Clean then Dream…

David Allen, author of the very popular book titled, Getting Things Done, has this to say about you and your busyness. “Whether you’re trying to garden or take a picture or write a book, your ability to make a creative mess is your most productive state. One mess at a time is all you can handle. Two messes at a time, you’re screwed. You may want to find God, but if you’re running low on cat food, you damn well better make a plan for dealing with it.”

Allen charges his clients $20,000 a day to sit by them and force them to focus, and finish their most productive mess. You want one. You, most certainly, have too many.

This is why the BTL process begins with you working on your biggest mess – you. Every leader we work with is their own worst enemy and as they author their discovery document we begin to see which mess to clean up first. You see, the reason there are so few adults among us with big dreams to change the world isn’t because we’ve stopped dreaming. We still dream in vivid color even as our eye’s gray and our skin wrinkles. The problem arrives when we awaken and all we can see is the mess we’ve made or, worse yet, the mess our family, friends, and others made and left for us to deal with.

Your messes do not get cleaned up by looking away. We believe you gotta clean before you can clearly dream. This idea runs counter to culture and falls on deaf ears in most popular leadership development programs. We agree with Allen that you can only hold one creative mess in working memory at a time. We think most humans, however, have a hard time honestly evaluating their biggest mess. Most just get busy cleaning up the cat mess.

You gotta come clean before you can clearly dream.

Are you? Are you looking in the mirror and covering up your blemish or coming clean? Are you looking away and just hoping it will go away?

God, help me come clean and clearly dream. God, help me…