In January of 2020, I wrote a blog post titled “Becoming Hospitable to Ideas for Writing.” While I like to think all my posts are special and interesting, this one is significant, in that it marks the one and only time I have documented my ability to foresee the future.

You see, in this post I claim, “something is coming.” I hope I don’t have to go into too much detail here, as I said it was January 2020.

I’ll admit, I used the words awesome and epic to describe what I felt was on the horizon, so I’m not sure I truly had a grasp on the appropriate emotions that I would feel the rest of that year.

The most important thing I captured in that blog post was the blessing I received from a young padawan on New Year’s Eve, 2019: “May the Force Be With You.”

As of this writing, it is not yet New Year’s Eve, 2024. Yet, I feel once again as though “something is coming.” I’m crossing my fingers I’ll be in the right place at the right time, and get another Jedi miracle to embolden me through the unknown in 2025, and although I am hesitant to get too excited, (see year 2020), the words epic and awesome feel somewhat fitting.

So, while I wait to cross paths with a Padawan, Wookie, or Jedi master, It feels relevant to look back on everything I have learned since writing that fateful post in January 2020. Because although 2020 brought so many things I’d rather not ever have to relive, it also marked the beginning of my path as a creative professional.

What is a creative professional?

The creative part

Google “What are the creative professions?” and you won’t find jobs like teacher, general contractor, doctor, or accountant. In the past, as in before AI, a creative professional was a name reserved only for those working in the arts: performance, visual, language, etc.

As an educator, its hard not to take offense to the idea that my job does not demand creativity. My husband is a general contractor, and is the most creative person I know. Humans are creative beings.

Are you considering becoming a creative person? Too late, you already are one. To even call somebody a “creative person” is almost laughably redundant; creativity is the hallmark of our species. We have the senses for it; we have the curiosity for it; we have the opposable thumbs for it; we have the rhythm for it; we have the language and the excitement and the innate connection to divinity for it. – Elizabeth Gilbert, Big Magic, 2015

So can we just agree that everyone is already creative, we just have to claim it for ourselves. We have to remember that everything we know today has been built by those who were willing to connect unlike ideas, take risks, follow their curiosity, and imagine something different.

The Professional Part

So, what have I learned over the past five years is mostly about being professional. I could talk to you all about meeting deadlines, wearing nice clothes, and carrying a whole lot of responsibility, but I wouldn’t be telling you anything you don’t already know.

I guess we have to define these things for ourselves. The seven year old I met on that New Year’s Eve was a professional. He believed it, so I believed it. Now, he did have the look, complete with padawan braid, clothes, and a lightsaber. Therefore, I won’t say your appearance doesn’t matter. However, the most powerful thing was that he owned his identity.

Maybe that is what it means to be a professional. To own it. Sometimes, we are afraid to say we are a professional anything. Sounds cocky. Or, it could be we are worried we will fail at whatever it is we are saying we are a professional at, because we will.

What if we start balancing big important words like professional with comfy cozy words, like creative? Creative professional sounds like peanut butter and jelly. The jelly makes the peanut butter go down smoothly. Or, macaroni and cheese, everyone likes cheese. No one eats noodles plain.

How to Be Creative and Professional

I wonder who first thought to put jelly and peanut butter together, and why it stuck? I remember eating mayonnaise and peanut butter sandwiches as a kid, but I don’t know anyone who still eats that, not even me.

Also, did peanut butter and jelly sandwiches inspire trail mix (fruit and nuts), or was it the other way around? I should ask ChatGPT.

Anyway, Star Wars and Sandwiches aside, the following is a short list of things I’ve learned over the past four years of practicing skills as a creative professional.

• Listen, observe, pay attention.
• Curate based on personal experience.
• Focus on getting better, not being your best..
• Have a vision for the future, recognize the messy middle, and celebrate the work that has come before.

Listen, Observe, Pay Attention

Listening is a skill that must be practiced continually. I’m going to call this level one, surface level awareness. It also means turning down the volume in your own brain. Essentially, listening is really choosing to understand something or someone other than yourself. Listening is not thinking.

Observation means having your eyes and mind open. Level two awareness. Are all of us just looking for things to confirm what we already believe? When you observe someone or something, what do you see? Essentially, observing is really choosing to understand something or someone other than yourself. Observing is not thinking.

Paying attention is level three awareness for a reason. Paying attention is an act of service, compassion, and empathy. When you are paying attention to a person, you are showing a level of awareness of them, beyond what they are saying or doing. When you are paying attention to something, beyond what you see, you have the incredible privilege of assigning meaning.

When you pay attention, you have the opportunity to assign positive intent. You get to believe that this person means well, that they are doing and saying the best they can, with the tools, knowledge and resources they have available to them. This is creative professionalism when working with people.

Curate based on personal experience.

Curation, by definition, is selection. The world we live in now is almost unlimited in its offerings of choices and opportunities. I know that sounds like the opinion of one who comes from a place of privilege, and I am not denying that. However, I have known poverty in my life, and I still had choices, lots of them, even in the 80s.

More than selection, curation denotes a collection, of things or ideas. I’m trying to think if we curate people, like do I collect people? Or places? More on that later. In the traditional sense, curators work in museums, libraries, and such to protect, interpret, and care for objects of significance.

What is significant than? It depends on you and what matters. I wonder what a padawan would curate? (Another great question for AI.)

In my life and work, I want to hold on to ideas and tools I’ve tried out and found to be effective in lots of different circumstances. What is a tool I can use for most things? In education, its easy to get overwhelmed with resources, busy work. I’m looking for tools to get people talking, laughing, and building new thinking. So I mostly curate structures for cooperative learning strategies, games, and discussions.

“The smartest person in the room, is the room.” -David Weinberger

Focus on getting better, not on being your best.

It used to drive me crazy when I worked in a school where the admin would say things like, “Are you being your best today?” Ug!

Now, I don’t believe he was directing this toward me personally, but it was the message we were supposed to be sending to our students, everyday. No, we cannot be our best every day, nor should we try.

Being the best kind of assumes we already know everything. Like there’s no room for improvement. There’s good, there’s better, and then there’s THE BEST. Is there anything better than being the best? I don’t like it.

I read a book this past year called Learnership, by James Anderson, and it was the best. Ok, just kidding about the best part. Anyway, a big takeaway or validation for me was his advocacy for focusing on getting better. How can we value getting better over being your best? Anderson says we need to develop a relationship with learning. We should focus on achieving growth, not simply achieving goals. That way we can get better at getting better.

Have a vision, recognize the mess, and celebrate.

The single most critical motivator for me is the future. I think this might be because it’s guaranteed to happen. It is the reason I try to take care of myself, the reason I’m writing every day, the reason I participate in work and relationships. Its motivating because I am an optimist. I believe things will get better. Or at the very least, I believe its my job to make it look like it is better, so my children won’t be afraid to keep living.

In education, we have to believe it will get better. More than that, we must have some kind of vision for what it could be. AI is promising to cut teacher time on administrative tasks, allowing them to be more engaged in student relationships. I’m excited about leveraging these tools to create more personalized and equitable learning models, and I think if we can shift our mindset toward the humans, rather than the content, education will be changed for the better.

In the meantime, we are all in the messy middle. Things are a mess, and that is ok. Take some breaths, recognize what is working right now, and try some new things. Being a creative professional means failing…a lot. Failing in the midst of a bunch of failing makes it much less noticeable.

Finally, creative professionals understand that focusing on what works, is much more effective in creating change than what is not working. Notice anything and everything that works, try to name why it works, and apply some version of it in your life, your work, your relationships.

May the creative force be with you

Just as the Force flows through all living things, creativity flows through every professional endeavor. Whether you’re a teacher, contractor, or aspiring Jedi, embracing both your creative and professional sides isn’t about reaching some distant galaxy – it’s about trusting your instincts and staying open to new possibilities.

I’d love to hear about your creative professional journey in the comments below!