For as long as I can remember, I’ve been ahead of the curve.  This is not ego, it just a simple statement of fact.  I tend to be into things several years before they catch on with the general population.  This is applicable personally as well as professionally.  I’ve been using the internet to connect with people since I started posting on my Prodigy account and joining Delphi chatrooms in the early 90s (and via BBSs prior to that).  If you’re reading this, chance are that you have either had this experience as well, or have a particular person in your life that has.

I bring this up because I think that there’s a sense in the community at large that being an early adopter, a trend setter, someone who is on the cutting edge somehow makes you cool or rich or important.  What I’ve found is kind of the opposite.  I think that waiting for the world to catch up to what we know inherently to be true or important is one of the loneliest feelings that someone can have.

It’s hard having to go into conversations knowing you’re going to have to ‘dumb it down’ or explain why you’re so into some silly website or raw fish or some band they’ve never heard of.  Even the most well-intentioned and interested of people can be a source of frustration and deep sighing.  We want to explain and share our passion and get other people excited, we really do.  It’s just that when it’s variations of the same conversation with many new people, it tends to set up a sense of self that’s isolating.

That’s why, for all the bitching people do about the ’social media echo chamber’ or the ‘indie rock scene’ or whatever label happens to be associated with your own personal area of ‘ahead-of-the-curve’ness, it’s still so important to spend some time with members of your tribe.

I implore you to put yourself in a situation where you can have conversations about your passions that are more exhilarating than exhausting.  Spend time in a place where you can be as close to the full capacity of ‘you’ as possible.

Those places are all around. Online chatting is not enough. Dedicate yourself to recharging your creative batteries before spending time with those who are not yet part of the tribe. Your passion needs refreshing in order to truly bring the world up to speed.  That is where the usefulness, opportunity and obligation of being an early adopter comes in, and the only way to ensure the passion continues to be a calling rather than a burden.

I had the great fortune of attending the Web2Open (the unconference portion of Web2.0Expo, organized by the incomparable Whitney Hoffman) this past week. Sharing space with some of the smartest and loveliest people I know (and some that I just met) is a rare treat.  Being able to interact with people who share passions and are totally supportive of each other is one of the true soul-nourishing activities in life.

Taking a moment to sit back and appreciate the situation got me thinking about how any great conversation amongst engaged people, regardless of the subject or the context, has a musical quality to it.  It ebbs and flows, gets louder and quieter, sometimes there’s silence and sometimes there’s cacophony.

You can recognize aspects of certain genres of music within every communication.  Sometimes the bombast of opera rules, sometimes the polite and delicate nature of baroque, sometimes the high-energy groove of AC/DC.  Of all the options, the style that provides the most joy by far (for me at least) is jazz. Let me explain.

A solid jazz trio can anticipate what their band mates are going to do before they do it and are able to dance around the melody without ever losing it.  Each member brings something different to the equation.  The percussion holds the group together rhythmically, bass provides the foundation of the song, and the lead instrument provides the melody and variations. They each come to a song with their own point of view, and each contribution is essential for the success of the whole.  The original song is treated with care, but lightly.  There is freedom within the structure.

The jazz of interplay  is something that may be most apparent in person, but is certainly not limited to conferences. The freedom to riff and build up connection is fundamental to all communication, be it in-person conversation, chatting on IM, posting on Facebook or any other Social Media tool, on a messageboard, through dance, acting, kissing, or even sitting quietly on a park bench with no words at all.

I am eternally humbled, grateful and very thankful for the opportunity to meet, interact and be inspired by these remarkable fellow humans who create so much music with every word.

Great communication is jazz.

Come play.

In one of my rare moments of clarity, this thought flashed across my mind:

“The simplest way to do anything is to stop not doing it.”

It may seem kind of “duh”, but if you stop for a moment and take stock of all the places you want to be, the things you want to do, the people you want to meet, the communication you wish your company had with its customers, and then take a moment and really contemplate the attitude and automatic responses you have in your mind about not doing these things, and then begin to change the “no’s” into “yes’s”, I bet you’ll get pretty darn far.

Try it with something small.

Figure out what happiness you’re not bringing toward yourself, and stop not doing it.

Let me know how it goes.

When we are quick to judge others, people or companies that may not be communicating honestly, that may be scared of having people gossip, or spread untruths, or being perceived inaccurately, we are creating an ‘me vs them’ space for ourselves, which is fear-based and can make us feel very constricted and small in our definition of ‘ourselves’.

Today (whenever you may be reading this), try to remember that each of us, as individuals, employees, mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, friends and lovers, strangers and enemies are doing the best we can at this moment.  We all want to love and be loved, to be understood, to be happy.  We each struggle to get past our fears and our thoughts in order to achieve this goal.

Even you.

Even me.

We’re all in this together.

[inspired by Teresa Basich's wonderful manifesto, and the first decent conversation I've had with my father in  years.]

On the journey I’ve been on the last month, it’s been particularly interesting to become more acutely aware of some of the assumptions I’d accepted as gospel for so long.

One of the big ones is based around not giving myself permission to try things.  So many aspects of my life had been left untouched based on my being unable to see beyond what I assumed was the size of the first step.

“I should travel more!” I thought, “but I don’t have a passport and in order to get a passport I’d have to get a passport photo and to do that I’d need to remember to go to a photo place,” and on and on.  And so things would not get completed.

In Buddhism, there is the concept of the ’second arrow,’ which means that we frequently add a layer of judgment to our activities and choices, which causes us to suffer, keeps us in our heads and restricts our ability to connect with our true selves.

I was doing this, and it was keeping me stuck in one place.

But what I’m starting to realize is, there are smaller steps that are more manageable, if I take them without judgment of the past or possible negative outcomes of the future. There are low-risk activities I can do to bring myself closer to my goals.  Taking even the tiniest of steps in a direction and it can make a world of difference, and so tiny becomes the perfect size rather than a bad thing to be judged.

So whether it’s getting your passport, figuring out what you want in a romantic relationship, lowering your carbon footprint, interacting with your customers, making diplomatic overtures to a ‘terrorist state’, reconnecting with an estranged family member… figure out what you CAN do, and do it.  Don’t judge yourself because you think you could be doing more, or that it seems like it doesn’t matter or make a difference. And if you do find yourself judging, do your best not to judge that part.  You are only human, and it’s in our reptilian brain’s nature to judge ‘this is good’ ‘this is bad’.

It really does.

P.S. the Japanese have a name for this process when used in business: Kaizen