All things are created twice: part I

11th October 2009

All things are created twice: first in our minds, and then in reality. Chances are you suck at one of these two creations, and it's holding you back every day.

It doesn't matter if you're creating a dog kennel or a business, a stag do or a family. There are always these two steps:

Imagine you were throwing a party. By simply reading that sentence, your mind has started a first creation: there's now, literally, a party in your head. You might imagine who the party is for, where it would be and how the nuns and strippers might not get on because neither likes the music your uncle has chosen and who invited him in the first place?

With your increasingly vivid mental notion of this party, you take steps to make it real. This is the second creation: turning your first creation into reality: writing the invites, booking the venue and so on. Of course things can go wrong, and your two creations may not match, but nothing would have happened if it hadn't been for the two creations. And the success of your party depends heavily on both. If your original idea for venue was poor, the party will suffer. If you failed to invite any guests, likewise. You don't need a great idea or execution, you need both.

Are you better at action or vision?

Everything is created twice, but the skills required for first and second creation are totally, utterly different. Some are even complete opposites:

Are you more of a vision person or an action person? Your answer will limit your behaviour, and change how you interact with others.

4 creation character types

There are four extreme creation character types, depending on their skill at each creation:

1. Bossy dreamer

Will tend to produce more ideas - sometimes great ideas - than they can follow up on. They start something with tremendous passion, and then leave it for something else soon after. They're often the boss, or expect to be the boss one day. They get frustrated when the real world doesn't bow to the brilliance of their will. They like to plan everything.

Their problem is they're infinitely better at imagining than doing.

2. Superhero sheep

Gets loads done, efficiently and tirelessly. Is probably famous for this. Extremely good at following instructions verbatim, perhaps 'top employee' in a relatively low-level job. Dislikes change, or taking charge. Feels like their life is something which happens to them. Has little or no long term plans for life.

They're brilliant doers, but lack vision. Often they're very good at doing the wrong thing, very well.

3. Whiny zombie

These people are most noticeable because they complain a lot. Everything in their life is something else's fault, and poor them, they're not able to do anything about it. They don't accomplish a lot of anything, and almost everything they do will be dictated by the actions of others around them. Given free time, they'll say they're bored or watch TV.

These people have low creation skills, which means they're just reacting to what's around them.

4. Master commander

Respected, authoritative, natural leader with a strong sense of purpose. High achiever in whatever they set their mind to. Ability to create a strong vision and follow through on it, making them masters of their own lives.

These superhumans are impossibly rare and you'd be lucky to work for one, nevermind be one.

Reality is more nuanced of course, and you're likely a mix of two of these types. Your skill for each creation type can vary significantly over time, for example if we're stressed. At our worst, we're all whiny zombies.

Making the most of what you are

You'll benefit from improving your weaker creation the most. The lazy solution is to work with others who compliment you automatically: ideas people with action people. This happens in most workplaces by default, and there's nothing wrong with that. But if you really want to kick ass, you need to master both.

Each creation type is like a muscle, and exercising it makes it stronger. Just like physical muscles, we tend to over rely on what we're naturally best at - lifting with our strongest arm - but to improve we need to work our flabbiest, weakest parts the most. That means having the honesty to acknowledge what those parts are, and the tenacity to work at fixing them.

There will be more on that in coming articles. In Part II, we'll look at how the two creations affect teamwork.