Pebblestorm

My art was a talent that came out of nowhere in 2008 as I began to nurture PebbleStorm  and my own Unique Genius.  No one’s as surprised as I am about this.  (You can see a decent collection here: “Art of PebbleStorm  CEOFlow / Fall 09“.)

It still doesn’t feel comfortable for me to say I’m an artist, even though I am…only  because I never – as long as I can remember – thought of myself as one. Engineer,  business  person, entrepreneur, athlete…sure.

But “artist”?  Yep, though I’m still getting used to the idea.

So now I wonder whenever I meet people…

What talents are in you waiting to come out that would inspire yourself and others?  What stories do you tell yourself about what you can or can’t do that aren’t true?

I also wonder what other talents will come out of me in the future that I don’t even know about yet.

I guarantee this – if you let yourself dream BIG – your ideal work, your dream business - it would involve you playing with and sharing a lot more of yourself and your talents that you do today (both known or yet-undiscovered superpowers).

Mash Your Passions

Bringing those talents into your work is essential to find the money, enjoyment and meaning you crave. You will love your work more and it will make you more unique and interesting to customers.

So what passions or talents or interests do you have that you think wouldn’t be relevant to business?

Here’s a simple example: my great friend Yanitz Rubin had forgotten about his passion for entertainment and comedy until PebbleStorm. Now he’s creating an event called “Improv for Entrepreneurs” to help people unlock their creativity and ideas. His goal isn’t to design a billion-dollar business from day 1 – his goals are to create a FUN way (for him and others) to attract the perfect audience for his coaching and other businesses.  Yanitz will ultimately make tons of money at this while having tons of fun!  I’d be jealous, but I will get to go to his events

Try playing with ideas on mashing them up with your work – either your current work or a new business idea that lets you play with and envision work however you want.  This is a first step towards the freedom you want.

Listen To Yourself

What activities does your subconscious keeps bugging you to pursue that you don’t have time for or that you think aren’t for you?

(Shhh – don’t tell anyone and I promise nothing, but I’ve taken a few singing lessons recently. It’s an idea that has bugged me for months, even though I’ve NEVER thought I could sing.  I still can’t, but I’m not afraid to try it.  I even have some ideas on how to bring this into PebbleStorm that don’t include Karaoke.)

You can have fun with work, and part of that includes mixing your passions into it in ways that make it more fun for you and more interesting and fun for customers!

I hope this note gave you some food for thought. Even if you shift just one degree in course, you’ll end up in a better place in the future.

Enjoy!
Aaron Ross

Related blog posts:

The Sun Sketch and Unique Genius:
“What is your Unique Genius?”

The Treasure Map Sketch inspired its own event:
“Reinventing work with a PebbleStorm Treasure Map Hike”

Mashing your passions:
“Mash your passions!  How could you combine yoga and poetry and…?”

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http://www.PebbleStorm.com/updates

In July I spoke at a Meeting Of The Minds event in Southern California. MOTMs was started by Kurt Daradics of FreedomSpeaks and Baron Miller, and is a great group of entrepreneurial people that meets monthly.  I had fun sharing with them last night!  The format was casual (more of an interview) and not a presentation, and so rather than a slide deck, I put together a collection of sketches I’ve done over the past year, and at different times during the talk I’d call one up to share with people.

Here is the collection…enjoy!

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My mind can’t process classic “business plans” (you know, the 20 page Word documents with marketing and sales plans, financing plans, planning the plan plans…)  About a year ago, I sketched out a Visual/Circular Business Plan.  Now, since I’m introducing the idea to my PebbleStorm “Come Play With Me” group, I’ve updated it…

One of the biggest differences in this plan, compared to a classic plan, is that there is no specific time line. You could add some rough time estimates in as rings (like tree rings). There is, more importantly, a logical progression of small projects and goals that lead to larger ones, like stepping stones.

Consider that you, today, are in the middle. The innermost ring is your first or next babystep.  The outermost rings are your vision.  It’s not meant to be perfect, accurate or a ‘project plan’ – it’s a simple way to have fun giving your vision a shape and substance that is easily explained both to yourself and others!

Oh – and if you do one, you have to share it with me    And most importantly: have fun with it!

And some video…

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1) Imagine: Sometimes an image comes to me while I’m trying to think of a visual way to represent an idea.  Sometimes it just comes, like the sun one   When an image comes to me, I jot it down in pen in my notebook:

2) Prototype: I usually let the image sit for a few weeks or even months.  I might sketch it out in pen several times, before I redo it in colored pencil…

3) Finish: Again, the image sits for awhile, days, weeks or months…before I resketch the image in black ink, and use the pastels for bright color:

And here is the final product!

4) Capture: I find some decent light, and just take a picture of the sketch with a digital camera (my Canon 870is takes great quality pictures).  I then do some basic editing/cropping with Adobe Photoshop Elements, upload here or into a presentation, and voila!

One I’m cultivating now: a “PebbleStorm Tree” image

‘Cultivating’, get it?  Ha, sometimes I crack myself up

In the Vipassana meditation retreat I just attended, this image came to me, outlining four different types of happiness (fleeting, enduring, lifetime, universal/mindset). Most people spend all their time focused on happiness at the leaves/fleeting (get a promotion/bonus) and branches/enduring (job/career/salary) stages, without applying themselves to determine their trunk (lifetime work purpose) or retrain their roots (mindset/awareness/attitude).

PebbleStorm’s strength is helping people with their “trunk” (building a business around a life purpose), which in turn creates healthier branches and leaves (more money, better career), and an easier connection to ways to enhance fundamental awareness/happiness at the mind level.

I’m only in the prototyping stage now, and don’t know when the final sketch will crystallize…

UPDATE Dec 23/08…here’s the tree I sketched while at a cafe in Buenos Aires (text and labels to follow…)

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Sketched yesterday while hanging out at the Manhattan Beach Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf…

Click to expand…

Your Unique Genius powers your dream business, creating the outcomes you desire. I just put some examples in

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I put together and uploaded a bunch of new sketches this week for CEOFlow.  Preview them at:
www.flickr.com/photos/aaronross

Full set (includes some PebbleStorm sketches too):

http://flickr.com/photos/aaronross/sets/72157605840085105/

CEOFlow Original Post

Freshly painted in Kauai this morning, an image based off of an idea of Jose Caballer’s of www.thegroop.net:

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