The Creative Boomerang: A True Story About Art, Serendipity, and Impact

What we put into the world sometimes comes back to us in the most unexpected and magical ways.

It’s begun! Transforming the garage into some kinda art studio/maker space.

Did not see this coming.

Years back, I’m in Oakland, California with my family. Visiting an old friend.

Late in the afternoon, we wander over to a local outdoor craft market by the water.

Stall by stall, we work our way through. More accurately, I sit on a bench in the shade, shvitzing and complaining, while my wife and daughter explore.

Twenty minutes in, I get a text.

“Come now, we’ve found a really cool one.”

I navigate my way around to find them in the middle of a stall alive with high-contrast photo montages. The photographer, Steve, spends his time moseying around San Francisco, and pretty much anywhere else. Taking pictures of graffiti and old signs. He then isolates the letters, and prints them out large-format on photo-paper to form words and phrases, made up of a patchwork of letters.

If it sounds a little ransom-y, it is, but it works. Just super cool. And playful.

We get to chatting, and he tells us how he’s always had a love of photography. This is his passion, though he’s fairly new at “going pro.” We talk about our shared interest in street art, photography, and graffiti. Just a lovely conversation, and human. He even brings his kids into it. A number of the pieces on display are done by them.

We’re captivated by his story, the creativity of his work, and the joy radiating from him. So, we commission him to make a number of pieces with different phrases to send to people we love.

A few months go by, the pieces arrive to us, and get shipped to various people, all landing with gratitude and awe.

End of story.

Except it’s not…

A few days later, an email arrives addressed to Stephanie and me.

Turns out, he had recently left a long, successful career as a senior tech executive. The last company he worked for got acquired. He stayed on for another year, but it wasn’t feeling right, so he decided to leave.

He vowed not to go back into the industry. But, months in, without direction, he was spinning a bit, with no sense or momentum toward what was next. He wanted to do something that honored his passion, creativity, and desire to spend more time with friends and family. So, he bought a bunch of business books. Read two, then stopped when he got to the third, and just started taking action. That book was Career Renegade, which I wrote, then published with Crown/PRH in 2009.

As he shared in his email, “When I initially read this book it was as if the author was speaking directly to me. There were so many parallels in the authors life and the stories of others in the book.” Career Renegade (which is now wildly dated) was largely about finding unconventional paths to mission-driven entrepreneurship.

Through our months of conversation, he’d never made the connection. Until then. Navigating some challenges, he grabbed lunch with a mentor, and shared his situation. The guy pulled out Career Renegade, slid it across the table and told him to read it. He tells him he already has.

Then, it clicks. Looking at the cover, he saw my name, and realized, for the first time, the person he’d been speaking with, and making art for, is the same one who wrote the book that helped inspire him to start that very endeavor.

He wrapped, sharing how, in his words, “there was a reason that out of all the business books I bought over the years, which could fill a library, that very few have touched me personally as Jonathan’s book…. I am thankful for your support and orders of signs for fiends and family. However most of all I am thankful for Jonathan’s words as they have inspired me to reinvest my energy and time in the things I have passion about, most importantly me and my family and my path in life.”

I was shook, in the best of ways.

As a maker, a writer, an artist, an author, you never know how the work you create will land when you’re in the thick of creation.

You try to write, sculpt, paint, or make what is real for you. You share ideas, stories, insights, images, feeling, light, resources. And hope they’ll land with others.

But you never really know.

You keep doing it largely because it’s the thing you can’t not do.

Makers gotta make.

Constantly resisting the temptation to tap and mic and ask, “this thing on?”

Then, every once in a while, if you’re lucky, and you stay in it long enough, the Universe gives you a sign. The dent you dream of your work making boomerangs back to you.

Letting you know…

Keep going. This matters. You matter.

And, so you do.

With a whole lotta love & gratitude,

Jonathan

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Wake-Up Call #56 | Do the thing.

When you’re deep in creation mode, there’s a certain amount of faith that guides you.

Trust in your vision. Trust in your skills. Trust in your taste. And, trust that, if your creative output needs to, in some way, contribute to your living, people will be moved by it, value it, and support it.

But, when you’re in the process of making it, you just don’t know. And, some say, you shouldn’t. It’s a nice delusion. Unless you have a trust fund, stupid money in the bank, or are willing to live hand-to-mouth, some level of concern about the commercial and impact potential of the work is always there.

Still, you can never know until you know.

Even those who profess to know rarely ever do. I was listening to this fabulous interview of the 500-million book selling author, Dean Koonz, on the

How I Write

podcast. Dean described writing a book he loved, but his publisher, someone with stunning success, insight, and taste, hated it, and didn’t want to publish. In the end, Dean negotiated it’s release. The book was a huge seller.

The only true arbiter, in the end, is how it lands with the people you most want to move.

Ask yourself…

Is there something inside me now that feels like it needs to get out, but I’m being told it’s not a worthy project or pursuit? Even if the voice telling you is the one in your head?

What if you did the thing? Or, even ran a small experiment to begin gathering feedback, data, intel capable of replacing criticism with possibility.

The more you put your heart, mind, and voice into the world, even in the face of doubt, the greater the change to touch even a single person in a way neither of you saw coming. And, when that happens, and, in the random magical moments when it boomerangs back to you in the form of impact and gratitude, life becomes richer.

Bring the project to mind. Ask, what is the first step I can take toward it.

Then…gulp…take it.

As always, just thinking and writing out loud here. Have you ever experienced anything like the story I shared above? Has the impact of your work boomeranged back to you, in even the smallest, unexpected way? Is there a project you’ve been waiting for permission to start?

Think on it. Walk with it. Feel into it. And, if you’re inclined, share your thoughts in the comments.

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Quick 2x20 Update…

As I shared last week, based on the stunning response to my 2x20 project, I decided to open up a handful of coaching spots and host a 3-day 2x20 retreat in Palm Spring, CA in October.

Within minutes, the coaching spots were taken.

And, there are now only 5 spots left for the October retreat.

If you’re genuinely interested, please don’t wait to claim your place in the retreat before it’s gone.

Here’s more info, with a link to sign up.