John Cruz » inspiration

Oh, I get it now!

John Cruz — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 01:19:59 +0000

If you’ve spent any length of time with me, you know that I love to laugh, and I love to make people laugh. It goes without saying then, that I love jokes — particularly the dry kind, much to the chagrin of my friends and family who don’t share the same taste in jokes. My friends have actually told me to start blogging the jokes that I come up with, and I think I may actually start doing that sometime even though I suspect it’s really so that I don’t have to share my jokes with them! “No matter,” I tell them, “at least one person always laughs at my jokes: me… Anyone else is bonus!”

Until now, though, there has always been a joke that I never found terribly funny. It’s the one that everybody, including my young kids, learn to tell at an early age:

Why did the chicken cross the road?
To get to the other side.

Whenever someone tells that joke, I’ll admit, I always laugh, but it’s not really a funny joke. Then I realized – the joke was on me! What I thought all these years was a joke really wasn’t a joke, but a clever motivational message! It’s brilliant, I tell you, and I want to let you in on the secret.

People will always question your motives

If you stop and think about it, it’s really rather silly… Why in the world would we even care to ask why a chicken crossed a road? Several humorous answers have been created over the years, such as to get away from Col. Sanders (if you live under a rock, that’s the KFC guy.). Ultimately, though, unless we think like a chicken, we will never know, and the chicken will never tell you.

Which raises the question… So why did anyone bother asking, then?

The simple answer is because the chicken did something. Think about it, people young and old are, to this day, still talking about what that crazy chicken did a long time ago!

I wonder how many people have ended up choosing to do nothing because we have even afraid to have our motives questioned. It’s interesting how humans are a great deal smarter than chickens but we often choose to stay cooped up in our creature comforts rather than take the steps needed to do things that people will be talking about for years to come.

Hmm. Now that I think about it, that is pretty funny!

if at first you don’t succeed…

John Cruz — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 23:41:51 +0000

If I find 10,000 ways something won’t work, I haven’t failed. I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward. — Thomas A. Edison

Failure is often seen as something to be avoided at all costs. Although most of us recognize that failure is not something that can be passed on, failure is something that people become branded with, and those that have been tagged as ‘failures’ are avoided as if somehow their failure is contagious. They couldn’t be further from the truth. It is something that is earned.

But who in the world would want to earn failure?

Failure is not a pleasurable experience. So often it affects our pride, our egos, our pocketbooks, and even our relationships. But what if failure is actually a good thing??? Although that may sound crazy, that is exactly the kind of mindset that successful people have.

Often called resilience, it is the trait that compels people keep going in the midst of adversity. Rather than being forced to give up, it challenges people to do it again. This time, do it better than ever. Failure, to these kind of people, is seen as an opportunity to grow and try again. Certainly they don’t attempt things intending to fail, they, instead, attempt greater things because there is a chance that, this time, they might not fail.

Derek Redmond, Portrait of Derek Redmond taken in 2007; Source: Wikimedia

Derek Redmond, an athlete and Olympian, is a great example of resiliance. Having had eight operations to repair injuries on his path to the 1992 Olympic Games, Redmond performed very well, winning the first round and then won the quarter final. During the semi-final, tragedy struck as his hamstring snapped, causing him to fall to the ground in pain. Emergency response crews rushed to his assistance but he refused. He wanted to finish. Joined by his father, Derek completed the last lap and finished his race. The crowd of 65,000 watching this occur in front of their eyes stood and cheered his accomplishment.

The Olympic records state that, because he received assistance from his father, he received a “Did Not Finish” standing, certainly a failure by the Olympics’ standards. In the eyes of 65,000 people in the facility, and the eyes of the millions of people watching around the world, and in his eyes, what the Olympic records state didn’t matter. He finished. He finished well. And he won the biggest prize of all: the peoples’ hearts.

Thomas Edison, National Portrait Gallery; Source: Wikipedia

Thomas Edison once said, “If I find 10,000 ways something won’t work, I haven’t failed. I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward.” If there was a man who should understand failure, it would be Edison. With 1,093 US patents in his name, Edison is known as one of the most prolific inventors in history. For every idea that matured enough to be patentable, I am certain that many more made it into the reject pile.

The incandescent lightbulb, perhaps one of Edison’s best known inventions, was Edison’s 48th patent. Can you imagine if Edison gave up in frustration after his 47th invention? It is at that point that Edison was one attempt away from wild success. Of course, he probably had no idea at the time, but had he given up then, history would have been just a little bit dimmer.

Failure is the best teacher. It teaches character. It teaches what not to do. It teaches us how to be better. It teaches us the right time to stop what we are doing. It’s methods are often harsh, degrading, and painful, but if we take the time to learn from it, we can gain more than a string of simple successes.

“I love this idea of wrong thinking–of encouraging people who have ideas to go see if they work and not dismissing them just because they sound like the wrong solution. No one has the right answer at the beginning. I made 5,127 prototypes of the bagless vacuum before I got it right.” — James Dyson, Founder & CEO, Dyson

“No one has the right answer at the beginning.” I wonder how many of us have been one attempt away from success. One iteration away from “the right answer.” Where we once had passion, we have emptiness, having had failure beat the passion out of existence, taking away the victory that was ours to claim if we would have tried just one more time, maybe in just a different way.

The time has come to end all that. When failure deals its blow, its time to declare:

[quote]Not this time, failure. Not this time.[/quote]

You’ve got the wrong 1%

John Cruz — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 17:47:15 +0000

The Occupy Movement has been criticized for its lack of focus and lack of a clear message. Indeed, it has its mantra, “we are the 99%,” but that mantra doesn’t convey much of what change they are seeking.

Is it improved education?

Is it to stop wars?

Is it to shift political ideology?

While the goals are somewhat unclear, the premise of the Movement is certainly valid. There is a grossly uneven distribution of wealth, there is a lot of greed going on, and certainly, something should be done at a government policy level. What that something is, though, is something I’m not sure many in the crowds are clear about. Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t disagree with the movement because, I too, am part of the 99%.

Still, seeing the vast number of people uniting under this banner is impressive. Its encouraging to see that people are still willing to unite and stand up for a common cause. In a nation filled with apathetic voters and an attitude of “unity through diversity,” finding reasons to get together and actually doing something about it is difficult.

But what if the efforts are misdirected? What if we’re focusing on the wrong 1%? What if we were part of that 1% and we felt that we were villified for our hard work and good fortune?

What if the problem is not them, but us?

This may be the key question that can help provide focus to the Occupy Movement. Below are three actions that you need to take to help focus the Occupy Movement.

focus on your 1%, not the 1%

Change starts with you. Because the movement is focused on the top 1%, it’s easy to forget that we too, belong in a 1%.

Before we explore that idea, think about this: Is the top 1% necessarily happier than we are? In which percentile can we live comfortably? If you have ten minutes, watch the video below: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us

That 1% that we belong in may not be where we want it to be, but that’s why we need to look at our 1%. What can we do to help us move to the next 1%? When we reduce the question to that level, it becomes easier to identify what areas we need to address so that we can move forward. Those areas may be government policy or socioeconomic conditions, but more often than not, they are personal areas such as experience, education, and even laziness. What area in our lives do we need to improve so that we can move to that next 1%?

For the social-media savvy people it boils down to this: we need to +1 ourselves!

occupy your minds, not just space

Lets face it. Picketing and protesting are not complex things to do. In some cases, people are simply camping and chanting in the designated protest location. Now I understand that’s what protests are about. However, in large groups, it is easy to get caught up in the moment and forget about critically thinking about the change that is being sought. Ask yourself how you can change your 1%, instead of how do we make the 1% pay for being the top 1%. It’s a far more productive question, and one that may help you more than any policy change.

protest your inaction, not the action of others

Many top 1%’ers got there because they managed to do the right things at the right time. Many would call those lucky breaks, but I prefer to think of them as realized opportunities. I wonder if we could recognize an incredible opportunity if it were dangled in front of our face. And if we do recognize the opportunities, how often do we seize them? I believe there are three drivers that cause our inaction in the face of opportunities

Inattentiveness
We don’t see opportunities because we aren’t paying attention to them, or don’t know how to recognize them. How many of us missed out on getting in on Apple’s skyrocketing stock price? I know I am, and I’m kicking myself for it!
Laziness
When we are able to recognize opportunities, sometimes we end up making excuses or put off taking any action until later, and before you know it, the opportunity has slipped away. This is the exact premise of mail-in rebates, by the way! They’re betting on you putting off the opportunity of getting some of your money back to the point where the offer is no longer valid (or more often, we lose the receipt.)
Fear
Sometimes, we see an opportunity and we’re completely motivated to get going on something, but then the paralyzing serum of fear courses through our veins. Our minds are filled with “what ifs” and we freeze, not willing to step into the unknown and face the challenges ahead. While some of that fear may be rational, we must learn to understand our fears and fear missed opportunities more than the fear of the unknown.

It is these inactivity drivers that we must protest against. And, to be effective, that protest must demand action. For most people, we are our biggest hindrances, not the top 1%.

If we, as individuals, know the next step that we need to take to advance ourselves to the next level, we will be able to recognize the roadblocks in economic climate and government policy that hinder us. It is only with this understanding that the Occupy movement can shift from a clever mantra to focused lobbying for change. The 1% know this game well. They know what policy change to ask for and lobby with their dollars. We, the 99%, should know this game and lobby for specific change with our numbers.

fontography figured out – an infographic

John Cruz — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 17:31:27 +0000

In any field, including creative work, it’s absolutely important to have a workflow to ensure that you’re working as efficiently as possible. Any part of the process that can be automated or scripted will free more time up to do what you do best — be creative!

Because many of my projects include laying text onto images, the question of which typeface to use is a common one for me. With the thousands upon thousands of fonts available, it’s easy to get overwhelmed in the number of options we have available.

I stumbled upon this somewhat humorous, somewhat informative, and somewhat useful infographic by Graphic Designer Julian Hansen to help get the process of selecting a typeface for my next project going.

Click for the larger version