creativity on the hook

From A Slow Learner’s Bill of Rights.

You have the right

• To work with people who find you and your visions fascinating
• To work with people who are fascinated by your brilliant visions and will hold you accountable to do what you said you would do

Sunday is usually a lazy sort of day. But out of the blue, I receive an email invite from Tricia Postle :

I had an idea for a “COTH” group – creativity-on-the-hook! because the goal is to get those creative impulses into the boat, on the grill, and served with lemon slices for general consumption. Hedonistic enough?
I’m thinking, meeting every two weeks for a 90 minute session.
15 m check-in/catchup, wine/whine as necessary
15 m outline of what’s going on with one person’s projects
15 m feedback, priority-setting
30 m ditto above
15 m what are we on the hook for, before next meeting
Sessions after that would include a review of what we did and didn’t do, with a solve-the-problem, not-the-blame approach.

Normally these kinds of invitations require time-consuming back-and-forth negotiations of  location and calendar,  and sometimes never grow beyond idea phase. But more and more often I’m finding that Slow Learning is Immediate. Within an hour we were drinking tea, dreaming and scheming and testing Tricia’s COTH process with each other.

We both came away from the afternoon with a list of goals that, with each other’s help, we had refined and clarified into actionable items. (Among other things, I will refine my elevator speech about Slow Learning, and she will start outfitting her  Troubadour Hope Chest)  In a month we’ll meet again, and see what we’ve accomplished.

Tricia reminded me that a Slow Learner is a whole person, not just a person with goals and a to-do list. So we talked about taking care of ourselves, of considering work, relationship, physical and emotional health as part of the COTH process.

Since I have a tendency to beat myself up when I don’t accomplish what I set out to do, I find Tricia’s “solve the problem, not the blame” philosophy confronting and refreshing.

What are Slow Learning friends for?