I’ve got deep question for you: what is your opinion on spontaneity? Are you the type that likes to throw caution to the wind? Or is your whole life carefully laid out (and color coded) on your Google Calendar?
Do you ever wonder what it might be like on the other side?
Last month, I did something spontaneous. Late one evening, after several hours of contemplation that was partially aided by a now-legal smokable product, I booked two plane tickets to Portugal. It would be the first time that either my wife or I had been to the airport since the start of the pandemic. In fact, it had been so long since I had been on a plane that I hadn’t realized that my passport had expired. Seven days—and one urgent passport processing fee—later, we were on our way over the Atlantic.
The vision for our trip was simple: be spontaneous. We traveled light, packing everything into the backpacks you can see us wearing on our backs. We didn’t make any reservations. Zip. Instead, a few hours after arriving in Lisbon, we took the train up the coast to gorgeous Porto. It was the last time we used motorized transport for the next two and a half weeks.
From Porto, we started walking north towards the Spanish frontier. Our destination was Santiago de Compostela—a famous pilgrimage town way up in the northwestern corner of the Iberian peninsula. You may have heard of the Camino de Santiago: a network of European walking trails that Christian pilgrims have been walking for over 1,200 years. We were walking the Portuguese version.
Every morning, we woke up a sense of profound openness. We had no idea what we were going to see, where we were going to sleep, or who we were going to meet. And every evening, we went to bed with our day full. The structure made it easy: the trail was clearly defined, there were plentiful cheap cafés and accommodations, and there were many other people along the Way, which helped us feel safe.
Still, it was a thrill to put ourselves in the hands of the unknown. The experience was truly magical.
We walked for 17 days and covered more than 400 kilometers. That gave us a lot of time and space to reflect on what we were experiencing. The one question that kept coming up for me was: why is it so difficult to be spontaneous at work?
Perhaps this is a question that you’ve asked too. So many of my clients and friends live lives that are scheduled to the minute. Have you ever found yourself totally annoyed because someone is three minutes late for a Zoom meeting? Spontaneity gets a bad rap in business. To be spontaneous is to be unstructured, unpredictable, impulsive.
To be creative is to be unstructured, unpredictable, impulsive, too.
Right now, we’re in a moment that demands creativity. But as the old structures crumble, many of us have the instinct to try and rebuild what is falling apart. I understand why so many people out there are talking about getting back to normal—and, at a deeper level, I also understand why that premise is fundamentally flawed. If we do what we did before, we’re only going to end up in the same place.
So how can you bring more spontaneity and creativity into your work?
We walked for 17 days and covered more than 400 kilometers. That gave us a lot of time and space to reflect on what we were experiencing. The one question that kept coming up for me was: why is it so difficult to be spontaneous at work?
Perhaps this is a question that you’ve asked too. So many of my clients and friends live lives that are scheduled to the minute. Have you ever found yourself totally annoyed because someone is three minutes late for a Zoom meeting? Spontaneity gets a bad rap in business. To be spontaneous is to be unstructured, unpredictable, impulsive.
To be creative is to be unstructured, unpredictable, impulsive, too.
Right now, we’re in a moment that demands creativity. But as the old structures crumble, many of us have the instinct to try and rebuild what is falling apart. I understand why so many people out there are talking about getting back to normal—and, at a deeper level, I also understand why that premise is fundamentally flawed. If we do what we did before, we’re only going to end up in the same place.
So how can you bring more spontaneity and creativity into your work?
Finally, we arrived at our destination: the cathedral in Santiago de Compostela. The plaza out front felt something like an arrivals lounge, full of pilgrims who had walked from all over Spain—and from departure destinations as far away as Switzerland and Germany. There was laughter, hugs, and tears. There was a lot of shared wine. It felt wonderful to participate in this communal celebration—with strangers, in public.
I was reminded that this is why we work. Not just to pay the bills or for luxuries like travel, but to participate in something meaningful that is bigger than just us.
In the aftermath of the pandemic, people—employees, customers, us—are longing for something that many of us still struggle to articulate. We’re hungry to have our assumptions challenged—in a careful, compassionate way. We’re yearning for mystery, creativity, and a new vision of what might be possible.
You won’t find a solution for how to do this well online. No consultant or coach—myself included—can give you a three step process for how you can bring more creativity to your work. The only way out of the crisis of this moment is through our collective creativity: the creativity of our organizations, our societies, our teams, and ourselves.
Start with yourself. Find a way to be spontaneous. Not in the abstract. Today.
The most meaningful lesson that comes from travel is that you don’t need to leave home to be spontaneous. The Great Mystery is waiting outside your front door. (It might even knock when you’re sitting on the couch…)
It’s 12:51 now. I’ve got 9 minutes left until I send this. I was going to apologize for not being perfect… but then I remembered not being perfect is the point.
Speak to you next week at 1pm,
Jordan.