A semi-big announcement!

Announcement to subscribers, followers, casual readers, and mega-celebrities:

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www.zahndrew.com

or

http://zahndrew.wordpress.com/

See you there!

Friday Light: Big, Superfluous Words Make Us Seem Smarter

As creatives, we'll often bend toward the serious side of life. Our temperaments embrace the melancholy, rainy day, James Taylor-esque "You've Got a Friend" sadness that, for some reason, makes us feel comforted. Not happy, but comforted.

Sometimes we gotta chillax. In an effort to blend balance into our creative lives, I introduce to you Friday Light. This will be a weekly series each Friday to smack the melancholy in the tooth, laugh a little, and deliver a non-acholoholic buzz.

Let's get chuggin'.

Confession: I sometimes like to appear smarter than I really am. Rather than using colloquial language, I'll toss in some three, four, and five syllable words to dazzle. Have you ever used "big words" just to impress someone?

Words like these...

• Pretentious. Even using the word 'pretentious' is, in itself, pretentious.
• Colloquial. See above. I used it a few sentences ago to make myself appear shiningly brilliant. 
• Nebulous. I'll toss this one into a sentence when describing concepts and ideas that aren't specific. As in: "I like the direction of this project Fran, it's just a bit nebulous at present." Just saying the word 'nebulous' raises my IQ. I'm sure of it.
• Any Medical Terminology Picked Up from WebMD. As in "yeah, it was a post-roital laceration on my dorsal vertex." Of course, peons who haven't read WebMD feel their intelligence quotent drop with each and every syllable of our verbiage.
• Verbiage. It's pretentious to use the word 'verbiage.' 
• Moot. Like a judge on Law and Order, we'll refute irreveant information and use the word moot. Check this out from the dictionary: "it is moot whether this phrase should be treated as metaphor or not." That sentence doesn't even seem like English. 
• Ambidextrous. I get a one-two punch out of this one by both saying the word and demonstrating as well. For some odd reason, I have no trouble shooting pool with either hand. Though I'll probably not win the game, my opponent is astonished with my vocabulary and my ambidextrousness. Makes me feel better about myself... just like listening to James Taylor. 

How are we going to keep it light today?  Suggestion box below... just leave your tips in the comments.

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10 Reasons Your Current Job is Creative. Really!

In a couple hours, I will don my costume for the day. I call it 'business casual.'

I will sport a professional, corporate look.

I shall spend the morning and afternoon teaching sales methodology, basic manners, paperwork procedures, and a few 'closing' techniques.

Ladies and gentlemen: I am a corporate sales trainer.

Yet, I still consider myself a creative. Are you in the same boat? You're waiting tables at the diner. You're answering phone calls in a cubicle. You're picking up endless messes from the kiddos.

We are all creative.

Today, our jobs are creative because like every prolific artist:

1. We will influence the way people see something.
2. We will share joy.
3. We will connect rather than just exist. 
4. We will employ our mediums, whatever they may be, to communicate our ideas.
5. We will think as creatives think.
6. We will bring life to our workplace.
7. We will entertain.
8. We will believe that our work is good.
9. We will help.
10. We will contribute.

Time to put on that costume now, and I'm thankful. Thankful that it's my choice to see this day as an artist does.

How do we, as creatives, change our thinking to make our jobs more than a mere paycheck-generator?

Would love to hear your tips below in the comments!

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This post brought to you by Quitter: Closing the Gap Between Your Day Job and Your Dream Job. Jon Acuff (read his blog here) put to words what I've only felt and thought for many years. I highly recommend it.

Hot Air Ballooning in Amish Country: Six Facts

Last week I had the great fortune to do this:

"Balloon with a View" This balloon launched with ours.

*It costs money. Fortunately, for me, this particular trip was a gift. Thanks Dad.

*Fear of baskets is a no-go. If you fear floating around in a human-sized Easter basket, this isn't for you.

*It's not like Pixar's movie "Up." Wasn't "Up" a sad movie? I didn't cry once while on this ride.

*It's hard to catch a football from a balloon. A few kids tossed a football up to us (while flying much lower, of course, than the pic above) and we missed. Twice. Leaning out of a basket to catch a football = not a good idea.

*People love balloons. It was fun to see all the people waving, cars crashing from watching us and not the road, and the dogs freaking out.

*Amish people love balloons too. Here's how some arrived in their Amish "car" to scope out our balloon landing. 

"Amish Auto"

Time to check something off your bucket list?

Slightly Embarassing Creative Quirks

As creatives, we all have idiosyncrasies. I'd like to know your creative quirks that play into your art and creative process. And by 'your art,' I mean: getting the kids ready for bed, conducting a non-boring sales meeting at work, making a meal, or designing a dream from concept to fruition.

We're all artists.

I'll start the ball rolling before you divulge your foibles.

On the cusp of writing this list, I'll just say this: if you could see me, you'd describe the look on my face as chagrined. (I had to look 'chagrined' up to make sure I was using it correctly. Geek-factor.)

Weird music tastes. My 5 most recent iTunes downloads:

1. "The Edge of Glory" by Lady Gaga. Just embarrassing, but I love it. There, I said it.
2. "Tightrope" (featuring Big Boi) by Janelle Monae. So. Very. Good. It's like hearing a good preacher expound on the Bible. She makes it come alive. Joy-singer. Here's the video on youtube.
3. "Bennie and the Jets" by Haley Reinhart. Yes, she was on American Idol. And yes, this version is awesome. 
4. "Forever" by Chris Brown. I first heard this while watching NBC's "The Office." It was featured in the Jim/Pam wedding. Celebration music extravaganza.
5. "Make Your Own Kind of Music" by Mama Cass Elliot. Butter-voiced Mama Cass (of Mama's and the Papa's fame) belts out this lovely anthem to artists with pinpoint croonery skills.

OCD Watchdog/Mild Participator. 3 weird things:

1.  I like shows like "Obsessed" and "Hoarders." At times, I can identify with the people on the shows. That scares me. Then I realize I'm not like them. That relieves me. Emotional journey.
2. A 'thing' with odd/even numbers. When turning up the volume on the TV, I'll often want it to be an even number. Why? I dunno. But then I think of the people on shows like "Obsessed" and I flip it to 13 or 17 and throw caution to the wind.
3.  Supersonic ears. I often wear earplugs to concerts, theaters, even churches at times. Sensitive ears.

Randoms.

1. I usually sleep on the floor. Actually, I start in the bed and then, around 2 or 3 AM I end up waking up and moving to the floor. Why? I like it. It happened last night.
2. I don't call my wife 'dear' or 'honey.' We keep it simple: we call each other 'babies.' 'Dear' and 'honey' never seemed right to us. Nor does 'deer honey.'
3. I was invincible once. I took a Starbucks Venti Iced Americano (I believe it has 34 shots of espresso in it) into the movie theater to watch The Dark Knight. Upon leaving the theater and finding my way home, the combination of the movie and caffeine told me that yes indeed, I too was a superhero. I was Batman until that buzz wore off. I've not had a Venti Iced Americano since.

Enough of my quirks. 

Who's honest enough to share one or two of your creative quirks that make you who you are?

Fuel for Creatives: Time (Part 3 of 3)

Coffee is morning fuel. Gasoline is car fuel. Sunlight is plant fuel. What is fuel for creatives?

Ideation + freedom + time = creative fuel. (Read Part 1, Ideation and Part 2, Freedom)

Time.

While training as an actor, our troupe garnered loads of great instruction from John Barton's video series "Playing Shakespeare." Actors such as Ian McKellen, Judi Dench, and Patrick Stewart played the text wonderfully, showing us newbies how it's to be done. Our English accents would have to come later. (Much later. Even now, my English friends say my faccent (fake/accent) boasts a Mike Myers feel. Ah well.)

One thing I took away from Barton's teaching is this: the word "time" is the most important word in Shakespeare. I've said that word differently for the past 15 years because of Barton's instruction.

Time.

The word itself is weighted with permanence and sobriety. It is not a flippant word.

Time.

The word is a gift, or a curse, depending on one's vantage point.

Time.

We must make time. We must guard this precious resource. We must take the time we have been given and use it doing what we love: creating.

Yes, we can come up with a great idea and have all the freedom in the world, but if we don't make time, our creative process stops short for a week. A month. A few years. Then decades. Then.... a lifetime.

Make. Time.

Our mantra:

We have all the time we need and more. We will spend our time doing the things we were created to do. We will not settle for excuses. We will not blame our schedule, our friends, our families, our jobs. We will use our time to create and share our expressions. Our creativity is a God-given expression that brings vibrant life to ourselves and to those with whom we share our creativity. 

In Steve Jobs' much quoted 2005 Stanford Commencement speech:

"Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life."

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Fuel for Creatives: Ideation (Part 1 of 2)

Fuel for Creatives: Freedom (Part 2 of 3)

Fuel For Creatives: Creative Freedom (Part 2 of 3)

Ideation + Creative Freedom + Time = Fuel for Creatives. Read part one on ideation here.  

Now that we have our idea, we gotta mix in a little freedom to create the idea and add a healthy dose of time to let it steep and brew. 

Freedom first. A picture = 1,000 words. So here's my words on creative freedom:

"Freedom" by Zenos Frudakis

Zenos Frudakis's vision for his sculpture "Freedom," now roaming the streets of Philadelphia:

I wanted to create a sculpture almost anyone, regardless of their background, could look at and instantly recognize that it is about the idea of struggling to break free. This sculpture is about the struggle for achievement of freedom through the creative process.

Defining 'freedom' would be a daunting task even for Webster... we'll not even bother looking it up. Instead, we'll ask ourselves a few questions in regards to the Frudakis sculpture.

• What do you see in this picture? 
• What do you see in the four figures?
• Where do you picture yourself?
• How did that last figure finally break out of the 'mold'? 

I have to first want freedom in order to put in the word to get freedom. We must define creative freedom for ourselves, otherwise it's someone else's freedom... and that's not freedom at all.

So if we all desire creative freedom, what is holding us back?

Leave a comment below and we'll converse on it a bit.

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Read Fuel For Creatives: Time (Part 3 of 3)