Bam, Slam, Crash!
Startled out of a cozy dream, I jump out of bed and quickly look out the window to see a plastic patio chair flying across the backyard like a reckless pilot in an air show, banging into the gnarly twisted oaks, bouncing off the rocks, and bumping across the weeds until it gets stuck at the back fence.
The old screen door is slamming repeatedly as the wind moves it. The trees are rattling and swaying fiercely. You can hear the wind howl like a coyote. Perhaps spring really does roar in like a lion.
The Four Seasons
There is something profound about the seasons and their relationship to life. Spring is new beginnings and birth, summer is life, fall is old age, and winter is the freeze, the end. As I think about spring, I cannot stop thinking about new beginnings, about the excitement of seeing what blooms in life and in business. The seeds get planted at the start of the year, when we set goals and resolutions and the flowers will pop up soon.
I love everything about new beginnings. I love change, even though it’s our nature to resist it. I love to break what’s not broken, to disrupt what needs disrupting.
Making Change
My wife, Laurie, loves to move furniture around, change out rugs, and disrupt our house. I’m always resistant at first, because I’m comfortable, settled, cozy. Yet, the change is always better; it makes me appreciate our home in fresh ways. It’s healthy to have our lives disrupted, even when it’s unpleasant at first.
But it’s hard to be disruptive, because, as my friend Roy Williams says, “It’s hard to read the label when you’re inside the bottle.” Some of us would rather just stay cozy.
Think about disruptions that have occurred in your life that you resisted or did not embrace, but that ended up making your life better. Disruptions are like spring flowers.
“If you had told me I’d…”
Fill in the blank. I hear it all the time.
We eventually embrace what we initially resist. We adapt. And usually, we see improvement in our lives.
But disruption in life, and businesses, rarely comes from ourselves. Our friend Dawn walked into our house last Sunday after church and pointed out a decorating idea we had not thought of. And it was better. But we could not see it because we look at the house every day.
Too Close to See It
Kodak held the patents on the digital camera. They invented it, but the executives of the company resisted it because it was not about film, which was the business they thought they were in.
A friend who was head of digital for the Washington Post claims he told executives that their Internet content would become more popular than their printed newspaper, but they did not believe him. So he was instructed not to publish stories on the Internet until the paper had been out for 24 hours.
Break It
The way to disrupt is to look at the way things are done, find what you hate about it, figure out how to break it, and figure out what would make it better. People on the inside can rarely see what they should be doing, how they should be changing. Instead, people from the outside can disrupt because they see what can be better. Elon Musk, a co-founder of Paypal, looked at rockets and made them better, looked at cars and made them better. Jeff Bezos looked at books, and distribution, and made all of our lives better.
Why does this matter?
Disruption makes things and people better.
My grandfather had a business selling meat slicers, scales, and meat cases. Supermarkets disrupted him, put packaged meat out, and his business died. He could not see it because he was on the inside.
My goal, as a business owner, is to try to break it at every possible opportunity. It’s not easy, because I cannot see what I need. That’s also true in life. I need others to help me see how my life could be better. We all do.
By making a point to seek feedback, even things we don’t want to hear, we get better. We grow. We change, and we make ourselves or our businesses better. And we need to continually do this to ourselves even though we resist.
Are you set in your ways?
Do you need to be disrupted?
Are you stuck and don’t know it?
Do you have someone who can help you disrupt?
If you want to get disrupted, listen to your kids. They are willing to point out how we need to change, and I’ve found that they are right more often than not.
We’ve all had terrible things happen to us, disasters, deaths, and other unpleasant things, and we come out on the other side different in some ways. I did not like when my dad died, but I grew up in new ways because of it (which he had told me happened to him when my grandfather died).
Embrace disruption. Embrace change. Seek others who can help you disrupt. Life will be more interesting and invigorating.
After all, comfort is nice, but being stuck isn’t.
Eric Rhoads
PS: If you hang with me this year, you’ll see some very interesting disruptions. I can’t tell you more.
One disruption we were forced into because of COVID was launching virtual conferences to replace our in-person events that were canceled. We learned that thousands of people who could not attend in person love the three-day conferences online. And we are continuing them beyond quarantines because people are getting value. Our next one is PleinAir Live, which is March 9-12. Join us by visiting pleinairlive.com. Disrupt yourself by learning to paint.
Here are some things going on at my company, Streamline Publishing, Inc.
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PleinAir Salon Entry Deadline
$30,000 Art Competition/Deadline: February 28, 2022
Enter this monthly online competition to win cash prizes and recognition. Monthly category winners will be entered into the annual competition, where the Grand Prize is $15,000 cash and the cover of PleinAir Magazine.
Enter one of our 18 categories in plein air and studio painting.
3rd Annual PleinAir Live Virtual Conference
Virtual Event: March 9-12, 2022
Beginner’s Day: March 9
March 6 is the last day to save up to $300 on a ticket.
Replays available if you can’t make the date.
PleinAir Magazine presents PleinAir Live, a 4-day online training event featuring 30 of the world’s top landscape and plein air artists doing demonstrations and presentations. Join thousands of artists from around the world to take your work to the next level and learn about the plein air lifestyle and how to become a part of it.
9th Annual Plein Air Convention & Expo
In-Person Event: May 16-20
Location: Santa Fe, NM
Basics Course: May 16
Kevin Macpherson Pre-Convention Workshop: May 16-17
Main Event: 17-20
March 17 is the last day to save $400 on a ticket.
Plein Air Magazine presents the 9th Annual Plein Air Convention & Expo, a gathering of plein air artists and over 60 top instructors teaching on multiple stages in multiple mediums. Daily painting at a group in iconic locations. Giant Expo Hall of plein air-specific art materials. Art Marketing Boot Camp. Attendance limited.
11th Annual Publisher’s Invitational Paint Out in the Adirondacks
Artist Retreat: June 11-18, 2022
Location: Paul Smith’s College Near Saranac Lake, NY
Join Eric Rhoads, publisher of Inside Art, PleinAir, and more, for a one-week artist retreat, painting in the beautiful Adirondack Mountains of Upstate New York. Paint with the group or alone, all meals and lodging provided. Meet new friends, paint multiple pieces daily. All meals together, plus group events, cocktail parties, singing and music, portrait painting, and more. A great way to get better fast or to learn the ropes of plein air painting. This is not a workshop or training event.
7th Annual Fall Color Week
Artist Retreat: October 6-13, 2022
Location: Acadia National Park, Maine
Join Eric Rhoads, publisher of Inside Art, PleinAir, and more, for a one-week artist retreat, painting in the beautiful fall color during peak color week at Acadia National Park in Maine. Paint with the group or alone, all meals and lodging provided. Meet new friends, paint multiple pieces daily. All meals together, plus group events, cocktail parties, lobster dinner, singing and music, portrait painting, and more. A great way to get better fast or to learn the ropes of plein air painting. This is not a workshop or training event.
Paint Russia
Painting Trip and Tour: September 15-29, 2022
Location: Russia
A rare opportunity to paint in the cities and countryside of Russia, along with sightseeing, museum visits (including a private entry into the Hermitage Museum), art studio visits, visits to the two great art academies, and painting with Russian masters. The trip starts in St. Petersburg, then to the small villages inland, then to Moscow, and ends with the village and exact paint spots painted by the great Russian masters like Repin, Serov, Levitan, and others. Hosted by Eric Rhoads. Limited to 50 people. Join the waiting list. This is a one-time trip; it will not be repeated.
Eric, As many artists can tell you, whenever you draw or start a new painting you are disrupting your comfort level — until that magic moment when you realize that “it’s coming together.” Same for in-studio or plein air work. Learned this about 60 years ago with Prof. N. Eric Oback at San Jose State University. It’s been fun ever since. Dale Laitinen had the same Prof. for watercolor.
Cheers, Jack Dykstra, Boise, ID jackdykstrafineart.com
Montana Watercolor Society (signature member)
Idaho Watercolor Society
This post was truly brilliant! I used to tell my art students that if they were a bit uncomfortable with the lesson, they were truly learning.
Embrace the scary new and leave the comfortable old solutions. Almost every person gained new measurement, spatial and color skills.
We rocked!
Your column really resonated with me this week, as it was an emotion-packed week of change for me. I retired after 38 years working in Information Technology. All but a year and a half was in the Healthcare industry. I am excited for this new chapter in my life especially since I will now have more time to make art. Thank you for your wise words this week!
I hope you are well and out doing one of your art gigs. I needed your thought today – I need disruption. In my art and in my daily routine. Hope you keep writing and are enjoying whatever you are doing. As long as it ice not illness.
Disruption and destruction! I call it “new normals of life’s journey.” While it is extremely hard, God ALLOWS disruptions to help grow us and place us on a new path! Thank you for your powerful message this morning!
Good morning, I do not have words to express how much your message, of this morning, means to me. Thank you! Thank you! You are a blessing!
Good Morning 🌞
I just wanted to let you know how much I appreciate your Sunday “coffee”, which I always read with my coffee.
There are such wonderful tidbits of truth, morsels of wisdom to take into the new week. Thank you.
Barbara
Sorry to say it bothers me a bit when you give this Billionaires credit for changing the world. Elon Musk didn’t create the electric car, he bought an electric car company. I have worked for and with people who had deep pockets and the smart ones were the ones that embraced change and listened to the idea people. Then they got all the credit for the product or idea that they were handed. After 45 years working in advertising, I kind of got used to the idea that if you were in the room it was your idea. Can’t tell you how many times an account executive took credit for work done by the creative team. So please don’t give the Billionaires credit for the ideas they get from the smart people working for them, they just happen to have the resources to make it happen.
I am reminded of something my son said years ago on the concept of not being able to “see” when we are too close. My son was a marketing director of a division of a large graphic arts company based in London. He expressed the idea that Sears Corporation lost out on the concept of marketing on the internet where Amazon and others saw the coming reality of marketing. Sears already had a wonderful “catalog” that everyone bought from and even looked forward to having (if you remember their Christmas Sears Catalog as I remember pouring through it) Everything was there for Sears to step into the future marketing …..but they could not see the concept. They had the produces, the photos, the consumer base, the delivery base but they did not have the vision……….and now most of them are gone.
I’m like Laurie – LOVE moving furniture around. In fact, I do it so often that Chet put all of our furniture on those furniture-moving coasters and he just leaves them on there. Because I will come along and start moving furniture, spontaneously. Poor guy never knows where he will be sitting next. Well, maybe not quite THAT bad…..
What is uncomfortable but good for me? Lots of things. Especially social interactions. But I know that if I stop talking, stop being myself, stop interacting, hold back, I’ll be done. So done. Hermit time. Thanks for this topic, today.
Good thoughts….
Hi Eric. I, again want to thank you for the time you put in for us. I can’t pay for your lessons and events but you still give us free educational videos which are useful to many of us. Thanks again. Your friend Bill
ERIC , please contact me ASAP
we need to discuss something very important
412-414-7450
WE just arrived in San Angelo, TX. House closed Jan. 4th. Our moving van came yesterday. I know you are in TX – but what part? Big changes for us. Applied to the Plein Air event here – hoping to get in. My first book was published August of 2021 ” Meander Mesilla.” The second will be surrounding plein air painting and events I have participated in. I attended PACE when it was in Santa Fe a few years back. 2019? Look forward to resetting my studio and the chaos to settle so that I can relax and paint!
Cheers!
This is such an excellent nudge for most of us, I’d say. The older you get, the more you don’t want disruption because you understand how ‘it is’ and how it works. It requires learning new things and lots of us older artists don’t want to do that. So thank you for the kick in the pants. Not sure how I will implement this, but I’m going to try because you wrote this! Thank you.
Good morning Eric, Your words this morning some directly to me- I am in the middle of packing up everything to move across the country for a new job. I was getting stuck and was overlooking and accepting things in my current place. I was doubting if it was the right move – praying and praying – I was about to cave in to the loud voices of comfort and fear saying to stay – but I realize the soft. Quiet whispers from the Lord can be drowned out by the chaos and noise and especially fear. Your heart felt words this morning shook me out of the chaos and onto my exciting journey ahead. Thank you ever so much for sharing your insight, experiences and wisdom. Thank you