Mindset Jolt #7 – Be the fulcrum, not the see-saw

Welcome to our Conscious Innovator® process!

Are you ready for a new, insight-provoking “Jolt” … something designed to “rearrange your molecules” as it elicits your unique, innovative potential in life and work?

Jolts wake us up. They spur new self-awareness, new capabilities and values, and new actions. Paradoxically, we don’t learn from each Jolt – rather, each Jolt “learns us”! That is, a Jolt sits in the background of our consciousness and then prompts new insights and energy over time. 

Jolt #7: Be the fulcrum, not the see-saw

When it comes to being innovative, whether the scope is large or small, there always seems to be ups and downs in the process.

Have you ever enthusiastically pursued a clear vision of something you wanted to achieve? But once things didn’t go as planned, you started to feel skeptical and anxious, finding yourself in a push-pull dynamic to get it accomplished?

Or perhaps you were excited when you were given a cool project, so you dove into learning about the situation and mapped out a plan. But mid-way through the project, the powers-that-be changed their minds and cancelled it, leaving you quite frustrated.

Desires, thinking, emotions, and action propel our “doing” in the world, including our innovative endeavors, through our ego-driven personalities. The resulting ride through life and work can be both exhilarating and exhausting – a see-saw effect that becomes an inner obstacle to our creativity.

But the ups and downs of see-saws can actually be a gateway to unceasing fulfillment – a totally different experience! How is that?

With a see-saw, there’s a beam where people can sit on either end. Then there’s a fulcrum that holds the beam above the ground, but isn’t part of the beam. The fulcrum provides the stable and secure pivot point for the see-saw to work.

The beam is our mental-emotional-physical personality, the arena of our human “doing.” The fulcrum is our inner presence and consciousness of pure being – the core of any human “being.”

This conscious presence is ever full and unchanging, a natural state that holds the ups and downs in a steady state of peace, trust, love, compassion, and creativity. It’s the source of our ability to know our True Self, and to act in the world while being unaffected by the ebb and flow of our personalities.

When it comes to expressing our natural innovativeness, Michael Ray, former professor at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business who taught its wildly popular course on “Creativity in Business,” summarizes the importance of being this fulcrum of consciousness rather than the beam of personality:

“Unless we have developed a sense of our Self (who we are at our core, our highest self) and our Work (the purpose of our existence, the gift we have to give to the world), and use that to deal with the inner obstacle, we can’t sustain creativity in the face of the chaos of the world.”

-=-=-=- Now it's your turn -=-=-=-

Being a Conscious Innovator® has a 3 phase cyclical process: become aware, capable, and versatile. Try on this Jolt in your life and work, then take self-reflective time to engage in the process:

-=-=-=- An invitation to join our process and share your insights -=-=-=-

If you haven’t already, we’d love for you to join our process and share your own experiences, while learning from the experiences of others! We appreciate what one person said about the Jolt process itself:

Innovation is a world by itself. It can change lives and help people become more positive. Doing a Jolt is already something! A new habit that promotes innovation and reflection.

It’s totally FREE to participate. To sign up and join us, go to this link and follow the easy directions: https://innovate.vci.global/p/the-conscious-innovator. 

Even if you haven’t participated up to this point, it’s never too late to start the process! It’s like a concise gym workout that provides an insightful “pause that refreshes” and evokes your unique, innovative potential in life and work.