I’m starting to build a map of the experience of a creative person who longs to create something new.

I’m thinking of it almost as an old school board game-style journey, like Candy Land, Chutes and Ladders, or Life — except with less randomness.

There are choices to be made along the way. Some of those choices keep you progressing linearly. Some open up shortcuts. And some are dead ends.

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Perhaps the important thing I learned in The Bootstrapper’s Workshop was to disconnect my identity and my calling from my work.

These circles overlap in the ol’ Venn diagram, but not completely.

There were many other helpful concepts that Seth Godin shared in the videos and prompts, but this was the overarching conclusion I was able to make that changed my life — and a key message I feel compelled to share with others.

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Now that I’ve completed a project that I’ve been busy with for a decade, I can see myself making the same mistake I counsel others against.

I keep thinking that I will get to the end of my to-do list and have time for my new project.

I’m supporting clients. I’m overseeing all of the important administrative details of my daily existence. I’m working through a somehow self-propagating list of tasks associated with my existing projects.

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Between tennis sets, my friend remarked upon the little boy of about six who was in the midst of a rigorous practice session with his father on the adjacent court.

“He’s really good!” she said. “But wow...his father is kind of harsh.”

“Yeah,” I said, thinking about the many years’ worth of parent-child dynamics I witnessed as an educator. “Sometimes that level of performance carries a cost.”

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The other day, I passed by a bus shelter on Monroe Drive in midtown Atlanta where a woman was determinedly sweeping the sidewalk with a broom.

She seemed to be an unhoused person, judging by the large amount of stuff stacked on the bench within the shelter. This was her home, her turf, and she was defending it from the onslaught of grime and debris from the road.

Even though I’m in a more privileged position in life, I can relate to this woman’s desire to do the tidying that she could. I understand her instinct to maintain life’s little routines in the face of chaos.

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