There have been a few moments this week where people have questioned why I choose to pursue multiple interests and why I am studying leadership in an academic arena. This has led me to define for myself an appropriate response to those questions, so that I do not take offense, and most importantly, seek to motivate the other person or group of people to a greater cause or purpose for their lives.

In class Monday evening, I mentioned that I was a voracious reader, so naturally the teacher asked what I was reading. The first book I mentioned was Refuse to Choose!: Use All Your Interests, Passions, and Hobbies to Create the Life and Career of Your Dreams by Barbara Sher. I noted emphatically the impact it has had upon my life because of the use of positive language to describe people that have multiple interests and insatiable appetites for learning and curiosity as well as accepting generalists for who they are, not forcing them to choose a speciality. The response from a peer was fascinating: “So, why are you here studying leadership? Isn’t that a form of specialization?”

My whole-hearted response: No. Here’s why.

The challenge to choose between being a specialist or generalist is often driven by a societal need to label and classify every possible object or person for the ease of knowing how to properly respond to a given scenario. It is also a way to justify earning more money or respect from others within organizations and traditional hierarchies of influence. But, as Sher points out in her book, being a specialist is a recent invention of the 20th-century. She reminds the reader of the past reverence of being a “Renaissance Man” or someone infinitely curious, seeking to learn, grow, and change. Leonardo Da Vinci is the poster child for what a Renaissance Man is all about. Not only was he a painter, but he wrote and studied philosophy, mathematics, theories of flight, design of helicopters and machines, architecture, prophecy, color, perspective, and more than our modern brain could possibly believe that a single man living without the Internet could know.

In his notebooks, Da Vinci had this to say about imagination: “The idea or the faculty of imagination is both rudder and bridle to the senses, inasmuch as the thing imagined moves the sense. Pre-imaginging is the imagining of things that are to be. Post-imagining is the imagining of things that are past.”

Imagination guides and directs our actions and senses. If locked into a specialist mentality, imagination becomes constrained by the limitations imposed by that speciality. When I started my college career, I wanted to be a computer science major, by design a highly specialized industry, but the more I progressed in the program the greater the disconnect between all of my interests became. I did not enter the computer science program, and from there my major become business, then art, then I dropped out.  After a brief stint in a rock band, I returned to The Art Institute of Portland to graduate with a degree in Media Arts & Animation, which was heaven for a generalist like myself.

Learning about leadership is not something that is the end result of my life or career. It is merely another interest that fuels what I do and who I am. How does it relate to being a graphic artist? How does it relate to being a business owner? A friend? A husband? A writer? A filmmaker? Leadership is part of a critical foundation for success. It solidifies what I believe, which in turn affects how I treat others.

I will be a generalist until the day I die and I am finally okay with that.

Some time ago, a friend was asked what subjects a student should learn in order to be a better worker, he responded: “You obviously need to know your trade, but in the future, that won’t be enough. Read Dickens. Understand economics. Know people.”

How much time do you spend in your business lab trying something new? Perfecting a formula, shot, strobe setup, or algorithm?

There is a temptation to coast and only do what you know you are good at. But what happens when what you are good at becomes mundane and boring? Do you jump to your trusty social network for inspiration? Do your customers notice when you are bored? How about your employees?

Business, according to Michael E. Gerber, is all about learning, experimenting, and investigating. He writes in The E-Myth Revisited:  ”Yes, the simple truth about the greatest business-people I have known is that they have a genuine fascination for the truly astonishing impact little things done exactly right can have on the world.”

Two things stand out why all business owners and employees need to develop a learning attitude within an organization:

1. Fine-tune genuine fascination:  It isn’t enough to be fascinated by things and stuff.  Genuine fascination eliminates boundaries of time and energy, pushing us into the realms of Flow (Csikszentmihalyi) and being in the zone. It brings a purpose and a drive to everything we do. Without curiosity, boredom will overtake a business quicker than moss covering a brick wall in the Pacific Northwest.
2. Little things, astonishing impact:  The big events in life are few and far-between. However, the little things of our jobs done with an artistic flair of perfection can have an unbelievable impact upon the morale of an organization and the people who benefit from the work done.  Within the photography industry, photographers and camera manufacturers perpetuate the eternal question:  Is Canon better or is Nikon?  This is a big question which distracts from the true function of a camera, to take pictures. The little things which create astonishing results become lens selection, shutter speed, aperture, perspective, lines, color, light placement, subjects.

As I further my business model for Chris Martin Studios, I am purposely adding time for experimentation. It is my lab. It will shake the boredom from within. And it will be fun.

Every Christmas I get a book from my dad. He has a pretty good track record of buying books that speak to me at different times in my life, but occasionally I question his judgment. One book in particular, In the Shadow of Grace, has sat on my shelf untouched for 12 years. It wasn’t that I didn’t like it, I just couldn’t get into it.

For some reason, it was on my mind this morning. I kept repeating the title in my mind, “In the Shadow of Grace… In the Shadow of Grace…” So, after getting home from breakfast with my grandma, I took the book off the shelf and was struck by the following quote in the foreward from Toni Morrison’s book Paradise:

“Playing blind was to avoid the language God spoke in. He did not thunder instructions or whisper messages into ears. Oh, no. He was a liberating God: A teacher who taught you how to learn, to see for yourself. His signs were clear, abundantly so, if you stopped seeping in vanity’s soul juice and paid attention to His world.”

These heavy and illustrative words paint a beautiful picture in my mind: all that is around us, including the pain and the joy, is an opportunity to encounter grace and be free. I, for one, love the idea of grace, but only when it comes to other people. I do not extend the same amount of grace I give others to myself.

When I read the words of Morrison, “[stop] seeping in vanity’s soul juice and [pay] attention to His world,” I realize not giving myself grace is a form of vanity. It cheapens the grace I give to others because if it isn’t good enough for me, why would it be good enough for someone else?

Grace is not easy for me to accept. I would much rather face punishment. Fortunately, grace is liberation from myself and the prison I keep myself locked up in.

The fact I need grace reminds me of my humanity, frailty, and fallibility. My eyes open to the things of this world where I can make a difference and the clear signs from God become an intimate whisper of acceptance.