It had been two days since his ambitious event, Flavorpill’s Yoga On the Great Lawn (of Central Park), was rained out. As the sky opened up on the crowd, it didn’t seem possible that months of planning, preparations, and the mobilization of nearly 13,000 yogis could end so abruptly. Elena Brower, co-creator of the event, led the crowd through one sun salutation. Her characteristically calm and reassuring presence was enough to keep the field of yogis in down dog despite wet mats and ominous skies. As we finished the pose, she said, “We’ll be back together here again soon…” And it was announced that due to weather, the event was postponed…

Yogis are a pretty resilient group (dare I say, flexible) and skilled at finding the silver lining. Even as the rain fell that night and we ran for shelter, the feeling that something momentous had occurred, something significant had taken place was strong. No one around me on the Lawn expressed any regret for having come out. On the contrary, there was something bonding in the experience of having tried to make it work. Sascha reassured us all that we’d try again in September and next time…it would be even better.

Last night, at his apartment several of the performers from the Great Lawn event were present and shared their talent in the intimate setting of his home–singers, dancers, didgeridoo players, poets. Some of them had not gotten a chance to perform on stage and were happy for the audience, others, like Buddy Wakefield, were more than willing to reprise their performance for the eager group of us.

Encouraged by Sascha, Buddy stood under the chandelier and started speaking, hesitantly, humbly. He’s a powerful performer, and he commanded the small space. His work is raw and visceral, and then sweet and vulnerable. He talks about God and bar fights, Gandhi and fire ants in nearly the same breath.

When he had finished, the crowd called for an encore. Seeming almost nervous, he took the “stage” again. He wanted to share a new piece with us, but wasn’t sure he was up to it. He’d tried it the other night “in front of a shot ton of people,” he said referencing the Great Lawn, and it hadn’t gone well. We all encouraged and he prepared himself. Shifting from one foot to the other he seemed to be searching for a way to start. “Maybe I’ll start with…a breath,” he said and inhaled deeply. As he did, the whole room inhaled and exhaled with him in unison. The breath was strong and firm, a yogic breath. And Buddy started laughing. He shook his head, “I love a room full of hippies. They breathe right along with you.” We all laughed at our automatic response–our ever-ready desire to breathe through life and the easy, uncoordinated way we knew our breath would help him feel more comfortable, not so alone standing there in front of us. When he said “breath,” we all thought, “Yes, let’s breathe…together.” He delivered the poem flawlessly.

In a night full of magic, that breath that filled and lifted the room in a show of support–our gift to a man who was willing to share his art with us–was for me the purest expression of solidarity. It was really the theme of the night. We were there to support Sascha and his vision, to support each other in all our efforts to be real and express our deepest selves, and to be supported by a family of like-minded and like-hearted people. It was a genuine evening in a world nearly lost in artifice. A good reminder to all of us…when in doubt, or even just walking about, breathe.

For the first time in a long time, the quality and character of our leaders in business is being recognized as the critical success factor that it is. Emerging from the scandals of the last decade (beginning symbolically with Enron and culminating recently with Goldman-Sachs) we’ve stopped marveling at the corruption that can and often does plague the top brass and started recognizing the actual qualities that distinguish a good leader from a bad one.

Marketers love to talk about the tremendous success and unflappable confidence of one particular brand these days–Apple. The brand comes up so often at meetings and in brainstorms that it sometimes has to be taken off the table entirely lest the whole session devolve into an Apple-adoration fest. Steve Jobs is often given credit for the company’s meteoric rise and is seen by the media and fans as something of a demi-god. Books have been written about the man and his mind, his story and style of management, but a blog post I ran across this morning did a very efficient job of calling out something that is not often cited as a Jobs–and by extension, Apple–strength: lucid and reasoned thought…which presumably (and we have the $ evidence to support this) translates into lucid and reasoned action.

Watch these clips contrasting interviews with Steve Jobs and Microsoft’s Ballmer for a great example of how a great leader reasons. Jobs consistently demonstrates a quality more leaders of the next generation are going to have to cultivate in order to cope with the chaos of our operating environment: presence.

For me, Louise Bourgeois was a true artist in that she channeled aspects of human existence–unfiltered–through her body, emotions, and experience and conveyed it accurately in the form of sculptures and images we can all relate to. This is one of the greatest services an artist can offer–a reflection of the unmediated experience of being alive conveyed through objects that stop us in our tracks because they remind us that we are not alone. “This is a collective experience,” they assure us, “What you are experiencing–no matter how great or how base–is not unique. It has been done. It has been felt. It is universal.” Our response: “Phew, that’s a relief.”

Artists like Bourgeois demonstrate what it means to live authentically as oneself. They demonstrate how to be open to the talents and visions we all have, but most of us ignore or neglect–sometimes because they are too frightening or overpowering–sometimes because they are too painful. What many of us spend our lives denying as we avoid the fleeting pains of day-to-day life is the truth that the greatest pain we can experience is the neglect of these gifts and the wasting of the precious time we have here. Bourgeois demonstrated through her perseverance–her drive to create without regard for consequences or concern for approval–that one must do what one is compelled to do. Even and especially when that thing frightens us. “I have a religious temperament,” she said, “I have not been educated to use it. I’m afraid of power. It makes me nervous. In real life, I identify with the victim. That’s why I went into art.”

Her obituary in the New York Times today is a good overview of the woman’s life. But, to really get a sense for her power–see her art.

One of the most striking observations for me was the absolute comfort with chaos we observed in the creative households. In these homes, children were not only allowed to do ‘unthinkable’ things like paint on the walls, they were actually encouraged to do so. Parents in the creative homes lived in and among the raw materials and fruits of their children’s creations. There was no separate playroom or area designed to corral kids, keeping the rest of the house neat and presentable. Toys were everywhere. Artwork was primarily handmade and displayed proudly in prominent locations, like the living room. Adult furniture was pushed aside or deconstructed (a dining room table’s legs were lopped off to make the table short enough for the children to work at while sitting on the floor) to give kids the run of the place.

While it seemed to me at the time (pre-children, myself) that living in such chaos might make one…uh, crazy. The effect was the opposite. The parents in these creative households were HAPPY and spoke clearly about the fact that they VALUE creativity–as part of their own life and the lives of their children. They had made a decision as individuals, as couples, and for the family, that a little chaos was the trade-off for celebrating a life full of color and creativity. They consciously embraced the chaos and saw it as something that fed their children’s developing minds.

Coming out of that research I thought a lot about the creative process in life and in business. I thought about how we’re always trying to impose order and process on creativity when we seek it in a business context. I thought about how few of my clients are comfortable with chaos and I contemplated ways I might be able to create a comfortably chaotic atmosphere in my own projects, in the interest of coming to more inspired solutions.

Shortly thereafter, I visited the Kandinsky exhibit at the Guggenheim. The work was stunning, enlightening. On the wall at one point in the exhibit, the artist gave me a further insight into the absolute necessity of chaos in the creative process. I share it with you here to see if it might inspire you to let go a little in your own work and see your next big “catastrophe” as a potential gift:

“Every work comes into being in the same way as the cosmos – by means of catastrophe. The creation of the work of art is the creation of the world.” –Kandinsky, 1913

In her fabulous book, Leadership and the New Science, Margaret Wheatley, illustrates the ‘and.’ Under a photo of the Aurora Borealis she writes: “When the solar wind enters earth’s atmosphere, its charged particles stream to the magnetic poles. As the particles interact with nitrogen and oxygen, they become visible as colored light. These aurora demonstrate that space is not empty.”

What are the bonds between us? What is the magic ‘and’ that happens when a person and a person (or a person and a product) connect? We change each other. What most marketing fails to recognize is that both parties are changed and continue to change through the duration of the relationship. Dynamic, 21st century marketing must seek to understand the ‘and,’ and find ways to illuminate it so it may be incorporated and accounted for.

Last night, my husband and I attended the 40th Anniversary party of Appalshop here in the city. Appalshop is an Appalachian heritage, arts and education center located in my home state of Kentucky. I have been a fan of Appalshop and their creative product since I was a kid, so being with them on their trip to NYC was a delight. It inspired me to write a bit about my own Appalachian heritage. I hope you enjoy. Take a minute to check them out. I always find something supremely real when I do.

My grandparents on my mother’s side are from Appalachia. Both were born in Eastern Kentucky right before the onset of the Great Depression. But, it didn’t matter much there. Unlike other areas of the country, being poor wasn’t so much a shock to them. It was just the way life was.

My grandfather, Watson Craft, was the youngest of sixteen–from one mother. Not all of those babies lived, but most of them did. Once I asked him how she handled so many children and he told me she set aside a couple hours a day for them. She’d sit in a rocking chair on the porch and any child who felt he or she needed to be held and coddled could climb up in her lap.

In the darkest days of the Depression, he said, his mother put a giant cast iron kettle over a fire in the front yard. Every day she made soup out of whatever they had and it was available to anyone who needed something to eat. This kettle of soup and their ability to provide for others signaled to my grandfather that comparatively they were well to do. This neither pleased him nor shamed him. It was just the way life was.

The kids worked hard. The older boys worked in the coalmines (one brother died there) and the younger ones tended the fields, saw to the livestock and–my grandfather’s job–kept the bees. His mother was in charge of the food–the growing of it and the preparation of it. It was she who told his father what needed to be done each day.

Every evening the family had dinner together at a long wooden table. Great grandfather sat at the head with his wife to his right. The girls lined up down the bench on one side and the boys on the other. Food was precious to all of the children, but my grandfather recalled being especially interested in what they were having and how much. He was a growing boy and as the youngest, the last to be served.

Every year there would come an evening in the fall (he said he knew it was fall because it was around the time they slaughtered the hogs), when the nightly ritual was broken. Generally, as the children finished their meal they were allowed to be excused. But on this evening the first child would ask to be excused and denied. The other children knew what this meant. It was time to take stock of the food supplies for the winter.

After everyone had finished his meal, Great grandfather would address the table saying, “Children, your mother has something she wants to tell you.” She would sit there, rolling the thumbs of her clasped hands around and around each other in her lap, and without notes she’d start down the list: “Beans…we’ve got 5 bushel…there’ll be no shortage there…peaches…6 jars…there’ll be no shortage there…flour…4 sacks…each child gets one biscuit and there’ll be no shortage there…” This went on until she’d covered the entire stock for the winter. It was, according to my grandfather, an exciting event because it allowed each child to mentally prepare himself for the coming months. It increased their sense of security and gave them a plan for getting through the winter. There was no deviating from the plan. While that may sound uninspired to modern ears, it was just fine with my grandfather and his brothers and sisters because they knew they’d be eating.

After he recounted this story I asked a silly question from the perspective of someone who’s never had to ration food in her life. “But, what did you get for a treat? What was something special your mom made that you loved? Was there some kind of cake or dessert?” He laughed, his eyes twinkling and said, “Honey, just eating was a treat!” Then thinking hard about it he said, “I guess biscuits.”

As a child I visited the mountains with my parents and grandparents. We went to the annual family reunion and visited my grandmother’s mother who was alive and well into her 90s. I was 13 when she died and remember her well. I also remember how strange, dark, and soulful the mountains felt compared to my comfortable suburban home in Louisville, which was a metropolis by comparison. I loved going to the mountains, I felt more alive there. I was–even as a child–aware of the poverty and the endurance of the people there and it signaled something meaningful to me. It was verdant, spiritual, cut-off, and hard. It was unique then and is still today.

All of these and so many more stories color my memory and feelings about the Appalachian Mountains as a region, and part of my heritage. My grandparents are still my living link to the culture and remind me in ways both subtle and direct that I have mountain blood and that’s something to honor. As an adult I’ve often wondered what I could do to give back to the place that meant so much to my family. I’ve thought about projects big and small, professional and creative, private and public. I’ve planned trips in my mind, never finding the time in a busy schedule to execute them. I swear I will go back and I will give back.

Until I do, I find consolation in the fact that many people–young and old–feel the same way. For as long as I’ve known about the mountains I’ve known about a place in Whitesburg, near where my grandfather grew up, called Appalshop. Started in 1969 as part of the government’s War on Poverty initiative, the idea was to teach local youth media skills so that they might find jobs outside their impoverished communities. Instead, they stuck around and 40 years later, Appalshop is a highly respected and thriving arts and education center in the heart of the mountains.

This weekend the organization was honored at the Museum of Modern Art where several of their award-winning documentaries (Barbara Koppel’s Academy Award winning documentary, Harlan County USA, 1976, and Elizabeth Barret’s Stranger with a Camera from 2000) were honored and some were screened. At the party afterwards on the Upper West Side, I was able to meet many of the original and current members/employees/artists of Appalshop. Not surprisingly (southern hospitality travels with southerners even when they venture into places as foreign as NYC) it was the warmest and frankly, most thrilling, parties I’ve been to in a while. The weekend was a big deal for the Appalshoppers and they were ready to share their exuberance. We ate biscuits and pulled pork, sang an old mining dirge together, watched a film clip and drank bourbon. I was invited to come visit Whitesburg and offered a place to stay when I do. In a night, I made friends I hope to visit soon in Kentucky. Maybe just being there again will inspire the project I’ve always wanted to do. Or maybe it’s time to just go back and soak it all in, that dark, spiritual, earthy, enduring place…so far from my life now, but always easy to recall.

“When Nations grow Old,

The Arts grow Cold

And Commerce settles on every tree.” ­

–William Blake

I was thinking the other day about how I once saw marketing chops as something to be proud of. Sure, it’s good to be good at what you do and I am content to be a marketer, as I believe it is my path. But, to be proud of being capable of selling things to people…as a concept, in the abstract. Hmmmm.

My imagination had run to China, and the concern I’ve heard voiced by friends and in the media that America is a nation in decline and China’s really where it’s at (or it may turn out to be Brazil). My position is…Who cares? Maybe not being a so-called “Super Power” will turn out to be a blessing for America. Not that’s its a competition…But, I digress.

Anyway. I was thinking about how just a few years ago several smart marketers I worked with picked up and moved to places like China and India looking for opportunities to wield their marketing expertise in places where the demand for sophisticated marketing was growing with the demand for goods. The rising middle class in China deserves better ads! That was the idea. We need to be more like America, where the marketers have figured out the ins and outs of seducing a savvy audience suddenly holding the power of purchase in their hands.

At the time, I thought about my own skills: so honed, so refined. And I considered doing the same thing. Wouldn’t it be fun to teach another culture how to mine for insights and convert those insights into sales pitches?

Looking back I am struck by how naïve I was and how much my opinion on the matter has changed.

America’s position as the most sophisticated marketing environment in the world might be exciting from the inside of the marketing industry, but it is a large, LARGE, part of what’s wrong with this culture and what’s starting to be wrong with those cultures striving to achieve the same.

We’re surrounded by advertising on all 6 sides: up, down, side, side, front, back. We absorb it without trying.

What to do about it? For a few years I have been asking myself this question on a daily basis. I have brought this question into my work, asked it of myself and clients, and finally I think I am coming to some big conclusions. I won’t go into them yet, but I do believe there is hope. I do believe there is hope for commercialism, capitalism, and consumption. I do believe all ads are not created equal and moving forward enlightened corporations are going to start reducing the amount of noise they put out into the world.

In a future post, I will discuss the solution that is coming to light for me. And it’s not to stop advertising altogether (your job is safe for now). It is a solution that will change the way we think and behave in a post-advertising world.

It is not enough to be busy, so are the ants.
The question is, what are we busy about?

Take a look at the busy-ness in your business. If it’s a waste of time, stop doing it. NOW. We have precious little energy in this life and it is wasted justifying the existence of so much that matters so little. Do yourself and those around you a favor: take a look at something that is making you excessively busy and find a way to eliminate half the work.

I’m doing that now. This post is done.

I wasn’t exactly sure of the location, but I set out in the general direction hoping my subconscious memory would be strong enough to guide me there. The closer I got to the approximate location, the stronger my desire to see him. My walk had turned into a pilgrimage.

Without a single wrong turn, I found my way to the statue and spent a few minutes studying it. The statue is just slightly larger than life, which seems appropriate. His familiar bronze frame is close enough to life-size to be relatable and just over-size enough to feel grand. It had the impact I’d come looking for–I was moved.

Just as I was about to leave the statue I noticed an inscription at its base. In simple letters without dates, explanation, or attribution (not necessary), it said, “My life is my message.” Indeed.