The Stress Doc, drawing on his experience as a public speaker, takes a conceptual look at why challenging our need for rigid perfection and control, is vital to becoming more risk-taking and more creative. The practical and comical comes next.
Creative Risk-Taking for High Performance
The Art of Confronting Your Intimate FOE
As a public speaker, it's not surprising that risk-taking is a subject dear to my heart and ego. It's well known that most Americans would rather contemplate their own death than face an audience. This self-conscious majority apparently associates public speaking with a classic definition of social risk: "The estimated likelihood of being embarrassed, shamed or humiliated or of experiencing a loss of valued affection or respect of others." (Zuckerman). Of course, some of us platform performers have had to deal with both demons: as a speaker, believe me, I've died many times. And while skeptical about reincarnation, I'm still alive and talking…But not just talking. Over the years, I've transformed my share of humbling learning curves into a modus operandi for risk-taking. Now, drawing upon my experience as a speaker and mass media communicator, I'll show how grappling with the need for control and perfection can stimulate more productive and innovative performance in a variety of settings.
Humbling is the right word, for when you experiment and explore as a speaker you are spotlighting personal anxieties and defenses, flaws and foibles, as well as narcissistic illusions. Even with some calculation, you are still throwing caution and control to the wind. So let's hope we are not just talking hot air. When coming out from a bunker of notes or stripping away the armor of a too practiced and predictable "canned" program or lecture, the public presenter's learning environment rapidly becomes both vital and vulnerable.
Clearly, a myriad of roles and undertakings, not just the speaking arena, can become a creative, double-edged crucible for quickly challenging your cognitive, emotional and interpersonal strengths and vulnerabilities as a high performance risk-taker. Anytime you: a) break away from conventional thinking and knowledge-building, b) pursue new, uncertain or still fluid models, methods and mediums and c) generate "a process that is extended in time and characterized by originality, adaptiveness and realization" (MacKinnon) you are into the creative risk-taking adventure. For example, my latest hot medium passion involves running an America Online stress chatroom called "Shrink Rap and Group Chat." Cyberspace exploration is definitely challenging my conception of a live audience, interactive boundaries and mutual support/learning possibilities. And, of course, plunging or launching into relatively unknown territory - whether it's the depth of the psyche or the breadth of cyberspace - evokes as much anxiety and chaos as excitement and novelty.
What lets risk-takers mine primal sources or soar with creative currents? These "on the edge" individuals: a) are not overly preoccupied with making mistakes or with social disapproval; they are able to tolerate the anxiety of separateness, b) have a strong enough ego to admit when they are wrong or in trouble, and c) analyze, emotionally experience and learn from trial and error.
Creative risk-takers don't just tolerate contradiction, uncertainty and isolation; they seem to often invite them. But why? University of Chicago psychologist Salvatore Maddi posits three personality factors that, singularly or in combination, compel creative endeavor: 1) the drive to transform the tension of unresolved emotional conflicts from childhood into individual expression, vindication and mastery, 2) the drive of a "lonely crusader" determined to challenge the group's or the organization's need to preserve the status quo, and 3) the drive of profound self-awareness and alienation: "the person (must) construct a framework of meaning that is personal rather than imposed externally."
And with this foundation, "creative persons are precisely those that take the cards that make them anxious" (May).
Cox Cable Chaos or The Art of Designing Disorder
Playing with the cards metaphor let me share a high visibility performance mission that was more chaotic gamble than calculated risk. And while a traditional audience was lacking, nonetheless, this high stakes episode gave me unprecedented insight into the dangers and opportunities of pushing a comfort boundary. So buckle up those seat belts. Next stop "The Intimate FOE Zone." It's time to risk confronting your Fear of Exposure.
Back in the early '80s, while cable television was starting up in New Orleans, I was struggling to build my own psychotherapy and stress workshop business. Being an adjunct professor, along with having some success as a neophyte speaker, I naively decided to explore this new mass media despite my tele- virgin status. After a couple of relatively smooth radio and TV interviews, I approached an executive producer at Cox Cable. Initially I was held at bay. Then, two months later, with their health show bombing, I was ushered into the war room and was given marching orders: "Be ready to shoot an ongoing health feature on Monday."
Oscillating between shock and elation, I kept reassuring myself: "Mark, you do public speaking, you've been in front of a camera…How difficult can it be?" I've come to realize this profound truth: The only thing more dangerous than taking a big risk, or not taking any risk, is taking a risk while minimizing the precarious reality of the situation!
D-Day arrived. I was ushered into a studio reminiscent of '50s television: cramped quarters, no teleprompters, an air conditioning system that had to be turned off while shooting because of the noise level, and the like. Then, the overpowering light of a glaring sun abruptly appeared. Suddenly, I was the center of an unfriendly universe. As the cameramen's four fingers counted down to one, as his cocked index suddenly punctuated the unspoken command for me to "ready, aim..." I thought for sure I would expire at the hands of that one-eyed, fore-fingered firing squad. I got as as far as, "Hello. I'm Mark Gorkin, a stress expert," when I began giving, involuntarily, a live demonstration. Stage fright was manifested by oral paralysis.
I'll spare you most of the gory details. Let's just say the rest of the taping was a script for high anxiety. I finally became audible in bursts. I would collapse in exhaustion after a minute or two of delivery. (Fortunately, through the magic of television editing, most of my panic and battle fatigue was erased.) Of course, the camera crew didn't make things any easier. As we played back the tape, one of them said: "Don't worry. We'll use this for our blooper special." "Thanks a lot fellas."
I had jumped in way over my head. I had no idea how self-conscious I would become. Still, the mortal wound to my illusion of invincibility thrust into awareness my combat deficiency. And while there was no rest for the battle weary, the executive producer threw me a lifeline: "I don't expect perfection; I do expect improvement each week."
Being caught in the crossfire of crisis and confrontation triggered a novel adaptive response. For the second shooting, I memorized eight minutes of uninterrupted script -- a dramatic breakthrough of one of my mind barriers. The performance tension, along with the internal pressure of punctured pride, generated a heretofore-untapped level of persistence and concentration for writing and memorization. I also discovered another benefit of this heightened motivational state. My right hemisphere, responding to this "cry of the wild," produced vivid images and rhythm and rhyme verbal connections that evoked both a more colorful style of expression and that supported mental association and recall.
The production crew couldn't believe the difference in my performance. They figured, "If he's crazy enough to do that, we might as well stick with him." In a way they were right. I really was out of my (normal) mind!
By the third week I was getting smart. I invited a guest and used a short opening monologue. I won't claim the remainder of my twelve-week stint was a breeze (though I did get a good review in the newspaper). Actually, the third feature was part of a Thanksgiving Special taped in the sunny outdoors -- in gale wind conditions. Naturally, a palm tree prop fell on my guest and me in the middle of our interview. Hey..."Life's a beach."
Moral of the Tale. In twenty-five words or less: "Cox Cable Chaos" taught me more about letting go of predictability and perfection and accepting adult vulnerability than all my years of analysis!
Four Steps for Creative Risk-Taking
Here are key steps and strategies for developing your "Creative Risk-Taking" potential:
1. Aware-ily Jump in Over Your Head. Only by jumping into the fray can you quickly discover how adequate your resources are with respect to the novel challenge ahead. This approach precludes a strategy that eliminates all risk in advance. (Okay, check to see if there are any alligators in the water.) You may need to encounter realistic anxiety, exaggerated loss of control and even some feelings of humiliation to confront your "Intimate FOE." But often the reward for the risk is a unique readiness to build knowledge, emotional hardiness and skills for survival, along with evolving imaginative mastery.
2. Strive to Survive the High Dive. There's no guarantee when grappling with new heights or depths, but four fail-safe measures come to mind: a) strive high and embrace failure -- failure is not a sign of unworthiness, but a learning margin between perfection and achievement, especially as one explores the fine line between vision and hallucination, b) develop a realistic time frame -- recognize that many battles are fought and lost before a major undertaking is won, c) be tenaciously honest - continuously assess the impact of outcomes, changes within yourself and your environment, and the rules underlying your operation, d) establish a support system - have people in your life who provide both kinds of TLC: Tender Loving Criticism and Tough Loving Care.
3. Thrive On Thrustration. Learn to incubate or be stuck between thrusting ahead with direct action and frustration. Creativity often requires being more problem-minded than solution-focused. Increasing tension or "thrustration" (Rabkin) can shake the habituated, settled mind and may transform a dormant subconscious into an active psychic volcano -- memories, novel associations and symbolic images overflow into consciousness. You're in position to generate fertile problem-solving alternatives. Problems are not just sources of tension and frustration, but are opportunities for integrating the past and the present, the conscious and the unconscious, the obscure and the obvious. Here lies creative perspective.
4. Design for Error and Opportunity. Innovative and risk-taking individuals and organizations are more attuned to a range of possibilities than to fixed or ideal goals. These systems prefer the risk of initiation and experimentation to preoccupation over deviation or imperfection. Floundering through a sea of novelty and confusion often yields new connections, long- range mastery and an uncommon big picture. A narrow, safe course creates the illusion of achievement and short-lived control. Of course, limited predesign means opportunity for errors. In open people and systems, startup misplays are vital signs for self-correcting and self-challenging feedback.
Remember, errors of judgment or design don't signify incompetence; they more likely reveal inexperience or immaturity, perhaps even boldness. Our so- called "failures" can be channeled as guiding streams (sometimes raging rivers) of opportunity and experience that so often enrich - widen and deepen - the risk-taking passage. If we can just immerse ourselves in these unpredictable yet, ultimately, regenerative waters.
References
MacKinnon, Donald W., "IPAR's Contribution to the Conceptualization and Study of Creativity," in Taylor, Irving and Getzels, J.W. (eds.) Perspectives in Creativity, Aldine Publishing Co.: Chicago, 1975
Maddi, Salvatore R., "The Strenuousness of the Creative Life," in Taylor, Irving and Getzels, J.W. (eds.), Perspectives in Creativity, Aldine Publishing Co.: Chicago, 1975
May, Rollo, "On the Imagination," The Symposium on Imagination, New Orleans, January 14, 1984
Rabkin, Richard, "Critique of the Clinical Use of the Double Bind Hypothesis," in Sluzki, Carlos E. and Ransom, Donald C. (eds.), Double Bind: The Foundation of the Communicational Approach to the Family, Grune & Stratton: New York, 1976
Zuckerman, Marvin, Sensation Seeking: Beyond the Optimal Level of Arousal, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates: Hillsdale, NJ, 1979
Mark Gorkin, "The Stress Doc," Licensed Clinical Social Worker, is a nationally recognized speaker, workshop leader and author on stress, reorganizational change, anger, team building, creativity and humor. He is also the internet's and the nation's leading "Psychohumorist." The Stress Doc is a columnist for the popular cyber-newsletter, Humor From The Edge -- HUMOR FROM THE EDGE HOME PAGE . Mark is also the "Online Psychohumorist" for the major AOL mental health resource network, Online Psych -- ONLINE PSYCH: THE STRESS DOC and Financial Services Journal Online. And he is an offline writer for two mental health/substance abuse publications -- Treatment Today and Paradigm Magazine. His motto: Have Stress? Will Travel: A Smart Mouth for Hire! Reach "The Doc" at (202) 232-8662, email: Stress Doc@aol.com, or check out his "Hot Site" website: http://www.stressdoc.com or click STRESS DOC HOMEPAGE. (The site was selected as a USA Today Online "Hot Site" and designated a four-star, top- rated site by Mental Health Net.)
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