Welcome to IGW Insights Issue 14!
When asked how she gets ideas for her books, the novelist Lionel Shriver once said, “I pick something to be outraged about and then I write a book.”
Sometimes we don’t pick the things we’re outraged about. Sometimes when encountering the world, our businesses, or our family systems as they are we become if not outraged, then at least disturbed by the extent to which things do not work.
The strength and character of your emotional reaction to this run-in with reality is a signal. It’s your soul begging you to confront something that must be faced, demanding a fix.
When Shriver, as a novelist, addresses her outrage, she’s listening for a story. She’s taking sides on some social, spiritual, or cultural conundrum and building a world around it so that you and I, the reader, will enjoy the self-imposed process of being disturbed and forced to think.
I have noticed that often people do not want to take sides. They avoid it at great cost to their blood pressure. I understand the fear involved in not wanting to take too firm a stand on some issue or another. We’re taught to pick our battles. However, I think we misinterpret that as “keep the peace as often as possible.”
What does “pick your battles” really mean? Read more here.
Recommended Reading and Listening
The Courage to Create is a book about how radical an act of creativity can be. Legendary psychologist Rollo May challenges the very definitions of courage as a physical expression and creativity as a neurosis. This is a quick read, and the audiobook is really good if you’re in for a solid commute. If you’re an entrepreneur, you need only replace the words “science” and “art” with “strategy” and “vision” to get a ton out of this book.
Journaling Exercise
Set a timer for ten minutes and start with the prompt, “You know what really pisses me off about my business?” And let the pen do the rest.
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Dan Weiss, CEO
