Five Small Guidelines for How to Play Big

A few weeks ago, I had the amazing opportunity to take part in the inaugural TEDx Austin event. I’ll freely admit that if I hadn’t been sitting down, I just might have been knocked off my feet by Steven Tomlinson’s talk. It was about how to play big—authentically. As with Daniel Pink’s discussion about the Surprising Science of Motivation, the insightful concepts of how to play big were, again, absolute music to my Professional Destiny ears!

Tomlinson is a business educator, performer and playwright—a unique and interesting combination. He began his talk with a story about how he sought advice at age 28 from a wise professor at a local seminary who was known for giving insight and tough love. Tomlinson loved three things: business education, theology and theatre, and was seeking a concrete, specific answer about which one to pursue in order to make a living. The “answer” he got was not what he expected—it was “don’t discard—pursue all three.”

As Tomlinson experimented with this advice, he began to see connections and perspectives he hadn’t noticed before. Then, after years of first-hand experience, he condensed the concept of playing BIG to be about five things:

• Practice—spend some time (two hours per week) wholeheartedly engaged in each of the things you love
• Paying attention—let the things you love talk to each other and observe what begins to happen in your life that is unique and powerful
• Not discarding—be determined to keep all your gifts in play and trust that there is some wisdom that will start to bubble to the surface
• Leading with what you love—find your calling where your gifts meet the world’s deep need
• Making degrees of freedom—simplify in order to free yourself to do the work the world wants you to do. For more ideas on this see, The Freedom Plan.

As I wrote in Professional Destiny, “A job is something we do to earn a living. Oftentimes it is too small for our spirit. Our life’s work is a mighty undertaking that challenges us, taps into our creative energy and reawakens our spirit. It is our work with a capital W. Once we start on the path, the urgency of this work is bigger than us. Our passion and creativity are ignited.”

Finding your own Professional Destiny takes commitment and a deep yearning to express your unique gifts in a way that matters. It’s an exciting journey. Playing big requires creating small ways of demonstrating what you can do well—and letting them prosper and grow. When Tomlinson delivered this presentation to the TEDx crowd, he received a standing ovation. The message resonates at some level with all of us. Watch the video clip and see if you’re inspired—you may just be prompted to give a standing ovation of your own.

8 Comments March 31, 2010

A New Operating System for Our Businesses

Just over a week ago, I had an opportunity to attend a TEDx event in Austin. It was one of those rare “shatter-any-remnants-of-small-thinking” kinds of days. One speaker after another spoke to us about big ideas ranging from overcoming cancer, to new space frontiers, to the advances in human genomics. Then came an afternoon talk made by Daniel Pink from the global TED conference about the surprising science of motivation. The whole discussion was compelling, but in the second half of his speech, he outlined the pillars of a new operating system for businesses that were absolute music to my Professional Destiny ears. These three fundamental concepts are:

Autonomy—The urge to direct our own lives
Mastery—The desire to get better and better in something that matters
Purpose—The yearning to do what we do in service larger than ourselves

Pink used what he called “true facts” to make the case that these intrinsic motivators work much better than the old fashioned carrot-and-stick approach that most companies still use.

Autonomy, mastery and purpose are part of the journey to your Professional Destiny. In my book, I discuss how people use their natural gifts to become masters at their chosen field, and how fulfilling it is to excel in something that really matters to you and others. Intrinsic motivation occurs when people can fully express their talent and become part of something larger. Here is a list of indicators from the first chapter that will help you recognize at the individual level when this happens:

• You are engaged
• You feel on track
• You feel honest
• You become lighter
• You are committed
• You operate with compassion
• You make a contribution
• You are fulfilled
• You make a difference

On the corporate level, the feeling of autonomy and empowerment is essential to keeping people engaged (see earlier post on Why Most Corporations Homogenize Remarkable People, Part 3: Empowerment vs. Marginalization). When people are fully engaged and properly motivated, inventions and breakthroughs occur. There is clearly a new model for business that works better than the old. And it’s great to see a lawyer, the London School of Economics and the Federal Reserve Bank all come together to make the case!

6 Comments March 2, 2010