"without order, planning....discipline...nothing fruitful can happen because everything disintegrates. And yet without the magnanimity of disorder, the happy abandon, the entrepreneurship venturing into the unknown and the incalculable, without the risk and the gamble, the creative imagination rushing in where angels fear to tread - without this, life is a mockery and a disgrace."
E F Schumacher Small is Beautiful
You know how you can know about something - like honey for example - you can know how it's made, what it looks like, how it spools from a spoon. But all that insight and understanding can't prepare you for tasting it. Well, just like the mind explosion of tasting honey for the first time, here, fresh out of an unconference that celebrated disruptive thinking on so many levels, are some reflections from the extraordinary experience that is WPP Stream.
We talked all things AI, life hacks, society, story, connection, neuromorphic computing. It was curiosity, creativity, generosity, energy and positivity. These are (just a few(!) of) my key takeaways (with big thanks to everyone I had the pleasure to meet, talk with, and share the experience with, and who took the time to share their vision, energy, experiences, hopes, fears and smiles):
Openness creates opportunities to discover, be challenged, to learn.
Taking a risk and sharing your passion creates connection.
There is a lot of power in bringing different perspectives together (which can be incompatible with each other) to discover their complementarity, when there is a large dose of humility and respect.
Celebrate successes and wins- when we lift brilliance up, we can enjoy the success of others, and even discover things about ourselves that we might not have seen before.
There is wonder in how different we all are, the different ways we see the world, the uniqueness of each person. Something incredible happens when we're shoulder to shoulder with others, looking out together and sharing what we see and feel - that’s when we can see the full explosion of technicolour.
We need a tribe - there are often different ways to a destination, but understanding your story in the context of others heading for the same destination, or who have already gone there, is encouraging. It lifts you out of despair, and highlights the wins. A sense of belonging transforms the unmanageable and impossible into a rollercoaster of an adventure. It's not easier, it's not a short cut, but being on a journey with generous companions enables you to see and experience the privilege and beauty of the journey.
Trust your instinct and your intuition - assuming a position of trust creates opportunities to expand your world.
Take a moment, feel the sunshine on your face and the ground beneath your feet and let yourself enjoy that moment without worrying that it will shortly have passed. Those moments ripple forward into the future.
You can be all in, 110% focussed, with your eyes on the goal AND enjoy the present. At the same time there is a 'tax' on ambition and vision - which is the 'struggle'. To go the distance, have a plan for weathering it and how you channel the stress of the struggle for good.
Freedom comes when you allow yourself to be brave.
Thinking differently and even disruptively is not without cost, but the journey is certainly more colourful. The prize may not be the expected, but perhaps joy in the unexpected is part of having the magnanimity of disorder, the happy abandon, the risk and the gamble, and the creative imagination rushing in where angels fear to tread.
little BIG ideas
A little summary of this big idea using the 1000 most common words
Find space and kind people to dream big, and always be excited to learn and grow.