random card and saw where it led them.

Photo: V&A Images

When they picked the card that read "change instrument roles," the guitarist was instructed to play drums and the drummer attempted to play the bass. Amid this chaos, and loaded with confusion, guest guitarist Adrian Belew was then asked to improvise a solo without even knowing the key of the song. This process led to the now-classic solo in “Boys Keep Swinging."

Deliberate obstacles led to Bowie's most productive years in which he released 3 albums know as The Berlin Trilogy: Low (1977), "Heroes" (1977) and Lodger (1979), originally titled Planned Accidents.

The Takeaway:
Obstacles cause confusion, which in turn makes you more alert and aware. They prevent boredom and force you to see problems differently and get out of our usual "autopilot" mode.
We all face obstacles, the difference is the level of courage and curiosity we possess to overcome them and find the upside.
If you are not going beyond what is obvious it’s time to add obstacles and constraints to your creative process. See where it leads you.
If you want to try a method similar to Eno's Oblique Strategies you can find an online version here.
What obstacle are you facing now? Are you approaching it the right way?